I like to do the timelines in sets, because numbering them is always misleading one way or another:
- Timeline A-1: Cell's timeline. Trunks is dead. Probably got wiped out by Buu.
- Timeline A-2: Future Trunks' timeline. Cell is dead, but as it's Trunks bad stuff happened anyway.
- Timeline B-1: The timeline the Future Trunks from A-1 went to, where he became strong enough to defeat the Androids but never faced Cell. We never see it.
- Timeline B-2: The "main" timeline. Cell arrives, then Trunks (even though Trunks left "first" - isn't time travel fun?), then shenanigans happen.
Super... kind of weirds things out a bit, especially since the last episode establishes that Divine Time Travel does, in fact, create alternate timelines after all (after the same characters explicitly tell us it didn't, but whatever), which is where Time Rings come from.
'd. A flowchart works too.
edited 23rd Nov '16 6:44:37 PM by KnownUnknown
Presumably he was either wiped out by Trunks and Krillin like normal or he grew up only to find both 17 and 18 gone and get curb-stomped by Goku.
edited 23rd Nov '16 7:17:29 PM by LordVatek
This song needs more love.Not inverted, his under clothing should've been green...
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.![]()
Goku Black is Future Gohan confirmed!
Going off by memory, I think this is how it goes:
- Timeline 1: Cell's Timeline (Original Future Trunks is dead)
- Timeline 2: Future Trunks' Timeline (Timeline is dead)
- Timeline 3: Unseen Timeline (Androids are defeated, no Cell)
- Timeline 4: Old Main Timeline (Freiza destroyed Earth)
- Timeline 5: Black's Timeline (Goku and his family are dead)
- Timeline 6: New Main Timeline (Where we currently are)
- Timeline 7: New Future Trunks' Timeline (2 Trunks' and 2 Mai's)
Is that correct?
edited 23rd Nov '16 10:34:21 PM by Rinsankajugin
Not quite. Whis' do-over doesn't create new timelines, only Trunks'/Bulma's brand of time travel does. As proof, there are 6 time rings, representing 6 timelines, all of them created by Bulma's time machine (aside from Cell's timeline, the only unchanged one).
So, the order of events goes that, prior to Super, there were 4 timelines. At some point we didn't see, Zamasu met Goku (exactly how that happened is unknown), enacts his body-switching plan, then goes to Trunks' timeline (the one you called "Timeline 2"), causing Trunks to travel to Super. This voyage by Trunks created the 5th timeline, a.k.a. the one where Beerus kills Zamasu (the one we currently see).
Then, at the end of the arc, Whis proposes using the time machine again to travel to an earlier instance of "Timeline 2", and use the Mafuba properly this time. This creates the 6th timeline, where there are two Trunkses and two Mais.
So yeah, even if Gods can travel between timelines, they can't really create new ones.
edited 24th Nov '16 12:15:42 AM by JonnasN
So? King is just a word that means ruler, like lord, president, chief, master, supreme commander. It doesn't necessarily have monarchic connotations, especially in the wacky, subversive world of Dragon Ball.
The first definition, according to Merriam-Webster:
King: a male monarch of a major territorial unit; especially : one whose position is hereditary and who rules for life
edited 24th Nov '16 2:49:11 AM by IAmNotCreativeEnough
himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimariSo I really fell behind on this thread with being so busy at work, but on the timelines: Not getting into Super, I want to point out that the commonly accepted four timelines aren't necessarily backed up by the official ones.
First of all, we know of three definite timelines from the manga: the present, Future Trunks', and Cell's. There is no mention of a fourth timeline in the manga, that comes from the guidebooks - specifically, Daizenshuu 7, which is also the source for Trunks using the shut down remote to defeat 17 and 18. It also specifies that he got the blueprints from the past AND that he was absent for the Cell Games of that timeline. The timeline not mentioned in the manga is referred to as 'History 4' as the Daizenshuu labels the timelines by when they were introduced in the manga (1 for present, 2 for Trunks' future, 3 for Cell's).
The Daizenshuu states that there are four timelines, but implies there are five Cells, which complicates things further. However, Daizenshuu 7 is the only one to use this set up - the later released Dragon Ball Forever cut out History 4 entirely and made no reference to the remote. Then the Chozenshuu, which were mostly reprints of the Daizenshuu's information, continued with the three timeline explanation with a new graphic for it.
So for whatever reason, the official guidebooks moved away from the History 4/shutdown remote explanations that they had originally come up with.
Now, as mentioned, the manga has three explicit timelines. While the four timelines is commonly accepted and probably the easiest potential explanation, I am not entirely sure that was Toriyama's intent. There are a few things from the manga to imply that Trunks only made one trip, or at least that Toriyama saw it that way.
First of all, immediately before he was killed by Cell, Trunks was preparing to travel back in time to before the Androids showing up. It was closer to the timeframe of when he originally warned the characters about the Androids (and Piccolo immediately concludes that Trunks was coming back to say he managed to defeat the Androids in his future). It wouldn't make sense for him to go back to that time period if he'd also time travelled to the point where the Androids were actually awoken. Cell's also really surprised to find the other Trunks made a second trip. It's also because of Cell that Trunks and Kuririn even found the hidden lab with the blue prints in it, so it's not certain that a timeline without Cell would still have the characters search Gero's ruined lab.
So if you remove Trunks' second trip/finding the blueprints from the Trunks in Cell's timeline, then there is no need for a fourth timeline to exist. Another reason the shutdown remote theory is popular is probably because Trunks was killed by Cell, despite being able to somehow defeat the Androids earlier. However, that is also easily explained - the future Androids are weaker than the present Androids (Trunks says he could actually fight the future Androids fairly well until they ganged up on him), and Future Cell was actually stronger due to having drained humans in the future timeline. Whereas when Cell was in the present timeline, he was initially in a weakened state due to having reverted to his larval form. In Future Trunks' timeline, Cell even mentions that he is stronger than 17 and 18, and has a more fierce aura reminiscent of the one he had when he fought Piccolo for the second time.
So Trunks could have easily returned to his timeline after giving his warning, trained to the point where he is stronger than the future 17 and 18, but still be killed by his timeline's Cell who is more powerful than the future Androids.
I don't think this is quite as logical as the second Future Trunks having his own "present" timeline to effect, but I get the impression Toriyama wrote with only three timelines in mind.
edit: And on the five Cells, if "History 4" had its own Cell Games, than that must mean a Cell from the future visited "History 4" as well. But logically, that would not happen, unless there was another timeline out there for him to come from, which there is no evidence of.
edited 24th Nov '16 7:41:16 AM by Saiga
But isn't it a known fact that the 17 and 18 of Trunks' timeline were dicking around all those times they fought Gohan and Trunks and not using their full power?
The reason they seemed stronger in the past is because their future versions never bothered to fight to their full strength, and since they had no Ki to sense, Trunks never really knew how powerful they were?
It seems strange to say they must have been weaker all of a sudden.
One Strip! One Strip!![]()
That theory was jossed, apparently by one of those Daizenshuu or however you say it. The main timeline 17 and 18 really were just stronger than the ones from Future Trunk's for some reason.
Edit:
Toriyma's take on the Butterfly Effect?
edited 24th Nov '16 10:32:22 AM by LSBK
Trunks was able to put up a fight with them in bad future, so they're much much weaker.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.I thought that was the case for years until someone here on this very wiki pointed out that the manga said they were actually just not using their full power when they fought Gohan and Trunks before, so I just assumed they chose not to hold back as much in the past.
Now it turns out they really were weaker in the future.
One Strip! One Strip!

Okay I get it now. Flowcharts help more than words.
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This song needs more love.