Time Travel Discussion (Potential DB Super Spoilers)

[Jinzoningen MULE]

But I don't recall the manga ever stating the butterfly effect worked to that level.

The butterfly effect works independently of the narrative. It's the extrapolation of a real-life principle, all based on simple logical progression.

But this is shown to be false as Trunks and Cell only created one timeline split, not multiple despite the differences.

The guidebooks disagree with you. Although DBS's implication that 3 timeline splits only made one ring is bizarre. That's a whole other can of worms, though.

[TheMikado]

But I don't recall the manga ever stating the butterfly effect worked to that level.

The butterfly effect works independently of the narrative. It's the extrapolation of a real-life principle, all based on simple logical progression.

But this is shown to be false as Trunks and Cell only created one timeline split, not multiple despite the differences.

The guide-books disagree with you.

The guide books are not the author and are not the creators of the DB universe. Thus the author and creator of said universe disagrees with you. Further you are using chaos theory, an unproven theory to prove how unproven time travel works in a fictional work. Time travel in the DB universe works exactly how the author of the fictional universe says it does, nothing more.

[Cipher]

But I don't recall the manga ever stating the butterfly effect worked to that level.

To what level? That each minute contradiction should create a split?

I don't see how you logically get around that, and I mean thinking of multiple-worlds time-travel independent from the series. Again, that Bulma+stones example. Even with a minor change, how do you account for the differences in photos/memories if you talk to Bulma just after moving it vs. Bulma in your own time?

It's not just logic, either. The series more or less gives us butterfly-effect differences in the Cell arc. Either as a result of Trunks' time travel, or Cell's, or both, events in the past end up being wildly different than expected.

Regardless, this arc of Super seems to have done away with it, which doesn't make any sense, but neither do animal-people who can transform into anything they want for five minutes.

But this is shown to be false as Trunks and Cell only created one timeline split, not multiple despite the differences. It's specifically stated that Trunk and Cell only caused one split there fore it's not even consistent without your own theory.

??

The most common interpretation of the Cell arc time-travel is that you end up with four timelines, as such:

T1: Cell's. Trunks in this timeline goes back and forth into the past, finds a way to defeat the androids, and is eventually killed by Cell, who steals his time machine.
T2: The past Trunks alone traveled to and returned from, in which the androids are defeated by unknown means.
T3: The "main" timeline that results from Cell arriving a year earlier than Trunks originally had, resulting in further historical deviations from T2. Trunks' time travel is now part of history, though, so he's still set to arrive to fight Freeza.
T4: The result of Trunks returning to his own timeline with his experiences in the past having been altered by Cell. The "good" future that's eventually targeted by Black.

That isn't coming from a guidebook. And, in fact, the Daizenshuu four-timeline model has some really bizarre details in it that feel like mistakes. This is just what the series gives us.

There's another theory that spits out three timelines and is intended to account for Cell's dialogue about remembering Trunks killing Freeza and Cold, which most write off as an error. I had some sort of problem with that one, but I can't remember what it was.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

The guide books are not the author and are not the creators of the DB universe. Thus the author and creator of said universe disagrees with you.

Toriyama's word means less to me than George Lucas'. He's demonstrably bad with continuity, and always has been. I only pulled out the guide-books because they agree with me on this common sense issue.

Further you are using chaos theory, an unproven theory to prove how unproven time travel works in a fictional work.

The butterfly effect as described in DBS hinges on chaos theory. Do you really want to go down this road?

[Gog]

Didn't Trunks outright state that going back in time, made another time line?

[Jinzoningen MULE]

Didn't Trunks outright state that going back in time, made another time line?

I don't think so, but the butterfly effect, which was employed in DBS, mandates that it has to be the case.

[Gog]

Didn't Trunks outright state that going back in time, made another time line?

I don't think so, but the butterfly effect, which was employed in DBS, mandates that it has to be the case.

So, there really is no point to this discussion then?

[Cipher]

Didn't Trunks outright state that going back in time, made another time line?

I don't think so, but the butterfly effect, which was employed in DBS, mandates that it has to be the case.

Trunks lays out the idea that time travel will create parallel worlds in the Cell arc. Yamcha (or Gohan?) asks him what will happen to the androids in his own time if they defeat them in the present -- i.e. will they just disappear? Trunks speculates that his future probably won't change, but that he and Future Bulma wanted to create a world free from the androids regardless.

So he more or less confirms that any contradictions in history result in both being "true," i.e. timeline splits, rather than changing one fluid course of events. He gives us Dragon Ball's model for time travel, and from there all sorts of simple logical progression can come into play.

And it's worth pointing out that Dragon Ball more or less adhered to that logical progression up until attributing the split to Beerus' actions this arc. Everything about the time-travel this arc is totally fine except for attributing that split to Beerus rather than Trunks. (And it isn't just Whis' dialogue that does so; in the anime, Gowasu pulls out the box of time rings after Trunks' arrival and doesn't note the creation of a new one.) Oh well.

