Concerning Imperfect Cell's timeline and the Androids strength

[Seekeroftruth]

When Cell tells Piccolo his origin's story, he states that King Cold and Frieza's cells were obtained after Trunks kills them in DB:Kai. In the manga, he doesn't specifically say that Trunks kills them but Toriyama shows a panel of them dying the same way and makes claim that the machine could have obtained Trunk's cells as well even though Trunks had no injuries in that battle.

Now this leads to a problem. If a trunks did go back in Cell's timeline (the timeline in which he kills Trunks and uses his time machine), why do the events still unfold exactly the same in Trunk's timeline?

We have hints of this from:

1. Cell being surprised that Goku is alive at this point in time. Despite the fact that Trunks gave Goku his medication after killing Frieza and King Cold.

2.Cell states that the Vegeta in the main timeline is stronger than the one in his timeline

3.The androids are still evil and destroying the world which forces trunk to go back into the past to find a way to stop them.

4.Cell has no info on android 16 creation despite the machine telling him about Androids 17,18 and how strong Trunks is.

5.Cell being surprised of Piccolo's fusion with kami and stating Vegeta should be dead right around now after he escaped from Piccolo.

So from this, it seems like the events of Future Trunks timeline does unfold the same within Cell's timeline. This leads to another problem. Many fans are of the belief that Trunks statement of him being able to fight the androids fairly well to mean that they were weaker in his timeline.

However, Imperfect Cell has never met the androids of this world as evident by F. Trunks stating that Imperfect Cell had only recently escaped from his insect shell. Thus, Cell's reference of power for how strong the androids should be only come about by the information the machine told him (which would be F. 17 and 18 strength). After fighting Piccolo, Imperfect Cell states that ONLY Piccolo would be able to fight the androids in the presence of Trunks and Krillin, and after fleeing that battle even states that he will need to absorb more people to increase his strength past 17 and 18.

Other things that shoots down Trunk's claim include:

1. Android 17 telling F. Gohan that he never even used 50% of his max power before killing him. It should be noted that Gohan was confident this time that he could beat both of them, which implies that the androids were intentionally holding back on both Trunks and Gohan to make them think they had a chance. In addition, Trunks also incorrectly estimates his strength 3 years after Gohan's death of being sufficient enough to defeat the androids and then engages them only to be defeated.

2.Upon Trunks return to the future after the cell games, Android 17 refers to Trunks as a "toy" and he was even confident that Android 18 alone would be able to kill him without difficulties. This suggest that in their last encounter, Trunk's was no where close to their max in power.

3. After F. Trunks kills the android and encounters cell many years later, he states that the machine analyzed and told him all about Trunks, 17 and 18 power. And in Cell's own words states that Trunk's strength would not allow him to defeat either 17 or 18.

[Kaboom]

If we only had Trunks' guess to go by, then there'd be some room for argument that the Androids are actually the same between both timelines and he only thought his future ones were weaker.

But the guidebooks straight-up tell us that yes, the future Androids actually were somewhat weaker. We don't really know exactly why or how that's the case, but it doesn't really matter. A guidebook statement like that is an out-of-universe source with no room for character-ignorance-based doubt in it, and unless there's something blatantly contradictory about it then there's really no good reason not to go with it.

[MechaTrunks]

When Cell tells Piccolo his origin's story, he states that King Cold and Frieza's cells were obtained after Trunks kills them in DB:Kai. In the manga, he doesn't specifically say that Trunks kills them but Toriyama shows a panel of them dying the same way and makes claim that the machine could have obtained Trunk's cells as well even though Trunks had no injuries in that battle.

Those panels of King Cold and Mecha Freezer were recicled, I wouldn't take them literally but more as "both King Cold and Freeza were also killed in the future".
We know the events in the future were very different (and Trunks didn't even participate in that fight in the TL Cell comes from) so Trunks and Mecha dying in the exact same way is impossible.

When Cell says that they could've taken Cells from Gohan and Trunks, he refers to future Gohan and Future Trunks while they were fighting the androids.

Now this leads to a problem. If a trunks did go back in Cell's timeline (the timeline in which he kills Trunks and uses his time machine), why do the events still unfold exactly the same in Trunk's timeline?

There was no Future Trunks in Cell's original TL (the one where he kills Trunks).

Regarding the power of the future androids being lower, any excuse could justify this. Something as simple as the Cold & Mecha vs the Z-Warriors fight being more violent in that TL and affecting Guero's lab somehow (since Goku wouldn't have killed both Mecha and Cold in the way Trunks did it, it's very possible that a fight that affected the whole earth happened in that TL).
But future androids being weaker is proved by Trunks being able to kill them in his TL (that's why Cell kills him afterwards), so there's no question regarding that becuse we have claims and facts pointing towards it.

Regards!

[Seekeroftruth]

When Cell tells Piccolo his origin's story, he states that King Cold and Frieza's cells were obtained after Trunks kills them in DB:Kai. In the manga, he doesn't specifically say that Trunks kills them but Toriyama shows a panel of them dying the same way and makes claim that the machine could have obtained Trunk's cells as well even though Trunks had no injuries in that battle.

Those panels of King Cold and Mecha Freezer were recicled, I wouldn't take them literally but more as "both King Cold and Freeza were also killed in the future".
We know the events in the future were very different (and Trunks didn't even participate in that fight in the TL Cell comes from) so Trunks and Mecha dying in the exact same way is impossible.

When Cell says that they could've taken Cells from Gohan and Trunks, he refers to future Gohan and Future Trunks while they were fighting the androids.

Now this leads to a problem. If a trunks did go back in Cell's timeline (the timeline in which he kills Trunks and uses his time machine), why do the events still unfold exactly the same in Trunk's timeline?

There was no Future Trunks in Cell's original TL (the one where he kills Trunks).

Regarding the power of the future androids being lower, any excuse could justify this. Something as simple as the Cold & Mecha vs the Z-Warriors fight being more violent in that TL and affecting Guero's lab somehow (since Goku wouldn't have killed both Mecha and Cold in the way Trunks did it, it's very possible that a fight that affected the whole earth happened in that TL).
But future androids being weaker is proved by Trunks being able to kill them in his TL (that's why Cell kills him afterwards), so there's no question regarding that becuse we have claims and facts pointing towards it.

Regards!

But cell states he does not know how trunks was able to kill the androids in his timeline indicating that by cell's estimate of trunk's power he would not have the capabilities to defeat Android 17 and 18 on his own. After the battle, cell speaks about the remote controller that turns off the android and states that it would be easy for humans to kill them if they were immobilize, suggesting heavily that the androids in his timeline most likely were turned off by Trunks then destroyed.

