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The Dragon Balls (ドラゴンボール, Doragon Bōru) are the namesake artifact of the Dragon Ball series. They are orange, crystalline spheres with the ability to call forth the Eternal Dragon who can grant wishes to anyone who gathers all seven of them.
Overview[]
In the Dragon Ball Z franchise the Dragon Balls were created by Namekians and they had the power to grant any wish. There are three different sets of Dragon Balls in total. There are the Earth Dragon Balls, Namek Dragon Balls, and Black-Star Dragon Balls. Each set of Dragon Balls can grant wishes, but their power and appearance differ slightly from the other balls. If the creator of a set of Dragon Balls dies, the Dragon Balls will turn to stone and become useless unless they are restored be another Namekian, or the creator is brought back to life.
Description[]
The Dragon Balls come in sets of seven with each ball displaying the number of stars that signifies its respective number in the set. It was said by Colonel Silver that the Dragon Balls are unbreakable when he dropped a fake Dragon Ball. Vegeta likely did not know this when he ordered Krillin to destroy one before the Ginyu Force took them on Namek. In the Fusion Saga, while Super Saiyan 3 Gotenks is fighting Super Buu, Piccolo says "If you break even one of the balls they can never be used again", which may mean that the Dragon Balls are not completely indestructible or that they are destructible when turned to stone (as they were turned to stone at the time).
While the Dragon Balls take a year to return to normal, there have been two cases where they were used more than once in a year. The first example of this was when Kami revived Shenron and told Goku it would normally take a year since King Piccolo made a wish to restore his youth just days earlier but he decided to make an exception for Goku and his friends this once. The second and currently final time this happened was when Piccolo, and subsequently Kami, died during the battle with Nappa, and was later revived, effectively restarting the Dragon Balls, allowing them to be used to revive all those killed by Frieza and his men on Namek, with the first wish being to revive Goku happened around a month earlier. The exception to this is when the summoner chooses to save their wishes, at which point the Dragon Balls become inert for four months.
Each set Dragon Balls are difficult to find because they are scattered all over their respective planet, all across their respective universe/galaxy (depending on the dub for Dragon Ball GT) in the case of the Black-Star Dragon Balls, across numerous universes in the case of the Super Dragon Balls or even throughout time and space in the case of the Dark Dragon Balls and are deactivated for a year after every wish (though this depends on their origins, as a Namekian year is nearly one-third [130 days] of a year on Earth [365 days], thus the Namekian Dragon Balls can be used more frequently than Earth's), disguising themselves as stones. To create an opportunity to summon an Eternal Dragon, one must travel all over the globe to retrieve them. As technology eventually progressed, this became somewhat easier, and became relatively simple with Bulma's invention of the Dragon Radar. Though the Dragon Balls are "programmed" to scatter across a specific location(s) after having been used, it is shown at least one can be stopped from scattering alongside the others, as Goku jumped into the air and grabs the Four-Star ball before it can fly away at the end of the Fortuneteller Baba Saga.
Despite the miraculous feats an Eternal Dragon can perform, their capacities for wish-granting is not without limits. Said limits on the Dragon's powers are set by the relative capabilities of the Dragon Ball set's creator, unable to physically exceed the might of the said creator (ex: they cannot kill someone the creator is not able to kill). However, if the wisher is willing to, the Eternal Dragon can briefly bypass their normal wish-granting limitations in proportion to how much life energy the wisher is willing to give up. Another big problem for any set of Dragon Balls is that their creator must be alive for them to function, otherwise they will be stones for eternity. The Dragon Balls can be rendered inactive if the model of the dragon breaks; likewise, if the dragon is destroyed, the model breaks.