[Draconic]

I can easily blame it on him. The anime tried to at least do something and turned out pretty good, while still keeping true to the outline. He has the freedom to connect the dots however he wants and he either didn't realize something needed fixing or he didn't know how to. Both are equally bad.

I said that I wouldn't blame it entirely on Toyotaro. Sure, he could have gotten around it with some simple tinkering, but these paradoxes clearly stem from Toriyama. Neither Toyotaro nor the Toei writers shouldn't have to jump through hoops to make up for his incompetence, anyway.

By the way, the anime doesn't get props for trying to fix issues when they didn't follow through with it. Quite the opposite, they inflamed the existing problems in many cases.

At this point, I wouldn't mind one bit if Toriyama stepped down as the author and stuck to character designs.

I disagree. They introduced a bootstrap paradox, which is a simpler and more coherent time travel mechanic than the alternate timelines. A paradox/loop is not a plot-hole, no matter what anyone says. It's just something that might happen in a time travelling story. It has no beginning, no end and once you go past it, time just gets back to it's "linear" course in both past and future.
The Beerus split/Toei chart makes sense once you ignore your previous biases and actually read what it says. The Ring created a new reorganized timeline when Beerus killed Zamasu. It's not hard to understand that the split is not going "forward" in time, but is going backwards in order to reorganize the events in such a manner that Beerus never actually kills Zamasu. There aren't two timelines where Zamasu is dead because the second timeline doesn't go from the moment Zamasu dies to the future. It goes from Zamasu dying to the past in order to change stuff around enough so that Black can still exist. And before you say that's not how Time Travel works in Dragon Ball, this is not a Time Machine type of split. It's caused by the Time Ring, which is a new concept with a different set of rules.

[Cetra]

It goes from Zamasu dying to the past in order to change stuff around enough so that Black can still exist..

Exactly. Hence not just the mentioning of a split on the Toei chart but also "reorganizing". It was a newly introduced concept of time manipulation that pseudo-justified the split and combined it with the eternal cycle.

But even taking the ring away it would not really matter. What is really important is that it happened. The modalities are a thing we often want to know about and they are nice to know but they are not obligatory.

This arc does not introduce a bootstrap paradox.

Except it does. The chart ultimately made it as clear as it can be.

[TheMikado]

But I don't recall the manga ever stating the butterfly effect worked to that level.

To what level? That each minute contradiction should create a split?

I don't see how you logically get around that, and I mean thinking of multiple-worlds time-travel independent from the series. Again, that Bulma+stones example. Even with a minor change, how do you account for the differences in photos/memories if you talk to Bulma just after moving it vs. Bulma in your own time?

It's not just logic, either. The series more or less gives us butterfly-effect differences in the Cell arc. Either as a result of Trunks' time travel, or Cell's, or both, events in the past end up being wildly different than expected.

Regardless, this arc of Super seems to have done away with it, which doesn't make any sense, but neither do animal-people who can transform into anything they want for five minutes.

But this is shown to be false as Trunks and Cell only created one timeline split, not multiple despite the differences. It's specifically stated that Trunk and Cell only caused one split there fore it's not even consistent without your own theory.

??

The most common interpretation of the Cell arc time-travel is that you end up with four timelines, as such:

T1: Cell's. Trunks in this timeline goes back and forth into the past, finds a way to defeat the androids, and is eventually killed by Cell, who steals his time machine.
T2: The past Trunks alone traveled to and returned from, in which the androids are defeated by unknown means.
T3: The "main" timeline that results from Cell arriving a year earlier than Trunks originally had, resulting in further historical deviations from T2. Trunks' time travel is now part of history, though, so he's still set to arrive to fight Freeza.
T4: The result of Trunks returning to his own timeline with his experiences in the past having been altered by Cell. The "good" future that's eventually targeted by Black.

That isn't coming from a guidebook. And, in fact, the Daizenshuu four-timeline model has some really bizarre details in it that feel like mistakes. This is just what the series gives us.

There's another theory that spits out three timelines and is intended to account for Cell's dialogue about remembering Trunks killing Freeza and Cold, which most write off as an error. I had some sort of problem with that one, but I can't remember what it was.

