A sorry state, that's the condition of the Sayian race in the wake of Freeza's reign. While their absolute destruction was avoided, Freeza's wrath was still devastating. Over half of the population wiped out, the brunt of them taken in one fell swoop, but the genocide continued for years thereafter.
Freeza's first mandate ensured that Sayian children born above a certain power level met a quick and decisive end. For those warriors who's loyalty came into question their fate was the same. With brutal efficiency Freeza made very sure that there would never, ever, be a Sayian that could rival, his or his kin's power and threaten their reign.
With a diminished population, and Freeza's faltering favor toward the Sayian's, resources became increasingly scarce. It became necessary to form alliances with the very planets and peoples the Sayians had conquered in Freeza's name. Sayians weren't terribly adept at making and maintaining alliances under the best circumstances, and these were certainly not ideal. Still, survival is a powerful motivator. And if Saiyans were anything at all, they were survivors.
…
Three-hundred years after the start of their Genocide at the hands of the Freeza headed Planet Trade Organization, Sayian society has evolved. Most of their trade still revolved around their brute, that at least didn't change. However, how they used it had. For the first time in their known history they had an active policing force on-world and off.
On hubs and ports throughout the galaxy, Sayians stood guard. For those who preferred a more nomadic lifestyle, there was always guarding to do in trade, and transportation too, although, more often then not the pirates you'd be facing had at least a couple Sayians amongst the crew.
The Sayians were maybe the only ones truly, albeit quietly, dedicated to resistance, but then theirs was still the most heavily regulated population. Sayian children's power levels were still calculated, and kept on file, those that were deemed a threat were taken and subjected to experimentation.
The removal of their tails has become routine for criminal Sayians and ones that show disobedience, Children were included. You have to earn you right to keep your tail. It is common to have it removed for it can be a weakness, Well thats what Heiloza propaganda tells people. The truth of the matter is that it's the only thing that makes them a real threat to Heiloza's rule. The only time the great ape forms are allow if ordered by high ranking officers. Most other species are often granted Reserve status but it was far less common for Sayians. Almost every Sayian was in active service for the average of 10 years, and more often then not stationed on the frontlines of PTO's expansion.
Sayians don't tend to spend a lot of time in their head, life is lived in battle, and preparation for battle. Beyond that there is very little else to think about. But after a while, with experience, some start thinking. With a pounding heart and ringing ears. With the sweat evaporating on your skin from the heat of your ki. With the taste of blood in your mouth and bolts of pain setting off alarms in your brains that you'll always ignore. With teeth grit, you are forced to acknowledge the heaviness in your chest when you realize there is no honor in this. There is no true glory.
Most the fights they fight are so tragically one-sided, you can hardly call it a fight at all. It's slaughter, but maybe more pressingly for the Sayians commanded to do it, it's boring. There is no challenge there. You cannot be proud of such a victory. What's more, every battle fought in the name of another is farce. If your victories can't ever be truly your own, then why fight?
Your search for more suitable combatants have turned your interest inward. Your allies into your enemies. It's the only fun a guy can have sometimes, because you're not allowed to venture too far in search for your own. Your destinations are set, and while you may explore, the parameters are strict. Variance from them resulted in punishment.
There were a lot of ways to earn a punishment, military life was strict. It demanded that, in some part, every day, the Sayian's restrain themselves, denying their nature, and obey.
And punishment were tailor made for Sayians. Lesser offenses resulted in being taken off the front line and put on a menial degrading task of your commanding officers choosing. Greater offenses resulted in isolation or at its worse, sensory deprivation. After all, you didn't want to beat a Sayian up, they kind of like it, and they just get stronger for it. But sensory deprivation has been mightily effective.
It was worse then death. Because at least in death the nothing eventually ends in…something. But in there, it's just nothing. And it goes on forever and ever. Your muscles ache, your heart races, and while a powerful Sayian could blow himself out…Doing so would only earn you a longer sentence.
All you have in there is yourself, and your thoughts, eventually consciousness and wakefulness blur into one and the same. Dreams or visions? Voices in or without? Your sanity was on the line at that point, and an insane Sayian was a liability. A liability Heiloza is 'obligated to put down'.
