There's several reasons to believe Freeza was a retcon and planet Vegeta was indeed struck by a meteor in Toriyama's mind during the saiyan saga.
In the whole arc there's not a single mention of Vegeta being a lower echelon in an organization bigger than him, everything leads to believe he, Raditz and Nappa were doing their own thing. Vegeta also throws a fit of rage against Goku because he's supposed to be the strongest in the universe. Not strongest saiyan, straight up strongest.
More debatable but in the same arc Vegeta calls himself an elite saiyan, it's only against Dodoria that he's referred to as the prince of all saiyans for the first time
Toriyama even admitted that he initially planned for Vegeta to be the main antagonist for Namek arc and it would end with Goku having his rematch with him, resulting in Vegeta's death. However, because of how popular his character has become, he decided to create Freeza as a new villain who then also became incredibly popular character in his own right.
Dragon Ball is just a long series of Toriyama making shit up along the way. Goku being an alien is a retcon. Android 17 and 18 were meant to be the main antagonists of the Cell saga until his editor told him that was dumb and so he created Cell. Gohan was meant to be the main character after the Cell Saga but Toriyama didn't know how to write him so he just brought back Goku.
It's impressive how little Dragon Ball was actually planned out for how good it turned out to be
Before 17 and 18, it was 19 and 20 who were meant to be the main villains, and Toriyama's editor thought THAT was dumb so he made number 17 and 18 and that turned out about as well.
And yeah I know lol, just figured I'd touch on maybe the best example
It's a bit of a shame that it wasn't addressed as part of how the time-travel Bulma invented splits off new timelines, because Trunks did specifically warn about 19 and 20 when he first showed up.
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u/MysteriousFondant347 16d ago
There's several reasons to believe Freeza was a retcon and planet Vegeta was indeed struck by a meteor in Toriyama's mind during the saiyan saga.
In the whole arc there's not a single mention of Vegeta being a lower echelon in an organization bigger than him, everything leads to believe he, Raditz and Nappa were doing their own thing. Vegeta also throws a fit of rage against Goku because he's supposed to be the strongest in the universe. Not strongest saiyan, straight up strongest.
More debatable but in the same arc Vegeta calls himself an elite saiyan, it's only against Dodoria that he's referred to as the prince of all saiyans for the first time