Addition by Saiyan Subtraction

As someone who doesn't care for Vegeta (or his fanbase) at all, I spend more time than I should thinking about how things could have gone in DragonBall Z if Krillin had ignored Goku's request at the end of the big fight on Earth, and run Vegeta through with Yajirobe's sword, as opposed to letting the guy leave the planet. Obviously it's an irrelevant thought exercise, unless I decide to write a fanfic about it some day, but it seemed worth exploring.

I mean, Vegeta seems to exist mostly to do stupid shit out of ego that makes all situations worse. Basically Batman during that stretch where, every time you turned around, someone stole his secret "kill the Justice League" plans or his secret "spy on all the other heroes" satellite. Like that time Vegeta decided to actively help Cell absorb Android 18 to achieve his "perfect" form, because Cell's current form just wasn't strong enough to be interesting. Then Perfect Cell beat Vegeta into the ground with contemptuous ease. Which, while satisfying to watch, doesn't change the fact he made things worse for everyone else by being a moron.

OK, so one of the arguments against him being killed I've seen before is the Earthlings - Bulma, Krillin, Gohan - wouldn't have survived on Namek if they didn't have Vegeta to eventually team up with. Yeah, I don't think that holds up.

Yes, the situation escalates the longer everyone is running around Namek trying to get Dragon Balls, but no small amount of that escalation is due to Vegeta. Vegeta shows up on Namek and starts laying waste to Frieza' strongest guys. His (for that point in the series) dramatic increases in power worry Frieza enough he calls in the Ginyu Force. Once they get there, even Vegeta is completely overwhelmed by just one of them. He saves Gohan and Krillin from Guldo, true, but again, he's the reason Guldo's there in the first place. Most of their battle with Frieza is Vegeta bragging about how this time for sure he's become a Super Saiyan, then Frieza upping his power yet again and Vegeta basically crapping himself at how outmatched he is.

(There's at least three occasions in that fight Vegeta gets cocky and each time, Frieza makes him eat his words almost immediately. Again, satisfying to watch, but it's dampened slightly because characters who aren't complete assholes are also going to suffer for it.)

Once they arrived, Gohan and Krillin tried to maintain low profiles. Keep their power levels as low as possible, stay off everyone's radar. That doesn't last terribly long. Frieza is vaguely aware of them - in the sense he knows someone else landed on the planet - even before Gohan jumps in and saves the last Namekian kid in a village Frieza and his guys were slaughtering.

But their powers are so relatively low they're barely a nuisance. Frieza could have killed both of them with zero effort when Krillin blindsided Dodoria. Just eye-beamed both of them through their backs, but he couldn't be bothered. Just threatened Dodoria for being made to look like a chump. Zarbon could have done it, too, and didn't. Nobody in Frieza's army really looks out for each other. Which comes from Frieza himself, since he never takes any steps to help his subordinates, so they don't help each other, either.

I had thought that one point in Vegeta's favor was him finding Dodoria unwittingly saves them, but no. Dodoria couldn't sense them (because one of the Namekians destroyed his scouter), fired one attack at the ocean after Krillin temporarily blinded him, and assumed he got them. Then he flew off, met Vegeta, and died. Worst case with no Vegeta, Dodoria flies back and reports he killed them, eventually is proven wrong. And then is probably killed by Frieza. But since all Frieza's scouters were destroyed, the only way they're going to know that's the case is by physically seeing Krillin or Gohan. Those two can sense power levels without technological help, so they can avoid Frieza' schmucks all day long.

Frieza was finding Dragon Balls by using scouters to find Namekians. Now that's out of the question, while the good guys have a handy dandy device that senses Dragon Balls they can use. Plus, they saved the kid, Dende, which earns them some good credit with the Elder of Namek. Gets him on their side. They get one ball from him, which as long as they have it, Frieza can't make any wishes.

(In reality, he can't make a wish anyway because he doesn't know he has to make the wish in Namekian. The last "fuck you" from Namek to him, since he doesn't have to be killing them to get these balls. He's strong enough to immobilize them, but chooses to let his men kill them, just because.)

The Elder also boosts Krillin's power, and later Gohan's (and eventually Dende's, and he's a healer). Not enough to fight Frieza, or even to challenge the Ginyu Force if they showed up. But working together, Krillin and Gohan could definitely take Dodoria, who's a complete moron, and probably Zarbon (especially if they could get him before he transformed). The odds of either of those two finding them is slim, because again, Krillin and Gohan can sense their location, but Zarbon and Dodoria can't do the same. When Zarbon did catch up to Krillin, he was really following Vegeta, who he spotted after Vegeta sensed Krillin and started following him. Again, Frieza won't have any way of knowing they got that strong, short of seeing them fight. Because that's not their plan.

Their plan is to get at least one ball, then wait for Goku to show up and they'll make their play to swipe the others, wish their friends back to life. Goku's not near strong enough to fight Frieza, which is admittedly bad since he'll certainly want to fight Frieza. But there's the possibility that, if they head for Frieza's ship where has his all the ones he collected, the three of them can keep Frieza distracted long enough for Dende to make the wishes.

There's always the possibility that even if Dodoria and Zarbon don't get killed, Frieza gets impatient and calls the Ginyu Force anyway. But they didn't seem to arrive that long before Goku as it was, and if things aren't going bad as quickly, because Vegeta's not causing problems, they might be called late enough to not get there until after Goku. Granted, then you have to hope Goku doesn't fuck around and just plants Ginyu so he can't body swap, but if Goku knows they have to go through these guys to even have a shot at getting the chance to swipe Frieza's Dragon Balls, he might just do that. Just lay waste to those five dumbasses and get on with his day.

Because that's really the main positive thing Vegeta accomplishes on Namek. When Ginyu swipes Goku's body, he can't use it properly, and Vegeta beats the hell out of it. Which pushes Ginyu to try and steal Vegeta's body, giving Goku the chance to jump in the way and get his body back. Then Goku gets to heal up from that, and gets the resulting power boost from that weird Saiyan "whatever doesn't kill me, makes me stronger" thing. But if you have Dende around during the Frieza fight, there's a chance he can heal Goku up from an ass-kicking there to give you basically the same result. Dende did that for Krillin, Gohan, Piccolo, and Vegeta during the actual, in-canon fight, so it's not out of the realm of possibility.