With aggressions mounting, fights are getting bloodier. Resentments linger longer. Blood pressures through the roof. Muscles itching, twitching, begging for violent retaliation. Lips drawn back, sneers turn to snarls. Every part of you recoils, writhes, longs for freedom, because they know, deep down, they're all his slaves. No matter how you look at it, no matter how hard you try shut it out, you know.
You have to wonder about the Sayian Elite when they came back from ceremony, acting differently. You had to wonder about the children who'd been made into lab rats. You had to worry about the alarming number of deaths, and the diminutive number of births that happen under the role of Frieze. You had to wonder, would it have been better off if they'd all just been wiped out? How can their be honor in the last wheezing breath of a species who lived a life in the service of it's destroyers.
Their planet wasn't even their own, now. It now hosted a number of interplanetary immigrants. Which turned out to not be so bad with their with genetic diversity a looming concern with low birth rates in the wake of the genocide. But while some came to support the notion of mixed-species after the controversial discovery that there were a number of races they were genetically compatible with, to others the suggestion was still violently abhorrent.
Less then a generation ago mixed breeds were still commonly reared off-world, in dishonor and disgrace. It's more widely accepted now, but still not wholly so. To many, it is the living embodiment representing their ultimate failure as a species and their destiny to, at long last, disappear from existence. Bred into oblivion. So perhaps, such feelings are understandable toward the harbingers of their ultimate destruction…
Now the only freedom to be found is found in the fragments of the failed rebellions. Outcasts and refugees, criminals and miscreants resisting The Planet Trade Organization's, and Hieloza's control, populating the emptiness between systems. Some took refuge on the out skirting, and derelict planets left after its resources had been exploited. Most, however, weren't prepared to risk settlement and preferred their space faring vessels.
What were pirates to PTO space, were regarded very differently in empty-space, there, they were heroes. They had little choice in how they obtained the things necessary for their survival after PTO black listed them from every trade port, and not only were they all criminals in the eyes of local police, but the military that it owned, and all those militaries allied with it on all the worlds throughout the PTO controlled galaxy. The pirates were their lifeline.
And while they may be inclined to turn a blind eye toward the Outskirters, the policing force who failed to deliver prompt and brutal justice to the enemies of PTO and were found out, risked Hieloza's swift and unforgiving wrath. The last time his wrath had been unleashed it had been upon one of the planets on PTO spaces boarder. It had been permitting Outskirters into their trade port, as well as offering other forms of aid. The act was deemed treason, Heiloza himself came to deliver punishment.
A fourth of the population was executed, most of which were members of the ruling class there. Now, where the throne once sat, a military post stands as a reminder. Enrollment in Heiloza's reserve forces is, in all but a few special circumstances, barred to the people from that world. Active military enrollment was mandatory. In that way the death toll continues to rise, as Heiloza thrusts these people into the front lines of The Planetary Trade Commission's expansion.
And those Outskirters recovered, were, most often killed on the spot. Without trial, without tribulation. Heiloza's word was law. If it was not death, then, very shortly you'd be wishing it had been. It was important that you be made an example of. And despite Heiloza's distance, he hadn't diverged far from his families tendency and talent for sadism.
But it wasn't all bad. The motivation to resist Heiloza just wasn't that strong. The Heiloza headed Planetary Trade Organization was a little less demanding of it's citizens than Freeza was. While they were forced to comply under threat of destruction or absolute take-over, so long as the profits continued to come in, and order was maintained, and they were there to do Heiloza's bidding, you could live a comfortable life under his rule, for the most part.
Taxes were determined by profit, usefulness, and loyalty, but at their highest, survival was still possible. He didn't worry about how they ran their private government, so long as it was his soldiers that made up the police force on each PTO ruled planet, loyalty was absolute, and the children of all PTO ruled planets were enrolled in PTO's academy. And while it did teach a skewed version of events, and painted PTO as something akin to heroes, and stressed the necessity for obedience, mostly it offered an education, and training so that every citizen could, as an adult, contribute to society through a skill or trade, or be prepared for military service. Once it was established where you fit the best, you received more formal training for what would be your destiny. Coming of age, meant going to work for the Organization. But hey, there were worst fates…right?
*PTO=Planet trade organization
Thank Echidna for this peace of work, I only did slight editing of one part of the prelude.