Fair enough, but Bulma and Gero are in a league all their own.
I still think he'd need some alien tech to create something as advanced as the numbered Androids.
One Strip! One Strip!I think he'd also need a stronger base to work with than a relatively harmless human teenager that even Raditz could have vaporized by flexing his muscles too hard.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Another reason to fix things really.
Hell, I think we can agree that Toriyama asspulled the explanation about 16 because it still doesn't make much sense.
One Strip! One Strip!Then again, 16 can punch really hard and fire lasers when he takes his hands off, but aside from that he doesn't really use ki attacks or non-ki cyber energy things. 19 and 20 do, but they absorbed stuff.
...19 and 20 would make more sense if they had the capacity to output more energy than 17 and 18 do, at the cost of having a finite amount they need to acquire from other sources.
I mean, Cell got really strong from absorbing regular humans. He went from weaker than Kamiccolo to stronger than Kamiccolo.
Yeah, that was another consequence of the lack of planning and the frequent revisions. In the Android Saga, Toriyama had to justify a lot of plot developments after the fact rather than building up to them.
The only real reason why Gero couldn't have just put a handful of Android 16s into service right at the start and never made 17-20 at all is because Androids 16, 17, and 18 didn't exist at the time 19 and 20 were introduced.
It was also never really explained a) why Gero removed his brain and put it into a robot body, b) how Gero removed his brain and put it into a robot body, or c) why Gero would use the weakest Android of the bunch to host his brain, with the exception of maybe 19, in addition to all the other things about Gero that don't make a lick of sense.
edited 7th May '15 9:48:19 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
It did lead to my favorite TFS joke where 17 and 18 addresses the Fridge Logic of it all.
edited 7th May '15 9:51:04 AM by Lionheart0
Yes, Trunks did say that. The original plan was that 19 and 20 were the androids that killed Gero.
20 was just Android 20 when he showed up. He only became Dr. Gero after Bulma arrived and was like, "Hey, that's Dr. Gero!"
By that point, Android 19 had already been destroyed, and Toriyama had set in motion the idea for 20 to flee the field and activate 17 and 18, the "real" killer androids that Trunks was worried about.
edited 7th May '15 10:03:26 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I thought 20 had a bunch of lines that made it seem like things were really personal, and he acted like he was in charge and made 19 or whatever.
20's definitely the one that does most of the talking. And expositioning.
Maybe I've mixed it up with the abridged version because there comes a point where the abridged version got so good and the actual series is still so exactly the way it was and so very 80s that I can't go back.
I'd say sometime during Abridged Season 2. I'm not sure when exactly though.
edited 7th May '15 10:13:44 AM by unnoun
I don't think Gero could have made a time machine.
The god of gods of gods in charge of time didn't think it could be done beforehand. Bulma is a genius prodigy that fixed alien spaceships when she was three years old.
...Side-note, could an energy-absorption android have absorbed a Spirit Bomb?
...Also, why the hell did Gero make his new completely cybernetic body look like an old man?
edited 7th May '15 10:20:13 AM by unnoun
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I also said that it wasn't possible but you make a good point.
Again though. Gero, Bulma, and her dad are exceptions. Geniuses even by Earth standards (the aforementioned Time Machine). It's important to note that Bulma is 20 years away from that Time Machine (and might not ever pull it off in the main timeline).
On a different note, do Old Kai and Kibito Kai know the Supreme Kai of Time is out there? I mean, when he was still East Supreme Kai, the former assumed he was the last (though I guess Kibito is the same race, but not a Supreme Kai), and yet she was chilling in her time hovel the whole time, not doing shit.
One Strip! One Strip!As far as Android 20 really being Dr. Gero I remember the anime at least having Piccolo saying something about how 20 sounds like the doctor by how personally he's taking things only for 20 to shut it down immediately. That may only be the anime, though.
Either way, I'm not really sure why Gero would hide his identity from them, you would think he would want Goku to know who is responsible for his death.
Leafing through the manga, I was wrong. The first indication that Android 20 is Dr. Gero is when Piccolo calls him out for talking as though he, himself, were Gero while he's raving about Gero's surveillance, once they've arrived at the new battlefield.
Toriyama made the change in response to his friend's opinion of 19 and 20 being disappointing villains, so that probably happened while they were still in the city.
Gero pretending to be an Android was probably just an excuse for why he'd been talking in such a cold and mechanical fashion and identified himself as Android 20 previously.
edited 7th May '15 10:28:42 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

Yeah. Cell is fine post-Frieza. It's the numbered Androids that are problematic. To make the Androids work post-Frieza, there are two things in particular I think would need to be done:
The fundamental problem is this equation:
Worthless human body with a single-digit battle power + primitive Earthling technology > The most powerful being in the entire universe + Super-advanced technology from interstellar species.
When aliens have kicked our ass on both playing fields, battle power and technology, it's hard to buy the idea that an average human can be made more powerful than the strongest mortal lifeform that has ever existed through the application of relatively primitive hardware.
edited 7th May '15 9:03:27 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.