Why Are the Characters Dead in the Future? (Cell Arc)

[VDenter]

So i was finally in the mood to watch all of DB and DBZ again. Like always i generally look forward to each arc. But also i feel like whenever i start watching or reading the Cell/Android arc... well i just sort of get annoyed really. There are several reasons as to why but perhaps the biggest one and the one that i dont hear anybody ever talk about, is the fact that the setup for the arc makes absolutely no sense. Was there really any need for Trunks to go Back to the past? I know that we are told that everybody in the future dies and since Piccolo dies there are no dragon balls thus leaving pretty much everybody screwed when it comes to dealing with the Androids.

However when thinking about this from a In-Universe perspective. Its never really made clear why Trunks would need to do this considering the fact that New Namek exists. Of course i am aware that Trunks and Gohan dont really know where it is but this quickly falls apart when you consider the fact that dead characters can communicate to each other through King Kai like they did during the Freeza arc. So why didn't Future Goku who is dead just tell future Gohan where New Namek is!? So he can try and bring them all back. Its not like this would be the only way to solve this problem since Urunai Baba already brought Gokus grandpa back for 24 hours back in DB.

This question hangs over the entire arc. The whole setup goes out of its way to establish how dire the situation is in the future but it can all be so easily solved. It drives me crazy because nobody ever brings this up during the arc. Nor do i ever see it discussed really which makes me think that i might have overlooked some things or am i just crazy? Does this bother anybody else? I know out of all the things in the entire Dragonball fiction no other thing has annoyed me as much when thinking about it. And it does not even have anything to do with time travel. This is where the plot of Dragon Ball falls down the hardest for me because it tries to tell a more serious tone but the way it goes about doing it just end up undermining the entire plot. This also applies to the DBS Black/Zamasu arc as well.

[LuckyCat]

The answer may lie in the ending of the Cell games. After Goku died, he asked not to be resurrected and to train in the afterlife with Kaio-sama. The same sort of conversation may have happened earlier in Trunks' timeline when Goku died from the disease. We don't know what Kaio-sama and Goku are doing in Trunks' timeline (Training? Having an afterlife tournament?), but apparently they have other interests besides Earth.

[BlueBasilisk]

The setup for Trunks' future has always been pretty flimsy and it falls apart even more after Super shows that Shenron can cure illnesses, and rather easily a that. Then there's Trunks not asking Goku or Dende where New Namek is before going back to his own timeline so he can go there and use their Dragon Balls, or bring Dende back to Earth to revive Shenron.

[floofychan333]

Kudos to you, you've come up with an explanation as to how the apocalypse was easily avoidable. I've attempted to bring it up at times by saying New Namek existed but people have always been able to shut it down by saying "they didn't know where New Namek was." And honestly, even without communicating with dead Future Goku they still probably could have found it, considering they were able to find the original Namek, and plus, Bulma was still alive then, as well as Future Gohan and Future Trunks being fairly educated. If Dr Brief survived, then there's absolutely no reason why they couldn't have found New Namek.

[Hellspawn28]

They didn't want to be wish back mostly likely. Otherwise they would have done it by now.

[VDenter]

They didn't want to be wish back mostly likely. Otherwise they would have done it by now.

Why though? It seems very unlikely that they would not want to be brought back to life and stop the planet from being terrorized. If we go simply by whats established at that point in the manga They are all supposedly on King Kais planet and well aware of whats going on yet they do absolutely nothing.

[Hellspawn28]

The dead is limited on what they can see in the living world seeing that Goku was not aware that he had a son and #18 became good. They probably just assume that everyone is dead and there is nothing that they can do. Not to mention it also possible that Goku wanted Gohan and Trunks to win against #17 and #18.

[Perfectionist-Cell]

The dead is limited on what they can see in the living world seeing that Goku was not aware that he had a son and #18 became good. They probably just assume that everyone is dead and there is nothing that they can do. Not to mention it also possible that Goku wanted Gohan and Trunks to win against #17 and #18.

He wasn't aware because he was to busy training but if you died and saw all your friends there a few years later you know something went wrong on earth. Goku and the gang could of simply told King Kai to tell Bulma where new Namek is and then make a space ship to head in that direction.

[DBZAOTA482]

So i was finally in the mood to watch all of DB and DBZ again. Like always i generally look forward to each arc. But also i feel like whenever i start watching or reading the Cell/Android arc... well i just sort of get annoyed really. There are several reasons as to why but perhaps the biggest one and the one that i dont hear anybody ever talk about, is the fact that the setup for the arc makes absolutely no sense. Was there really any need for Trunks to go Back to the past? I know that we are told that everybody in the future dies and since Piccolo dies there are no dragon balls thus leaving pretty much everybody screwed when it comes to dealing with the Androids.