My theory is timeline convergence, after a certain point the the difference in the same time line will be forgotten and not cause any large time disruption. I think the timelines naturally attempt to resolve and converge so small changes can be resolved. When the timelines cannot be rectified and converge the deviations in the time stream generates a time ring. It's that simple, small changes may eventually be able to be converged back into a single stream. In addition Super shows that Trunks and Cells travels only generate a single time ring. That's consistent with the idea of self resolving streams rather than a large butterfly effect. I'll well aware of the timelines and theories of the butterfly affect but to assume that's the ONLY time travel theory is wrong at it's core.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

My theory is timeline convergence, after a certain point the the difference in the same time line will be forgotten and not cause any large time disruption. I think the timelines naturally attempt to resolve and converge so small changes can be resolved. When the timelines cannot be rectified and converge the deviations in the time stream generates a time ring. It's that simple, small changes may eventually be able to be converged back into a single stream. In addition Super shows that Trunks and Cells travels only generate a single time ring. That's consistent with the idea of self resolving streams rather than a large butterfly effect. I'll well aware of the timelines and theories of the butterfly affect but to assume that's the ONLY time travel theory is wrong at it's core.

That's actually a really interesting idea, but it doesn't account for the contradictions that do happen before reconciliation. If you go to a contradictory portion of a converged timeline, which version of events will you see? That's my problem with convergence.

Maybe I'm missing something though, I'm more focused on the fact that I just saw Broly with boobs in official material.

[TheMikado]

My theory is timeline convergence, after a certain point the the difference in the same time line will be forgotten and not cause any large time disruption. I think the timelines naturally attempt to resolve and converge so small changes can be resolved. When the timelines cannot be rectified and converge the deviations in the time stream generates a time ring. It's that simple, small changes may eventually be able to be converged back into a single stream. In addition Super shows that Trunks and Cells travels only generate a single time ring. That's consistent with the idea of self resolving streams rather than a large butterfly effect. I'll well aware of the timelines and theories of the butterfly affect but to assume that's the ONLY time travel theory is wrong at it's core.

That's actually a really interesting idea, but it doesn't account for the contradictions that do happen before reconciliation. If you go to a contradictory portion of a converged timeline, which version of events will you see? That's my problem with convergence.

Maybe I'm missing something though, I'm more focused on the fact that I just saw Broly with boobs in official material.

I'll take the rock picture example.

If you traveled back in time and caused the rock to change, you would go to that timeline because you basically made the fracture or branch. If you come back 20 years after the fracture in either timeline they will be the same because the timelines converged and they are now one and the same regardless of your experience during that loop. No significant outcomes from the rock picture occurred so the time stream was able to reconverge without difficulty.

[Cipher]

Ah, let's touch on that "bootstrap" buzzword that's been going around:

This arc does not introduce a bootstrap paradox.

A bootstrap paradox (or causal loop) involves timetravel being responsible for its own impetus. Here's an example: I find a note in my attic telling me to look out for a stranger in a blue coat in 2025. In 2025, by trying to avoid the stranger in the blue coat, I wind up running into a time machine and go back to 2014. Trying to avoid these events, I leave a note in my attic for myself to find in 2017. A loop of causative events. Information trapped in a cycle, with no clear inciting cause.

Here is what the Trunks arc would look like with a bootstrap paradox: Trunks and Black arrive in the past. Goku's fight against Black leads Beerus, Whis and Goku to investigate Zamasu. Goku defeats Zamasu in a sparring match. The sparring match causes Zamasu's anger against Goku to build, culminating in his plan to steal Goku's body. Zamasu's plan then goes off without a hitch, and he jumps ship to Trunks' timeline with the time ring. You now have a loop where Black's arrival in Trunks' timeline is what creates the loop of his own creation. This works out even within Dragon Ball's multiple-worlds model specifically because the time rings' ability to jump between timelines.

But that isn't what happens. Instead, we wind up with Trunks' arrival in the past inevitably leading Beerus to kill Zamasu before his plans get off the ground. Rather than playing a role in Black's origins, this prevents them. Black's origins lie in an original sequence of events in which he's able to steal Goku's body without Beerus ever catching wind of his plans.

Why do people think there's a bootstrap paradox in this arc? Probably because of one line in the anime in which Black references being outclassed by Goku, during which sequences of their earlier sparring match plays. This ... is really sloppy, and I blame Toei, because it doesn't line up whatsoever with what we've been given. Their sparring match is the direct result of Trunks and Black arriving in the past, which ultimately leads to Beerus killing him. So either this Zamasu was set to have a sparring match against Goku at some point under different circumstances (not impossible), or he simply knew of him only from the tournament footage, as in the manga. Either way, I think this would have been fine had the anime not chosen to reuse clips of that fight scene, which sends all the wrong messages.

My theory is timeline convergence, after a certain point the the difference in the same time line will be forgotten and not cause any large time disruption. I think the timelines naturally attempt to resolve and converge so small changes can be resolved. When the timelines cannot be rectified and converge the deviations in the time stream generates a time ring. It's that simple, small changes may eventually be able to be converged back into a single stream. In addition Super shows that Trunks and Cells travels only generate a single time ring. That's consistent with the idea of self resolving streams rather than a large butterfly effect. I'll well aware of the timelines and theories of the butterfly affect but to assume that's the ONLY time travel theory is wrong at it's core.

