Thread by @Herms98

Late Age 762 to early 763: rumors of Freeza’s death are greatly exaggerated. King Cold comes out of retirement to fetch his son from the remains of Namek and give him a cyborg upgrade. Hopefully they got charged a better rate than Tao. #HistoryofEver

Goku’s likewise not nearly so dead as supposed. While Kaio’s not looking, he escapes Namek in a Ginyu Force ship, which takes him to the group’s last target: Yardrat, a world outside Galactic Patrol jurisdiction but overseen by Elder Pybara, the master of Spirit Control.

Goku tells the Yardratians about his role in the Ginyu Force’s defeat (and even the part Vegeta played), thus earning their eternal gratitude. They give him some of their native garb to replace his beat-up clothes, and he begins learning Spirit Control from Pybara.

First, Goku spends 150 days balancing on a spike to learn how to keep his mind and body in harmony. During his time on Yardrat, Goku also masters the ability to turn Super Saiyan at will (did the mind/body balancing help with that too?)

130 days after Namek’s destruction, Goku (probably still balancing atop that big spike) is contacted by Porunga, who wants to bring him back to Earth to fulfill Bulma and co’s wish. He politely refuses, saying he will eventually return on his own.

Next, Goku moves on to learning the most basic of all Spirit Control applications: a form of teleportation that works by locking on to the ki of someone familiar. This is different from Kibito’s prized Kai-Kai teleportation, which goes to specific places, not people.

As part of his training, Goku also fights Pybara’s bigger, uglier, meaner brother: Soba. Or so I’m told.

Sadly, Goku never has time to learn more complex Spirit Control techniques (like healing others, making yourself big, splitting into multiple copies, and some boondoggle called “Forced Spirit Fission”) because he gets wind that Freeza is heading for Earth. But more on that later.

In the original manga we don’t see any Yardratians, just Goku’s borrowed clothes. The DBZ anime flashback gave them a design, while Toriyama later provided another for DB Online. Toyotaro dutifully used both for the DBS manga, explaining that there are “many types” of Yardratians

The U2 variant resembles the DBZ design but more smoothed down. Naturally, despite these physical variations, all Yardratians apparently wear roughly the same outfit, all the time.

On an unrelated note, around March of 763 is when Goku would’ve been finally ready to leave the hospital following his battle with Vegeta, if Yajirobe hadn’t come by with senzu. The doctor said it would take four months, and that he might never fully heal.

Tomorrow: downtime!