Also, if we do assume that the trunks of that timeline could kill the androids then why is it after the battle with Piccolo, that cell still feels that his powers are inadequate to capture and absorb the androids and opts to absorb more humans?

[MechaTrunks]

But cell states he does not know how trunks was able to kill the androids in his timeline indicating that by cell's estimate of trunk's power he would not have the capabilities to defeat Android 17 and 18 on his own. After the battle, cell speaks about the remote controller that turns off the android and states that it would be easy for humans to kill them if they were immobilize, suggesting heavily that the androids in his timeline most likely were turned off by Trunks then destroyed.

But that's because Cell's data on the androids coincides with the Present Androids (he perfectly guesses current A17 and A18 strengths).
That means that something in the future timeline affected the future androids, making them weaker than Guero had intended.

Of course, Cell never finds those androids to check by himself how powerful they were, so he speaks based on the data he has which is what Guero had on mind (remember that Cell was still in a pre-alpha state when the Androids killed Guero so he of course was unable to update that data anymore XD).

Regarding the remote control, there's no Cell to explain Trunks where the lab is to justify them using it.
And Future Trunks didn't even know where Guero's lab was, which means that the possibility of there existing a remote control to stop the androids never crossed his mind.
He killed the androids because, as he says after the fight with Present A18 and A17, he could fight against both of them fairly well.

A senzu bean taken from his 1st travel to the past could very well grant Trunks an absolute victory against weakened A17 and A18.

Also, if we do assume that the trunks of that timeline could kill the androids then why is it after the battle that cell still feels that his powers are inadequate to capture and absorb the androids and opts to absorb more humans?

Cell's assumptions are made with the Present Androids data on mind, not the future ones that were weaker by accident.

Regards!

[Seekeroftruth]

But cell states he does not know how trunks was able to kill the androids in his timeline indicating that by cell's estimate of trunk's power he would not have the capabilities to defeat Android 17 and 18 on his own. After the battle, cell speaks about the remote controller that turns off the android and states that it would be easy for humans to kill them if they were immobilize, suggesting heavily that the androids in his timeline most likely were turned off by Trunks then destroyed.

But that's because Cell's data on the androids coincides with the Present Androids (he perfectly guesses current A17 and A18 strengths).
That means that something in the future timeline affected the future androids, making them weaker than Guero had intended.

Of course, Cell never finds those androids to check by himself how powerful they were, so he speaks based on the data he has which is what Guero had on mind (remember that Cell was still in a pre-alpha state when the Androids killed Guero so he of course was unable to update that data anymore XD).

Regarding the remote control, there's no Cell to explain Trunks where the lab is to justify them using it.
And Future Trunks didn't even know where Guero's lab was, which means that the possibility of there existing a remote control to stop the androids never crossed his mind.
He killed the androids because, as he says after the fight with Present A18 and A17, he could fight against both of them fairly well.

A senzu bean taken from his 1st travel to the past could very well grant Trunks an absolute victory against weakened A17 and A18.

Also, if we do assume that the trunks of that timeline could kill the androids then why is it after the battle that cell still feels that his powers are inadequate to capture and absorb the androids and opts to absorb more humans?

Cell's assumptions are made with the Present Androids data on mind, not the future ones that were weaker by accident.

Regards!

Well as we saw in Cell's timeline, Trunks has a time machine. We also know that from the main timeline that trunk's does find out where Gero's lab is located and even finds the blue print that outlines how to make the remote, so it is possible that he may have found it in the past timeline. Also, Cell states the remote no longer exist in the main timeline but does not state that it does not exist in his timeline and was quite fearful of it still being around.

You do bring up a good point with regards to cell only having knowledge of the androids at the time of their creation and something possibly happening in the future to make them weaker. However looking at Cell's awareness of where trunk's power should be (which was told to him by the machine), 17 and 18's power, it does seem that he was being updated on where everyone power was at the time of his release and it does make sense for the machine to keep him up to date so he could know what threats to avoids. And if cell is aware of where everyone's power was and he is still perplexed as to how the trunks defeated the androids then it stands to reason that trunks could not have done it with his own powers. The mentioning of the remote right after fighting Piccolo in cell's dialogue by Toriyama does suggest that Trunks did it via deactivating them with a remote and then destroyed them.

[MechaTrunks]

Well as we saw in Cell's timeline, Trunks has a time machine. We also know that from the main timeline that trunk's does find out where Gero's lab is located and even finds the blue print that outlines how to make the remote, so it is possible that he may have found it in the past timeline. Also, Cell states the remote no longer exist in the main timeline but does not state that it does not exist in his timeline and was quite fearful of it still being around.

Future Trunks lacks Future Cell to explain him that there exists a secret lab which is where the most sensible data (the androids plans & Cell) was hidden.

In fact, future Trunks never attempted to go to Guero's lab (probably because he asumed the androids had destroyed it after killing Guero) and neither him nor the androids knew about the existence of Guero's secret labs.

You do bring up a good point with regards to cell only having knowledge of the androids at the time of their creation and something possibly happening in the future to make them weaker. However looking at Cell's awareness of where trunk's power should be (which was told to him by the machine), 17 and 18's power, it does seem that he was being updated on where everyone power was at the time of his release and it does make sense for the machine to keep him up to date so he could know what threats to avoids. And if cell is aware of where everyone's power was and he is still perplexed as to how the trunks defeated the androids then it stands to reason that trunks could not have done it with his own powers.

Well, androids have no energy so even if Guero had an energy radar (which we know he had) it wouldn't be able to measure the androids' real power (not that there was any need for it since Guero knew perfectly how strong they would be, and would transfer this data from android to android so they all knew the power they have -unless he doesn't want a certain android to know something, like it's the case with A17 and A18 regarding both Cell and A16-).

This is my understanding on how things went:
1. Guero starts working on Cell.
2. Guero starts working on 17 and 18.
3. Guero finishes 17 and 18, inserts data from them to Cell, and does the first test.
4. The androids rebel against Guero, he stops them with the remote and puts them to sleep, and starts to work on A19.
5A. In the Future, a brutal fight between Goku & Cold happens affecting the whole earth including Guero's lab, making A17 & A18 weaker as a byproduct and also putting an end to A19's project.
6A. Once Guero has repaired his lab and the androids to the best of his abilities, he activates them and this time is killed by A17 & A18. Those androids are weaker, but since future Cells knows the strength of the stronger versions of those androids, we know Guero didn't have time to update it (he probably had plans to fully repair them as soon as he could, so he had no reson to update Cell with what in his head would be wrong values).


