The Scouters

˚✧ Name ✧༚
☆ Scouter

˚✧ Type ✧༚
☆ Tool

˚✧ Description ✧༚
☆

A Scouter is a wearable, multi-purpose computer that Frieza's army uses. Scouters are used to measure power levels, communicate with others on the same server, tell time, set timers, etc. In the current timeline however, scouter technology has advanced enough to even keep records those they scan, allowing scouters connected to the same server to bring up, up to date data on opponents. Every time the same person is scanned, as long as something has changed with them, their file is updated, power levels being the exception of course. Once scanned, the highest power level the scanned individual has shown will always be read as their max power level, i.e. one's power level will only be updated if he or she exerts a higher power level than before.

Scouters were invented by the Tuffles, the original inhabitants of Planet Plant (later named Planet Vegeta once the Saiyans took over in Universe 7) who were exterminated in Age 730 by the Saiyans. From the Saiyans, scouters were introduced to the Frieza Force. Originally, it was a device for the purpose of guarding against enemies and beasts, but Gichamu, a highly skilled engineer in Frieza's army, laid eyes on it and made modifications for concrete battle power numbers and telecommunications abilities, and soldiers began making use of it to carry out offensives. During the series, almost all of the Galactic Frieza Army soldiers can be seen wearing one. Another source states that scouters, along with the Battle Armor, and the Frieza Force Spaceships, were invented by Kikono.


A scouter appears as a semi-transparent colored monocle that usually covers the left eye. Dual-eye types exist as well, as Tagoma wears a blue variant. The first scouter to be seen is the one Raditz wears in the first episode of Dragon Ball Z upon his arrival on Earth. The power level is given as a number without any units of measurement (5 for the farmer, 334 for Goku before he took his heavy clothes off, etc.). It is shown that the early models explode if one increases his or her power level by an enormous amount at a rapid pace, albeit without leaving any injuries to the wearer; though the range of scouters throughout the series has varied. The most frequently seen color is green, though alternate colors of red and blue, and several other variants also exist. The different screen colors can be chosen to fit the peculiarities of different aliens' eyes, or to suit one's tastes. All the scouters are the same in terms of features but, since a variety of different aliens wear them, there are a bunch of different types of attachment parts depending on the position of the ear. Soldiers in Frieza's army can have one made in order to fit their ear.

In the series, a scouter's primary purpose is to calculate the individual power level or ki concentration of biological characters by converting the readings into numbers. It is never explained what units of measure are used to read ki levels; Akira Toriyama simply stated in an interview that it could not be done by conventional means.


Scouters also serve the purpose of gathering information, and for interstellar communication, as seen when Raditz sent Piccolo's description of the Dragon Balls to Nappa and Vegeta, as well as Frieza learning of the existence of the Namekian Dragon Balls from eavesdropping on Vegeta's conversation with Nappa (as well as Vegeta in turn learning how to get the Namekian Dragon Balls from the Namekian Villages via eavesdropping on Frieza explaining how he himself did so). Vegeta also used his scouter to keep track of the time after he said he and Nappa would give the Dragon Team three hours for Goku to arrive. Scouters can also tell the location of someone, as demonstrated when members of the Frieza Force use scouters to hunt down enemies.

Some members of Frieza's army, that are too weak to use ki blasts, wear an Arm Cannon that has a wire that connects to their scouter. It is unclear what role the scouter plays in using the Arm Cannon (some soldiers who lack scouters instead have the wire connected to a helmet on their head). One explanation is that the scouter is used for aiming, though this is not expressly stated.


Though it is possible to sense others' ki without advanced machinery, as the Z Fighters once did, scouters provide the ability to read power levels to less-trained fighters. Scouters do have some disadvantages, however. Their main drawback is that a trained person is capable of consciously lowering their ki, and can therefore fool scouter users into thinking they have a lower power level than their real level. Vegeta speculated that that is how Raditz was killed, and this later proves a key component in the downfalls of several of Frieza's notable soldiers.


Another limitation of Scouters is that they are unable to detect Godly ki presumably due to its divine nature or simply because Scouters are only designed to detect normal ki and no Scouter models capable of detecting it exist (presumably because the existence of Godly ki is not well known or as well understood as normal ki).

˚✧ Effects ✧༚
☆ Reads power levels with an exact number.
☆ Acts as a communicator.
☆ Tells time, can set timers, etc.
☆ Can pull files from the server it is connected to (i.e. Frieza Force, etc.) to allow all those with access to gain an advantage in battle by learning about their target's abilities without witnessing them the hard way.