A Curtain Wall

I've not made any particular secret of my dislike for Vegeta. As entertaining as it sometimes is to watch him run his fat yap and then get his ass kicked, the guy is perpetually making things worse by being an idiot, yet has a legion of devoted fans who insist Vegeta's fuck-ups are every other character's fault.

So I think a fair amount about Vegeta's first trip to Earth, when he was ultimately beaten to a pulp and trying to crawl to his spaceship. Krillin had Yajirobe's sword and was ready to run Vegeta through with it, and then. . .he let Goku talk him out of it. Viewed positively, he put his faith in his best friend to handle things if this turned out to be a bad decision. Negatively, he just hot potatoed responsibility to someone else.

(It's more likely Krillin is just not comfortable with killing in cold blood. He wouldn't use the shutdown remote on Android 18 to give himself the chance to destroy her, either. Although she was experimented on against her will by Dr. Gero and hadn't actually killed anyone. As opposed to Vegeta, who committed genocide for Frieza, and was fully ready to kill Gohan - a five-year-old - when he came to Earth, with no compunctions whatsoever.)

I was thinking of an AU where Krillin decides it's too risky, that it wasn't just Goku's call, because all their other friends fought to protect the Earth (and several died). And it isn't as though Goku's unbeatable. He already died once, and he didn't actually win his fight against Vegeta, it was a team effort. So, what if Krillin just went ahead and killed Vegeta?

Someone responded that without Vegeta, everyone else would die during the Cell or Majin Buu sagas, which doesn't seem right at all.

Remove Vegeta from the Buu Saga, it never even gets off the ground. The whole reason things go sideways (besides Supreme Kai being awful at his job) is Vegeta decides to work for Babidi to get a power boost, because he can't wait any longer to fight Goku. Take him out of the equation, Goku and Gohan can handle all Babidi's guys by themselves. Dabura's the only mildly dangerous one, and he couldn't finish a very rusty Gohan. Goku would dust his ass in three minutes.

Cell Saga? OK, no Vegeta means no half-Saiyan kid with Bulma. So what? Bulma built the time machine, she can just use it herself. Goku is apparently the one who originally beat Frieza when he came to Earth, so that's handled. Bulma passes on the warning and the medicine to treat the heart disease that kills Goku. Maybe does a better job describing the androids, or maybe not.

If the illness puts Goku out of commission for a while, Piccolo seemed able to handle Dr. Gero, so between him and the others, they can at least destroy Android 19 and keep Goku from dying. I don't know if everybody gets their asses kicked by 17 & 18 without Vegeta around to instigate, but it's possible if Android 16 vocally insists he must kill Goku. Don't see any reason they'd be any more direct in getting it done than they were in the timeline with Vegeta, though. So Goku has time to recover, he and Gohan train in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, and then it's really just a matter of how thin you want to cut the margins.

Goku went to save Piccolo and Tien from Halfway-Perfect Cell while Vegeta and Trunks were in the room. But those two used the entire year (24 hours in the outside world), while Goku and Gohan only used 11 months (22 hours) and emerged even stronger.

Best outcome, they emerge early enough Goku can still save Piccolo and Tien, then kill Halfway-Perfect Cell with no trouble. Worse outcome, Goku's too late to save either of them, but still kills Cell before he finds 18. Worst outcome, Goku gets there before Cell even absorbs 17, beats him easily, but 16's programming, recognizing he can't win outright, forces him to kamikaze. He blows up himself, Goku, 17, 18, Piccolo, and maybe Tien if he's gotten close enough. Whichever outcome, Cell's not going to be able to trick Goku into sparing him by promising a better fight if Goku just lets him find and absorb however many artificial humans he needs.

(Feigning remorse and promising to be better might work, but I think Cell's got too much Frieza and Vegeta for that. They both throw tantrums when they find themselves losing, rather than beg. When Cell couldn't beat Gohan, he tried to blow up the whole world. Same as Vegeta, same as Frieza on Namek.)

The one place where Vegeta might actually be useful is the Namek/Frieza Saga. Eventually. He kills a lot of Frieza's guys (but also a village of innocent Namekians), prompting Frieza to activate the Ginyu Force. Which leads to the whole thing with Goku getting his body swiped by Ginyu and beat to hell. The healing from that gave him enough of a boost to at least hold up against Frieza for a while, for the Spirit Bomb/Super Saiyan stretch.

Minus him, the Namekians still wreck all Frieza's scouters, which lets Krillin, Gohan and Bulma stay hidden. Krillin and Gohan still rescue Dende and escape Dodoria (who basically gave up looking for them and flew off, then was killed by Vegeta), get a Dragon Ball from Guru, get their potential unlocked. All without a lot of fighting.

Does Frieza get annoyed enough to call in the Ginyu Force if it's simply a matter of there being pests he can't locate? Does Goku arrive first, try to distract Frieza so his friends can swipe the other Dragon Balls and make their wishes? Or does everyone get wiped out because Frieza decides to stop fucking around? In canon, Vegeta's also a moderately useful punching bag to keep Frieza occupied, so the odds are steeper if he's unavailable and Goku's not as strong. Even there, Vegeta or one of the others might have been able to kill Frieza sooner, if Vegeta hadn't goaded him to really transform, which put Frieza beyond any of their strength levels.

So at best, Vegeta sometimes cleans up messes he made. Sort of.