5B. In the Present, Trunks kills both Mecha & Cold without giving them the chance to fight back and in a way that doesn't affect Guero's plans.
6B. As a result, Guero finishes A19, makes A19 turn him into A20 and decides he won't risk activating A17 and A18 unless he has no other choice and initiates the attack himself.

Regards!

[Seekeroftruth]

Well as we saw in Cell's timeline, Trunks has a time machine. We also know that from the main timeline that trunk's does find out where Gero's lab is located and even finds the blue print that outlines how to make the remote, so it is possible that he may have found it in the past timeline. Also, Cell states the remote no longer exist in the main timeline but does not state that it does not exist in his timeline and was quite fearful of it still being around.

Future Trunks lacks Future Cell to explain him that there exists a secret lab which is where the most sensible data (the androids plans & Cell) was hidden.

In fact, future Trunks never attempted to go to Guero's lab (probably because he asumed the androids had destroyed it after killing Guero) and neither him nor the androids knew about the existence of Guero's secret labs were.

You do bring up a good point with regards to cell only having knowledge of the androids at the time of their creation and something possibly happening in the future to make them weaker. However looking at Cell's awareness of where trunk's power should be (which was told to him by the machine), 17 and 18's power, it does seem that he was being updated on where everyone power was at the time of his release and it does make sense for the machine to keep him up to date so he could know what threats to avoids. And if cell is aware of where everyone's power was and he is still perplexed as to how the trunks defeated the androids then it stands to reason that trunks could not have done it with his own powers.

Well, androids have no energy so even if Guero had an energy radar (which we know he had), it wouldn't be able to assess the androids' real power (not that there was any need for it since Guero knew perfectly how strong they would be, and would transfer this data from android to android so they all knew the power they have -unless he doesn't want a certain android to know something, like it's the case with A17 and A18 regarding both Cell and A16-).

This is my understanding on how things went:
1. Guero starts working on Cell.
2. Guero starts working on 17 and 18.
3. Guero finishes 17 and 18, inserts data from them to Cell, and does the first test.
4. The androids rebel against Guero, he stops them with the remote and puts them to sleep, and starts to work on A19.
5A. In the Future, a brutal fight between Goku & Cold happens affecting the whole earth including Guero's lab, making A17 & A18 weaker as a byproduct and also putting an end to A19's project.
6A. Once Guero has repaired his lab and the androids to the best of his abilities, he activates them and this time is killed by A17 & A18. Those androids are weaker, but since future Cells knows the strength of the stronger versions of those androids, we know Guero didn't have time to update it (he probably had plans to fully repair them as soon as he could).


5B. In the Present, Trunks kills both Mecha & Cold without giving them the chance to fight back and in a way that doesn't affect Guero's plans.
6B. As a result, Guero finishes A19, makes A19 turn him into A20 and decides he won't risk activating A17 and A18 unless he has no other choice and initiates the attack himself.

Regards!

You do bring up an excellent point that Imperfect cell was not there that Trunks would not have known of the secret lab but again it is also entirely possible that Trunks may have gone back to the lab looking to see if he could have repaired the remote and found the secret lab. I mean its entirely possible with Time travel for this trunks going back into the past to have a different experience and outcome. And it kind of is suspect that Toriyama would mention the remote after the battle with Piccolo and even have cell state he is unsure how Trunks defeated 17 and 18.

The thing about it is that it kind of runs into a few problems. If the machine only implanted cell on how strong the androids are at the time of their creation then why then would it update Cell on Trunk's power and not 17 and 18 current strength? After all, they don't have power levels but if the machine is able to give cell an initial estimate of their strength it must have some means to measure their power which could have been used to track them. Seeing that cell's main objective is to absorb android 17 and 18, it stands to good reason that the spy robot (which was stated by cell to be sending data to the machine on everyone strength) would tell cell if the android were getting weaker.

We also run into the problem that if the events of Cell's timeline and FT timeline have near identical then it is rather suspect that in their latest engagement with Trunks, the F. androids still see trunks as a non-threat and 17 was confident that 18 could kill him alone, which would go against the statement of trunks stating he could fight them fairly well. I like your theory though on possible explanation of how they could have gotten weaker.

[MechaTrunks]

You do bring up an excellent point that Imperfect cell was not there that Trunks would not have known of the secret lab but again it is also entirely possible that Trunks may have gone back to the lab looking to see if he could have repaired the remote and found the secret lab. I mean its entirely possible with Time travel for this trunks going back into the past to have a different experience and outcome. And it kind of is suspect that Toriyama would mention the remote after the battle with Piccolo and even have cell state he is unsure how Trunks defeated 17 and 18.

Alternative Future Trunks (the one that comes back from the future instead of killing the androids) didn't even knew where Guero's normal lab location was.
That Future Trunks and the original Future Trunks were the exact same Trunks prior to his first travel to the past (since alternate Future Trunks is created by Cell traveling 1 year before Trunks arrived in his first time travel), and we know that all the differences between that Trunks and the one we know appear from the fight against Cold & Mecha Freezer.

We also know (we're told by Trunks himself) that he could fight fairly well against the future androids and also that he killed them in the future TL.
Him coming back from the first alternate past with a senzu (something the Z-warriors may have had to use there, but not in the present where Trunks killed Cold & Mecha without them being able to put up a fight) seems a more reasonable explanation to how he killed the androids than him suddenly trying to find Guero's lab -he never attempted to do so until then, why would he suddenly try to do it now?-, finding an even more secret lab (a lab so secret even the androids didn't know about) and making the remote.

The thing about it is that it kind of runs into a few problems. If the machine only implanted cell on how strong the androids are at the time of their creation then why then would it update Cell on Trunk's power and not 17 and 18 current strength?

We don't know how that info is passed through computers. And if they got weaker by an accident and Guero had plans to fully restore them had they not killed him, why would he even bother to update Cell with those values?
I mean, Guero didn't even tell Cell about A16 because he didn't have any intention on activating it despite A16 being a threat that could've eliminated Cell, he probably was cocky and confident in his plans so he barely prepared for the worst and felt no need to update Cell on values that would be wrong after all.

The thing is, we know for a fact that Cell data wasn't updated: Future Cell has precise data on present A17 and present A18 by how he speaks of them and how he reacts when he confronts them (he never comments anything on them being stronger than he expected).

After all, they don't have power levels but if the machine is able to give cell an initial estimate of their strength it must have some means to measure their power which could have been used to track them.