However when thinking about this from a In-Universe perspective. Its never really made clear why Trunks would need to do this considering the fact that New Namek exists. Of course i am aware that Trunks and Gohan dont really know where it is but this quickly falls apart when you consider the fact that dead characters can communicate to each other through King Kai like they did during the Freeza arc. So why didn't Future Goku who is dead just tell future Gohan where New Namek is!? So he can try and bring them all back. Its not like this would be the only way to solve this problem since Urunai Baba already brought Gokus grandpa back for 24 hours back in DB.

This question hangs over the entire arc. The whole setup goes out of its way to establish how dire the situation is in the future but it can all be so easily solved. It drives me crazy because nobody ever brings this up during the arc. Nor do i ever see it discussed really which makes me think that i might have overlooked some things or am i just crazy? Does this bother anybody else? I know out of all the things in the entire Dragonball fiction no other thing has annoyed me as much when thinking about it. And it does not even have anything to do with time travel. This is where the plot of Dragon Ball falls down the hardest for me because it tries to tell a more serious tone but the way it goes about doing it just end up undermining the entire plot. This also applies to the DBS Black/Zamasu arc as well.

Goku died of natural causes in timeline 1/2 so he's gone for good and even if he could tell them, they had no possible means of reaching New Namek.

The setup for Trunks' future has always been pretty flimsy and it falls apart even more after Super shows that Shenron can cure illnesses, and rather easily a that. Then there's Trunks not asking Goku or Dende where New Namek is before going back to his own timeline so he can go there and use their Dragon Balls, or bring Dende back to Earth to revive Shenron.

Shenron being able to cure illnesses is a contradiction in and of itself.

[ekrolo2]

Because Toriyama's tendency to make stuff up really starts making the story itself crumble to pieces by this point in the series.

[BlueBasilisk]

Shenron being able to cure illnesses is a contradiction in and of itself.

How so? I can't recall it ever being stated that he can't and as far as we've seen in show/manga, nobody ever asked him to try until Pan was sick.

[Zeru14]

Because Toriyama's tendency to make stuff up really starts making the story itself crumble to pieces by this point in the series.

This and Toriyama ignoring things in his own canon to force the plot to work, why the dead Z-Warriors never went to King Kai, ask him to use his universal senses and telepathy to locate and contact New Namek to use their Dragonballs to resurrect themselves is never explained, no one has to go to New Namek, King Kai just needs to make a long distance "phone call" and problem solved, but Toriyama wanted to tell a Terminator-esque time travel story, so everyone had to stay dead.

[Super Saiyan Turlast x4]

I just tend to look at Trunks' timeline for what it's supposed to mean. A world devoid of hope. The dragon balls were always the go to method for fixing things, but now they were gone. I feel like allowing everyone to stay dead added more to the dark representation of Trunks' world. Bringing everyone back would've cheapened it.

Sure, you could easily say that Kaio should've contacted the Nameks and asked them for help. I find it hard to believe that they wouldn't want to help after hearing what took place. Then again, Kaio did say he can't always focus on Earth since he's in charge of various other planets. My guess is Goku was likely with Kaio and the others probably went their own separate ways in Otherworld. We already know Vegeta went to hell in this timeline, so he didn't have much of a choice.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

For some reason, the entirety of the Future timeline seems to operate under the premise that the afterlife doesn't exist, which extends even to the recent Future Trunks Arc. Unless you want to get into deep headcanon territory, there probably isn't a good answer.

[TheZFighter]

In Future Trunks's almost-apocalyptic future the impact of the Androids over those years was just so great and devastating. A large percentage of the population was wiped out, the few who survived were forced into hiding, and most of the Z Fighters were killed without the Dragon Ball "get out of jail card".

Perhaps this is embellishment on my part, but I've always thought it was fairly obvious why they chose the time travel route over anything else...

1) they now had the ability to cure Goku's heart disease, meaning he wouldn't die "permanently".
2) they could prevent the "permanent deaths" of many of Bulma's family, close friends and allies, as well as Future Trunks's mentor, Gohan.
3) they could prevent the loss of the Dragon Balls, which are always handy to have around.
4) they could prevent the near-genocide of the human race, and therefore prevent a lot of pain and suffering in general.

Obviously you can argue that they could strive to find a solution to the Android threat within their own timeline, but I think they looked at the bigger picture instead, and were able to save past timelines from living through the horror that they had to.