I suppose that's fine, but the fallout of the events in the Cell arc leads to some pretty huge differences. We have a future where Cell kills Trunks, and another one where Trunks kills Cell. Convergence is fine, but it's never really implied by the series. I do tend to write off that line about only "one" new time ring appearing recently in the anime as an error. Though given Super's new "only big differences create a split" stance, there are other explanations as well.

[TheMikado]

^ yup I don't have answers but my guess is that the reason is because all Trunks timelines end in the destruction of the universe regardless of whether Cell kills Trunks or vice versa.

But the manga clearly does not have the bootstrap, the problem is the anime and Toeis chart specifically states that Trunks visit are the events that create Black so Toei actually reinforces the bootstrap rather than dispel it.

[TobyS]

DBS
Beerus' killing Zamasu being the cause for the timeline split this arc just doesn't jive. We can take it at face value and just write it off as Dragon Ball playing fast and loose with logic, but really, the timeline should splinter the moment Trunks arrives in the past to warn everyone about Black.

Let's just say it did work that and the characters are unreliable and wrong. either way they both create that one additional split timeline.

Edit: well trunks can already travel back without doing more splits to a tl he has already gone to hasn't he? I think maybe the split occurred when they started investigating zammy, because they didn't do that in the future.

[Nejishiki]

Let's just say it did work that and the characters are unreliable and wrong. either way they both create that one additional split timeline.

Edit: well trunks can already travel back without doing more splits to a tl he has already gone to hasn't he? I think maybe the split occurred when they started investigating zammy, because they didn't do that in the future.

That's right. Once Future Trunks establishes a road to an alternate past he's previously visited, he shouldn't create additional parallel worlds as long as he travels the same pathway. He confirms as much when he claims he can only travel 17 years backward to the alternate past he knows. I'm pretty sure Whis (anime continuity) & Vegeta (guessed by him in the manga continuity) confirm Beerus' destruction of present Zamasu split the timeline again.

[TheUltimateNinja]

Maybe small changes do create a new timeline, but the split is so slight the timelines end up merging back together with the new version being what happened all along. Also, Beerus creating a new timeline by killing Zamasu can be explained, in the anime at least, by the fact that thanks to the time ring Black was always going to exist no matter what, so Zamasu dying before he could become Black created a new timeline where he survived and became Black anyway.

[Cipher]

That's right. Once Future Trunks establishes a road to an alternate past he's previously visited, he shouldn't create additional parallel worlds as long as he travels the same pathway. He confirms as much when he claims he can only travel 17 years backward to the alternate past he knows. I'm pretty sure Whis (anime continuity) & Vegeta (guessed by him in the manga continuity) confirm Beerus' destruction of present Zamasu split the timeline again.

Correct. However, logically the split in this arc should occur the moment Trunks shows up, because that's the point at which events begin to deviate from the course that leads to Black's origins.

If Black hadn't come to Trunks' world, he could pop back in this arc with no further splits. Since Black did arrive, though, and since that prompted Trunks to take another trip back, arriving between his last visit and (unknown to Trunks) the events of Black's creation, you wind up with different historical events than the ones Black, already in Trunks' world, would remember. Another contradiction, another split.

If we go with natural logical progression/the butterfly-effect, those contradictions should occur immediately upon Trunks' arrival. To say they start only upon investigating Zamasu is a somewhat palatable alternative to make everything line up, I guess. (That's what would lead to contradictions in Black's actual memories, so perhaps that's as fair as anything.)

Also, Beerus creating a new timeline by killing Zamasu can be explained, in the anime at least, by the fact that thanks to the time ring Black was always going to exist no matter what, so Zamasu dying before he could become Black created a new timeline where he survived and became Black anyway.

Say Trunks were to go back to his timeline after Goku, Beerus, Whis and Kaioshin go to investigate Zamasu, but before Beerus kills him.

If he were to ask Black, "Hey, do you remember all those guys coming to visit you?" what would Black say? No, right?

But if he popped back into the past and asked Zamasu, he'd be like, "Yes, Ningen, that happened literally yesterday."

[TheUltimateNinja]

Also, Beerus creating a new timeline by killing Zamasu can be explained, in the anime at least, by the fact that thanks to the time ring Black was always going to exist no matter what, so Zamasu dying before he could become Black created a new timeline where he survived and became Black anyway.

Say Trunks were to go back to his timeline after Goku, Beerus, Whis and Kaioshin go to investigate Zamasu, but before Beerus kills him.

If he were to ask Black, "Hey, do you remember all those guys coming to visit you?" what would Black say? No, right?

But if he popped back into the past and asked Zamasu, he'd be like, "Yes, Ningen, that happened literally yesterday."

That's because Black never encountered them in his timeline. The timeline probably split as soon as Trunks made it back to the past since that's what ultimately led to Beerus killing Zamasu.