Guero knew how strong his androids were, so he had no need to measure their strength with a ki radar because he knew their strength precisely.

Seeing that cell's main objective is to absorb android 17 and 18, it stands to good reason that the spy robot (which was stated by cell to be sending data to the machine on everyone strength) would tell cell if the android were getting weaker.

The androids had unlimited strength, so there was no reason for that. They only got weaker as a result of an accident, and at the time that happened, the spy bot was already finished (in fact it was finished before A17 and A18).
Why would Guero spend time investigating something that he never thought could happen? The spy bot (and any android's radar) measured Kis like a scoutter would do.
We never saw any "android radar" able to measure an android's power and we know for a fact that Cell's data wasn't updated.

Any explanation on how that could've happened does the job, we can only know what the manga tells us, anything else is pure speculation.

We also run into the problem that if the events of Cell's timeline and FT timeline have near identical then it is rather suspect that in their latest engagement with Trunks, the F. androids still see trunks as a non-threat and 17 was confident that 18 could kill him alone, which would go against the statement of trunks stating he could fight them fairly well. I like your theory though on possible explanation of how they could have gotten weaker.

The androids were confident because they had fought Trunks & Gohan countless times and they assumed they couldn't get any stronger (and for how they speak, it seems they considered Trunks their toy and spared him lots of times).
And from the fight between Present Vegeta and A18, we know that being able to match an android in strength means nothing, it will end very bad unless you have the upper hand.

The androids could never suspect that Trunks could've gone from just being as strong as them to being able to one-shot them.


Regards!

[Seekeroftruth]

You do bring up an excellent point that Imperfect cell was not there that Trunks would not have known of the secret lab but again it is also entirely possible that Trunks may have gone back to the lab looking to see if he could have repaired the remote and found the secret lab. I mean its entirely possible with Time travel for this trunks going back into the past to have a different experience and outcome. And it kind of is suspect that Toriyama would mention the remote after the battle with Piccolo and even have cell state he is unsure how Trunks defeated 17 and 18.

Alternative Future Trunks (the one that comes back from the future instead of killing the androids) didn't even knew where Guero's normal lab location was.
That Future Trunks and the original Future Trunks were the exact same Trunks prior to his first travel to the past (since alternate Future Trunks is created by Cell traveling 1 year before Trunks arrived in his first time travel), and we know that all the differences between that Trunks and the one we know appear from the fight against Cold & Mecha Freezer.

We also know (we're told by Trunks himself) that he could fight fairly well against the future androids and also that he killed them in the future TL.
Him coming back from the first alternate past with a senzu (something the Z-warriors may have had to use there, but not in the present where Trunks killed Cold & Mecha without them being able to put up a fight) seems a more reasonable explanation to how he killed the androids than him suddenly trying to find Guero's lab -he never attempted to do so until then, why would he suddenly try to do it now?-, finding an even more secret lab (a lab so secret even the androids didn't know about) and making the remote.

The thing about it is that it kind of runs into a few problems. If the machine only implanted cell on how strong the androids are at the time of their creation then why then would it update Cell on Trunk's power and not 17 and 18 current strength?

We don't know how that info is passed through computers. And if they got weaker by an accident and Guero had plans to fully restore them had they not killed him, why would he even bother to update Cell with those values?
I mean, Guero didn't even tell Cell about A16 because he didn't have any intention on activating it despite A16 being a threat that could've eliminated Cell, he probably was cocky and confident in his plans so he barely prepared for the worst and felt no need to update Cell on values that would be wrong after all.

The thing is, we know for a fact that Cell data wasn't updated: Future Cell has precise data on present A17 and present A18 by how he speaks of them and how he reacts when he confronts them (he never comments anything on them being stronger than he expected).

After all, they don't have power levels but if the machine is able to give cell an initial estimate of their strength it must have some means to measure their power which could have been used to track them.

Guero knew how strong his androids were, so he had no need to measure their strength with a ki radar because he knew their strength precisely.

Seeing that cell's main objective is to absorb android 17 and 18, it stands to good reason that the spy robot (which was stated by cell to be sending data to the machine on everyone strength) would tell cell if the android were getting weaker.

The androids had unlimited strength, so there was no reason for that. They only got weaker as a result of an accident, and at the time that happened, the spy bot was already finished (in fact it was finished before A17 and A18).
Why would Guero spend time investigating something that he never thought could happen? The spy bot (and any android's radar) measured Kis like a scoutter would do.
We never saw any "android radar" able to measure an android's power and we know for a fact that Cell's data wasn't updated.

Any explanation on how that could've happened does the job, we can only know what the manga tells us, anything else is pure speculation.

We also run into the problem that if the events of Cell's timeline and FT timeline have near identical then it is rather suspect that in their latest engagement with Trunks, the F. androids still see trunks as a non-threat and 17 was confident that 18 could kill him alone, which would go against the statement of trunks stating he could fight them fairly well. I like your theory though on possible explanation of how they could have gotten weaker.

The androids were confident because they had fought Trunks & Gohan countless times and they assumed they couldn't get any stronger (and for how they speak, it seems they considered Trunks their toy and spared him lots of times).
And from the fight between Present Vegeta and A18, we know that being able to match an android in strength means nothing, it will end very bad unless you have the upper hand.

The androids could never suspect that Trunks could've gone from just being as strong as them to being able to one-shot them.


Regards!

Well here is the thing. Bulma states that it takes 8 months to gather energy for the time machine to make a round trip. We also know that the time Cell comes from is 3 years into the future from the time period that the Trunks in the andriod saga came from. So for the very least, we know that the Trunks that cell kills and takes the machine from is much older and had multiple opportunities to go back in time.

We also know that by Piccolo's inference of why trunks would set the machine to go to the past after destroying 17 and 18 that at the time of his death that this Trunks had at least made 1 trip in the past, defeated frieza and king cold and introduced himself to everyone else.

Also, Trunks claim of fighting android 17 and 18 "fairly well" is put into question upon his return after the cell games. Based on android 17 and 18's reaction to trunks and 17 calling him a "toy" and being confident that android 18 alone could defeat trunks in battle puts into heavy question that Trunks could have fought them fairly well. Even if the androids could not detect that trunks was improving and getting better, they were confident that one of them alone could beat him. And even were self aware enough of their own power to know how much effort they were putting in to defeat them. Thus, they can very well track trunk's improvement by looking at the amount of effort they have to put into to stop them.