I suppose this doesn't really answer the question, though. I can't recall the afterlife actually being bought up in that timeline, but I suspect the lack of Dragon Balls was the big issue.

[Rukawa11]

Does New Namek really exist in the future timeline, though?

This'll sound a little far-fetched, but if Cell had arrived in the present a year before Future Trunks, it would mean Cell's egg was on earth before Goku's fight with Freeza on Namek. Considering that Cell had changed the present history even before Trunks did, couldn't we infer the present New Namek to that history change? Which is to say, if Cell hadn't changed history with his arrival, New Namek wouldn't have come to be?

[Jinzoningen MULE]

Does New Namek really exist in the future timeline, though?

This'll sound a little far-fetched, but if Cell had arrived in the present a year before Future Trunks, it would mean Cell's egg was on earth before Goku's fight with Freeza on Namek. Considering that Cell had changed the present history even before Trunks did, couldn't we infer the present New Namek to that history change? Which is to say, if Cell hadn't changed history with his arrival, New Namek wouldn't have come to be?

The application of the butterfly effect in the Android Arc was already nonsense, but I'm not willing to concede that it's quite that level of insanity. Cell didn't travel back until around the time the Namekians were on Earth (with a margin of error of a few months due to a vague line regarding how long it actually took Goku to come home). However, no matter what, Cell's arrival wasn't likely to influence the choice to immigrate to a new planet, especially since no one knew about it until 4 years later.

[cheddarsword]

you're looking at the problem from the wrong angle.

goku died of heart disease. sure, that can be cured no problem. but can it be done AFTER DEATH? remove the disease from his body with one wish, and then wish for resurrection.

the problem is, at that point, goku had already been wished back once, so shenron's out. so the question is, can PORUNGA handle such wishes? where shenron can do mass resurections, porunga is limited to one person per wish. so there are trade offs.

that being said, shenron's not entirely useless here. it is possible that he could at least remove the disease.

but again, you're looking at the fact that the dissease itself isn't what killed him. it damaged him to the point of his heart stopping as an end result. you would still have to ditch the dissease though, or it's all for nothing but with the heart having stopped due to the dissease... needless to say, you may have to do some creative wishes with a dragon who's powers are different and in some ways weaker than shenron's.

and since you're dealing with porunga, then you DO have something to work with. the death of guru. dende can be considered to be an expert on what they can and can't do, and i don't exactly hear him making any statements or even TRYING to resurrect guru from his death... which was also natural causes by the way.

and before you go saying "well what about the other Z warriors!" let me stop you right there. goku's death occurred BEFORE the androids attacked. as such, he was the ONLY ONE who was dead. and let's be honest, he was the only one even remotely capable of dealing with the androids at that point. of course, vegeta was the next strongest warrior on earth, provided piccolo didn't fuse with kami... wait... OH SH**! WHY DIDN'T HE DO THAT!? *sigh* another discussion perhaps?

anyway, setting that plot hole aside to continue with this one...

considering that vegeta already died at the hands of the androids, i'm not sure there would be much reason for him to be resurected. after all, they were under the mentality that super saiyans were the strongest warriors in existence and they also likely thought that you could only be a super saiyan if you had a pure heart, as evidenced by statements made in the android saga after seeing vegeta turn super saiyan.

and barring any fan made movies (there's an amazing live action one...) i seriously doubt vegeta turned himself around and was sent to heaven upon death. the "contacting of the dead" as you seem to cling to would have proved that.

so there you have it.

[Rukawa11]

provided piccolo didn't fuse with kami... wait... OH SH**! WHY DIDN'T HE DO THAT!? *sigh* another discussion perhaps?

That could easily be chalked up to the fact that present Piccolo had a stronger incentive to merge with Kami and it had everything to do with Future Trunks being right there in front of him (something Future Piccolo didn't have). We seriously don't need to go there at all. It's simple:
- Future Trunks/ Cell had changed history.
- Present Piccolo received a beating by the Androids and he'd been brooding their terror as he trained for three years as opposed to Future Piccolo who received a near instant death.
- Present Piccolo had witnessed a pair of Super Saiyans (Vegeta and Trunks) brushed aside by the Androids.
- Future Trunks had mentioned that the Androids in this timeline are stronger along with the fact that there's an additional Android 16 who wasn't supposed to be there.

All these facts have made the present situation way more desperate than the future, so it's easy to see why present Piccolo had resorted to this in the present timeline only.

[cheddarsword]

well at least the piccolo loophole has been fixed.