In regards to how the info is passed. Imperfect cell stated in his dialogue with Piccolo that the spy robots that pick up dna samples of fighter was also being used to track how strong each person was and transfer it a central computer which would then relay the information to Cell. In regards to android 16, we do not know if he even existed in Cell or F. trunks timeline as it would be quite strange that the machine would leave out such crucial info on another android while giving Cell info on everyone else. You are right that the machine may not have been up to date real time, but the fact that Trunks data is recorded into the machine indicates that the machine was self updating itself regularly enough.

The androids getting weaker from an accident was never really stated, we can infer that could be a possible cause but its a theory. We do know that the androids have unlimited energy supply and stamina and seem to be self sufficient. The fact that doctor gero is able send info to cell on how strong the androids are and the spy robots he made are use to track everyone's else power that it stands to considerable reason that he would have outfitted these robots with the same "android scanner" to detect if they were breaking down.

Except Vegeta never matched android 18's strength. 18 later on refers to vegeta as a weakling when she talks about his new strength against Semi-perfect cell indicating that he was not a match for her. In regards to gohan and trunks, the androids are aware of the output they are using to beat them and so would be very aware if they were getting strong enough to be a threat. 17 still referring to trunks a a "toy" after their last encounter and is confident that 18 alone could defeat him. This goes against trunk's statement of him being able to fight them together fairy well.

[MechaTrunks]

Well here is the thing. Bulma states that it takes 8 months to gather energy for the time machine to make a round trip. We also know that the time Cell comes from is 3 years into the future from the time period that the Trunks in the andriod saga came from. So for the very least, we know that the Trunks that cell kills and takes the machine from is much older and had multiple opportunities to go back in time.

We also know that by Piccolo's inference of why trunks would set the machine to go to the past after destroying 17 and 18 that at the time of his death that this Trunks had at least made 1 trip in the past, defeated frieza and king cold and introduced himself to everyone else.

Yes, original Future Trunks also goes to the past and fights against Mecha and King Cold. Here's the thing, that Trunks, after having fought Mecha and Cold, takes different decisions once he arrives at his future than the Trunks in our timeline.
So, anything that made Trunks act differently, it had to happen during an alternate fight vs Mecha and Cold that happened differently than the one we saw in our timeline.

Yes, the Trunks that Cell kills is older than the one that travels back for the 2nd time in our TL, but that doesn't mean he could in any way know anything about Guero's lab or secret lab.

Also, Trunks claim of fighting android 17 and 18 "fairly well" is put into question upon his return after the cell games. Based on android 17 and 18's reaction to trunks and 17 calling him a "toy" and being confident that android 18 alone could defeat trunks in battle puts into heavy question that Trunks could have fought them fairly well.

They're cocky as always (it goes with their personality) and assuming Trunks wasn't stronger, they would have an easy win (even if Trunks managed to match them for a few minutes in the beginning of the fight).

Even if the androids could not detect that trunks was improving and getting better, they were confident that one of them alone could beat him. And even were self aware enough of their own power to know how much effort they were putting in to defeat them. Thus, they can very well track trunk's improvement by looking at the amount of effort they have to put into to stop them.

It happens a lot of times in DB that a fighter gets over confident, and Trunks had no means to kill them (that they were aware of, at least).
Furhtermore, in the manga things happen differently. Yes, A18 is the first to attack, but unlike in the anime where Trunks beats her and she fights alone for a few rounds before A17 decides to act, in the manga Trunks dispatches her with a single Ki blast before A17 even has time to react and then kills A17 in two hits.

Manga androids were also confident but A17 was there watching for her sister the whole time unlike in the anime where he still was cocky after seeing how A18 was being beaten.

In regards to how the info is passed. Imperfect cell stated in his dialogue with Piccolo that the spy robots that pick up dna samples of fighter was also being used to track how strong each person was and transfer it a central computer which would then relay the information to Cell.

Yeah, but that is a normal Ki sensor. This robot wasn't designed to track the androids but life beings.

In regards to android 16, we do not know if he even existed in Cell or F. trunks timeline as it would be quite strange that the machine would leave out such crucial info on another android while giving Cell info on everyone else.

A16 is an older model so he existed. It's implied that the androids never activated it (if Guero had plans to activate 17 and 18 it's only logic that he would hide it) but the thing is, it had to exist just because if A16 wasn't there, future A17 would've been A16 in that timeline.

You are right that the machine may not have been up to date real time, but the fact that Trunks data is recorded into the machine indicates that the machine was self updating itself regularly enough.

But that is just valid regarding the life beings the machine went after.
The machine detected big Kis and followed them, androids doesn't have Kis and since Guero was killed by A17 and A18, there was no one able to update anything anymore.

The androids getting weaker from an accident was never really stated, we can infer that could be a possible cause but its a theory.

Yes, of course, that's just speculation.
The only stated facts that we know because the manga tells us is that the future androids were weaker, that the fight between Cold & Goku was not an easy one (Goku had to resort to the KK to win) and that Guero's plans got halted to a point where he had to discard making A19 and turning himself into A20 besides making A17 and A18 weaker than expected.
Since those two events CAN be connected (it doesn't mean they had to be) and we don't have any other explanation as on why did Guero change his plans so much, I think that's what Toriyama had on mind when writting that saga. Of course, it's just my deductions and not 100% stated facts.

We do know that the androids have unlimited energy supply and stamina and seem to be self sufficient. The fact that doctor gero is able send info to cell on how strong the androids are and the spy robots he made are use to track everyone's else power that it stands to considerable reason that he would have outfitted these robots with the same "android scanner" to detect if they were breaking down.

The prove that he didn't do this is that those two androids killed him because he didn't program them properly and rebeled against him.
I mean, if he didn't even put a "you can't kill me" instruction like in Robocop, what makes you think he would be as careful as to prepare in case their unlimited energy androids got weaker by an accident?

He could've done it if he thought on it, but he wasn't this kind of character. He was a genius, but carefuleness wasn't in his vocabulary for what we know of him.

Except Vegeta never matched android 18's strength. 18 later on refers to vegeta as a weakling when she talks about his new strength against Semi-perfect cell indicating that he was not a match for her.

Except he clearly did. In his fight against A18, A18 got serious, A17 admited that A18 wouldn't be able to win if Vegeta had received any help and all the z-warriors agree in that SSJ Vegeta is as strong as A18 when he fights her seriously.
It's just that once he gets a bit tired the android starts to gain ground, and it soon reaches a point where Vegeta is nothing to her.

What A18 says is that Vegeta could do nothing against her (which is true), but in terms of peak power, SSJ Vegeta matched her.


Regards!

[Seekeroftruth]

Well here is the thing. Bulma states that it takes 8 months to gather energy for the time machine to make a round trip. We also know that the time Cell comes from is 3 years into the future from the time period that the Trunks in the andriod saga came from. So for the very least, we know that the Trunks that cell kills and takes the machine from is much older and had multiple opportunities to go back in time.

We also know that by Piccolo's inference of why trunks would set the machine to go to the past after destroying 17 and 18 that at the time of his death that this Trunks had at least made 1 trip in the past, defeated frieza and king cold and introduced himself to everyone else.

Yes, original Future Trunks also goes to the past and fights against Mecha and King Cold. Here's the thing, that Trunks, after having fought Mecha and Cold, takes different decisions once he arrives at his future than the Trunks in our timeline.
So, anything that made Trunks act differently, it had to happen during an alternate fight vs Mecha and Cold that happened differently than the one we saw in our timeline.

Yes, the Trunks that Cell kills is older than the one that travels back for the 2nd time in our TL, but that doesn't mean he could in any way know anything about Guero's lab or secret lab.

Also, Trunks claim of fighting android 17 and 18 "fairly well" is put into question upon his return after the cell games. Based on android 17 and 18's reaction to trunks and 17 calling him a "toy" and being confident that android 18 alone could defeat trunks in battle puts into heavy question that Trunks could have fought them fairly well.

They're cocky as always (it goes with their personality) and assuming Trunks wasn't stronger, they would have an easy win (even if Trunks managed to match them for a few minutes in the beginning of the fight).

Even if the androids could not detect that trunks was improving and getting better, they were confident that one of them alone could beat him. And even were self aware enough of their own power to know how much effort they were putting in to defeat them. Thus, they can very well track trunk's improvement by looking at the amount of effort they have to put into to stop them.

It happens a lot of times in DB that a fighter gets over confident, and Trunks had no means to kill them (that they were aware of, at least).
Furhtermore, in the manga things happen differently. Yes, A18 is the first to attack, but unlike in the anime where Trunks beats her and she fights alone for a few rounds before A17 decides to act, in the manga Trunks dispatches her with a single Ki blast before A17 even has time to react and then kills A17 in two hits.

Manga androids were also confident but A17 was there watching for her sister the whole time unlike in the anime where he still was cocky after seeing how A18 was being beaten.

In regards to how the info is passed. Imperfect cell stated in his dialogue with Piccolo that the spy robots that pick up dna samples of fighter was also being used to track how strong each person was and transfer it a central computer which would then relay the information to Cell.

Yeah, but that is a normal Ki sensor. This robot wasn't designed to track the androids but life beings.

In regards to android 16, we do not know if he even existed in Cell or F. trunks timeline as it would be quite strange that the machine would leave out such crucial info on another android while giving Cell info on everyone else.

A16 is an older model so he existed. It's implied that the androids never activated it (if Guero had plans to activate 17 and 18 it's only logic that he would hide it) but the thing is, it had to exist just because if A16 wasn't there, future A17 would've been A16 in that timeline.

You are right that the machine may not have been up to date real time, but the fact that Trunks data is recorded into the machine indicates that the machine was self updating itself regularly enough.

But that is just valid regarding the life beings the machine went after.
The machine detected big Kis and followed them, androids doesn't have Kis and since Guero was killed by A17 and A18, there was no one able to update anything anymore.

The androids getting weaker from an accident was never really stated, we can infer that could be a possible cause but its a theory.

Yes, of course, that's just speculation.
The only stated facts that we know because the manga tells us is that the future androids were weaker, that the fight between Cold & Goku was not an easy one (Goku had to resort to the KK to win) and that Guero's plans got halted to a point where he had to discard making A19 and turning himself into A20 besides making A17 and A18 weaker than expected.
Since those two events CAN be connected (it doesn't mean they had to be) and we don't have any other explanation as on why did Guero change his plans so much, I think that's what Toriyama had on mind when writting that saga. Of course, it's just my deductions and not 100% stated facts.

We do know that the androids have unlimited energy supply and stamina and seem to be self sufficient. The fact that doctor gero is able send info to cell on how strong the androids are and the spy robots he made are use to track everyone's else power that it stands to considerable reason that he would have outfitted these robots with the same "android scanner" to detect if they were breaking down.

The prove that he didn't do this is that those two androids killed him because he didn't program them properly and rebeled against him.
I mean, if he didn't even put a "you can't kill me" instruction like in Robocop, what makes you think he would be as careful as to prepare in case their unlimited energy androids got weaker by an accident?

He could've done it if he thought on it, but he wasn't this kind of character. He was a genius, but carefuleness wasn't in his vocabulary for what we know of him.

Except Vegeta never matched android 18's strength. 18 later on refers to vegeta as a weakling when she talks about his new strength against Semi-perfect cell indicating that he was not a match for her.

Except he clearly did. In his fight against A18, A18 got serious, A17 admited that A18 wouldn't be able to win if Vegeta had received any help and all the z-warriors agree in that SSJ Vegeta is as strong as A18 when he fights her seriously.
It's just that once he gets a bit tired the android starts to gain ground, and it soon reaches a point where Vegeta is nothing to her.

What A18 says is that Vegeta could do nothing against her (which is true), but in terms of peak power, SSJ Vegeta matched her.


Regards!

Here is the thing though. There are too many unknown to make the following assumptions as you have made.

We know the following. It is heavily implied by Piccolo (and not disputed by cell) that as you correctly pointed out, Trunks did go back in time and defeat King Cold and Frieza. We know that the Trunks, cell kill is 3 years older than the trunks that had returned a 2nd time in the past to fight the Androids.

This means that we have a big gap in time where it is very possible that Trunks could have made a 2nd trip into the past. Assuming he did not would be silly since defeating Frieza and King Cold would not have given him that zenkai you spoke about and in his dialogue with Goku he calls the androids incredibly strong which indicates a big gap between him and them. We also know that the time machine takes for the very least 8 months to charge. So it is highly likely that Trunk's would have had an opportunity to make a second trip into the past.


In regards to your second point. The androids are cocky but they are not idiots. You suggested that the androids would be unaware of Trunk and Gohan's improvement but as was shown with Gohan, the androids are self aware of their own energy output to pick up on whether they were improving. By Trunks return to the future and 17 calling him a fool for fighting them again, referring to him as a "toy" and being self assured that 18 alone could kill him then it discredits trunk's claim to fighting them fairly well. If Trunks claim were to hold true then it would be implied he could at least put up a good fight against them together but with 1 being enough to kill him then its highly likely they were holding back as they did with Gohan. Trunk's claim also becomes further discredited when we see that both him and F. Gohan were basically guessing as to whether they were strong enough to beat 17 and 18.

The spy robots main function was to obtain DNA samples and send it to Cell, but imperfect cell also points out that the robots can detect strength levels of people and then relay the information to the central computer than then transferred it to Cell.We do not know if the robots could not detect the strength level of the androids or even used a ki reader to track power levels. What we do know is that the machine is able to tell cell the androids strength which then implies that there was some means of measuring how strong they were and relaying that information to Cell. It is entirely possible that the spy robots would have had that info integrated into them as well.

Also, in regards to your Android 16 we do not know if he existed in this timeline, we can make a possible suggestion that he did exist and was never activated but with Cell not knowing it is possible he did not exist. The machine purposely leaving out info on another android would not make much sense, especially seeing that android could pose a possibly threat to cell.

I don't think it was ever stated that goku had used the kai-o-ken to win against King Cold and Frieza; Goku had learnt to transform in SS at will at this point. Up to point that Trunk's intervenes, everything between both timelines played out the exact same way. Thus, Goku's strength that he demonstrated to trunks should not have been affected. We know that from their sparring match, Goku is quite capable to output the same amount of power that Trunks had used to defeat Frieza and King Cold. Therefore, the battle between Son Goku, Frieza and King Cold would have had a similar outcome as we saw with Trunks. Goku i believe even states that he would be willing to kill Frieza this time around rather than sparring him as he did not change his ways.

The androids killing Dr. Gero does not discredit the hardware capabilities of the android and would be more in line with programming/software aspect of it. An argument could be made for them breaking down due to the wear of time though with no one to service them but again the evidence we have could also suggest that nothing happened to them and Trunks was just ignorant of their full strength.

Except 18 by her own conversation with 16 states that vegeta was weak and questions how he got so much power (with regards to Super vegeta). When Android 18 is engaging with vegeta she even ask him if Son Goku was as strong as him and when he said no, she stated she would not have to worry about either of them. In addition, 17 never states that with their combine power that 18 would be in trouble as he himself dispatches all of them rather easily. What he does say is that he does not want Vegeta's friends butting into their battle. It was never stated that 18 was ever endanger.

[MechaTrunks]

Here is the thing though. There are too many unknown to make the following assumptions as you have made.

Of course the whole explanation requires a bit of imagination, but there's no doubt that the future androids were weaker than the present ones and Trunks being able to fight them fairly well was also a stated fact.

When speculating we can only try to guess what the manga doesn't tell us, but of course, if the manga tells us something went in a certain way we can't contradict it with just speculations.

We know the following. It is heavily implied by Piccolo (and not disputed by cell) that as you correctly pointed out, Trunks did go back in time and defeat King Cold and Frieza. We know that the Trunks, cell kill is 3 years older than the trunks that had returned a 2nd time in the past to fight the Androids.

This means that we have a big gap in time where it is very possible that Trunks could have made a 2nd trip into the past. Assuming he did not would be silly since defeating Frieza and King Cold would not have given him that zenkai you spoke about and in his dialogue with Goku he calls the androids incredibly strong which indicates a big gap between him and them. We also know that the time machine takes for the very least 8 months to charge. So it is highly likely that Trunk's would have had an opportunity to make a second trip into the past.

Something being possible doesn't mean it happened. If future Trunks had travelled more than once to the past, Toriyama would've told us without any kind of doubt.
Arguing that maybe Trunks made 2 or more time travels to the past (it still wouldn't solve the fact that he didn't know nothing about Guero's lab and there still was no future Cell in that timeline to explain it to him) is going too far in my opinion, because those time travels were never hinted anywhere.

In regards to your second point. The androids are cocky but they are not idiots. You suggested that the androids would be unaware of Trunk and Gohan's improvement but as was shown with Gohan, the androids are self aware of their own energy output to pick up on whether they were improving.

They weren't self aware of their own energy when they fought Gohan, they were cocky and they simply proved their cockyness to be true. Had Gohan appeared in front of them with the SSJ2, they would've told him the exact same things.

By Trunks return to the future and 17 calling him a fool for fighting them again, referring to him as a "toy" and being self assured that 18 alone could kill him then it discredits trunk's claim to fighting them fairly well.

The androids are psycopaths in the future, but both present A17 and future A17 enjoyed a good fight. For 17 if someone wasn't strong enough he wouldn't even be a toy.
In fact, A17 also spoke of Kami-Piccolo as a "fun game" as well and constantly reminded him how fun it was to fight.

If Trunks claim were to hold true then it would be implied he could at least put up a good fight against them together but with 1 being enough to kill him then its highly likely they were holding back as they did with Gohan. Trunk's claim also becomes further discredited when we see that both him and F. Gohan were basically guessing as to whether they were strong enough to beat 17 and 18.

Of course his claim was true, I mean, he had no reason to lie at that point.
It's you who gives too much weight at A17 saying that Trunks was a fun toy (or a fun game), but A17 also said this in the Present regarding Kami-Sama who was clearly at his same league!

We do not know if the robots could not detect the strength level of the androids or even used a ki reader to track power levels. What we do know is that the machine is able to tell cell the androids strength which then implies that there was some means of measuring how strong they were and relaying that information to Cell. It is entirely possible that the spy robots would have had that info integrated into them as well.

We know that they don't know anything that Guero didn't want them to know and that A17 & A18 can't track energies.
We also know that Cell CAN'T track them, as he guesses their location following Piccolo's Ki and not any kind of signal the androids gave.

All in all, I think that your speculations are well reasoned, but the problem is that you try to contradict what the manga tells you with them.
The manga can only be considered at fault when there's no possible way to justify what it says (for example, when Cell gave Piccolo's Cells as an excuse to regenerate but then Piccolo in the Bu saga says that had his head been destroyed he would have been dead), but when there's a way to explain what happened without contradicting, then that's the way to go.

Also, in regards to your Android 16 we do not know if he existed in this timeline, we can make a possible suggestion that he did exist and was never activated but with Cell not knowing it is possible he did not exist. The machine purposely leaving out info on another android would not make much sense, especially seeing that android could pose a possibly threat to cell

If a change in the TL had made Guero not make A16, then A17 in the future would have been called A16.
The fact that the androids have the exact same numeration in the Present than in the future already proves A16 existence there.
It wasn't activated so:
A. He was destroyed with the lab when Guero was killed.
B. He's still dormant on Guero's basement.

I don't think it was ever stated that goku had used the kai-o-ken to win against King Cold and Frieza; Goku had learnt to transform in SS at will at this point. Up to point that Trunk's intervenes, everything between both timelines played out the exact same way. Thus, Goku's strength that he demonstrated to trunks should not have been affected. We know that from their sparring match, Goku is quite capable to output the same amount of power that Trunks had used to defeat Frieza and King Cold. Therefore, the battle between Son Goku, Frieza and King Cold would have had a similar outcome as we saw with Trunks. Goku i believe even states that he would be willing to kill Frieza this time around rather than sparring him as he did not change his ways.

Yes, Goku had the same power he showed when Trunks appeared, which would put him at Namek Goku KKx10 levels of power more or less.
We know the fight had to be hard and the KK had to be used because future Goku gets ill BEFORE in the future TL, and we also know that stressing the body accelerates the illness.
We also know that Goku trained those 3 years with Piccolo and Gohan, so he probably went SSJ tons of times more than he did in the future TL.

The androids killing Dr. Gero does not discredit the hardware capabilities of the android and would be more in line with programming/software aspect of it.

And if Guero manually entered the data to their computers? Since it's energy that can't be measured by normal radars, maybe he did his own calculations and simply introduced his numbers like we do when designing robots in the real world.
The thing is, Cell knew Present A17 and A18 strenght, not his future counterparts. How we explain this, is up to us.

Except 18 by her own conversation with 16 states that vegeta was weak and questions how he got so much power (with regards to Super vegeta).

She states that Vegeta wasn't rival for her, in general, and that was true. But this doesn't contradict the fact that Vegeta in terms of pure peak strength was able to match her as stated by everyone that saw that fight.

When Android 18 is engaging with vegeta she even ask him if Son Goku was as strong as him and when he said no, she stated she would not have to worry about either of them.

Because she clearly was the superior fighter, it's just that this superiority didn't come from having more strength than Vegeta but from having unlimited energy coupled with a comparable strength.

In addition, 17 never states that with their combine power that 18 would be in trouble as he himself dispatches all of them rather easily. What he does say is that he does not want Vegeta's friends butting into their battle. It was never stated that 18 was ever endanger.

This is factually wrong, we have what 17 says translated in this very same page in fact!

Chapter: 353 (DBZ 159), P1.1-3
Context: after Trunks, Piccolo, Tenshinhan, and Kuririn arrive
No.17: “My my, some help has arrived. Even No.18 probably won’t be able to take them all on. No choice, shall I go? Or will you go, No.16?”

And regarding Vegeta matching A18 in power, this is what the z-warriors say:

Chapter: 353 (DBZ 159), P12.3-6
Trunks: “Am-amazing! I hadn’t realized that father was this strong…! To think that he’s able to fight on par with that outrageous android…!”
Piccolo: “Vegeta’s going to be killed…[ ] Watch…Bit by bit, the android is starting to push him back. It’s because his enemy’s power never falls at all, while Vegeta’s stamina falls the more he moves.”

The reason Vegeta lost is because his power fell while the Android's power remained always at maximum, but both A17 and the Z-warriors confirm that Vegeta was paired with A18 when it came to pure strength.


Regards!

[Seekeroftruth]

Here is the thing though. There are too many unknown to make the following assumptions as you have made.

Of course the whole explanation requires a bit of imagination, but there's no doubt that the future androids were weaker than the present ones and Trunks being able to fight them fairly well was also a stated fact.

When speculating we can only try to guess what the manga doesn't tell us, but of course, if the manga tells us something went in a certain way we can't contradict it with just speculations.

We know the following. It is heavily implied by Piccolo (and not disputed by cell) that as you correctly pointed out, Trunks did go back in time and defeat King Cold and Frieza. We know that the Trunks, cell kill is 3 years older than the trunks that had returned a 2nd time in the past to fight the Androids.

This means that we have a big gap in time where it is very possible that Trunks could have made a 2nd trip into the past. Assuming he did not would be silly since defeating Frieza and King Cold would not have given him that zenkai you spoke about and in his dialogue with Goku he calls the androids incredibly strong which indicates a big gap between him and them. We also know that the time machine takes for the very least 8 months to charge. So it is highly likely that Trunk's would have had an opportunity to make a second trip into the past.

Something being possible doesn't mean it happened. If future Trunks had travelled more than once to the past, Toriyama would've told us without any kind of doubt.
Arguing that maybe Trunks made 2 or more time travels to the past (it still wouldn't solve the fact that he didn't know nothing about Guero's lab and there still was no future Cell in that timeline to explain it to him) is going too far in my opinion, because those time travels were never hinted anywhere.

In regards to your second point. The androids are cocky but they are not idiots. You suggested that the androids would be unaware of Trunk and Gohan's improvement but as was shown with Gohan, the androids are self aware of their own energy output to pick up on whether they were improving.

They weren't self aware of their own energy when they fought Gohan, they were cocky and they simply proved their cockyness to be true. Had Gohan appeared in front of them with the SSJ2, they would've told him the exact same things.

By Trunks return to the future and 17 calling him a fool for fighting them again, referring to him as a "toy" and being self assured that 18 alone could kill him then it discredits trunk's claim to fighting them fairly well.

The androids are psycopaths in the future, but both present A17 and future A17 enjoyed a good fight. For 17 if someone wasn't strong enough he wouldn't even be a toy.
In fact, A17 also spoke of Kami-Piccolo as a "fun game" as well and constantly reminded him how fun it was to fight.

If Trunks claim were to hold true then it would be implied he could at least put up a good fight against them together but with 1 being enough to kill him then its highly likely they were holding back as they did with Gohan. Trunk's claim also becomes further discredited when we see that both him and F. Gohan were basically guessing as to whether they were strong enough to beat 17 and 18.

Of course his claim was true, I mean, he had no reason to lie at that point.
It's you who gives too much weight at A17 saying that Trunks was a fun toy (or a fun game), but A17 also said this in the Present regarding Kami-Sama who was clearly at his same league!

We do not know if the robots could not detect the strength level of the androids or even used a ki reader to track power levels. What we do know is that the machine is able to tell cell the androids strength which then implies that there was some means of measuring how strong they were and relaying that information to Cell. It is entirely possible that the spy robots would have had that info integrated into them as well.

We know that they don't know anything that Guero didn't want them to know and that A17 & A18 can't track energies.
We also know that Cell CAN'T track them, as he guesses their location following Piccolo's Ki and not any kind of signal the androids gave.

All in all, I think that your speculations are well reasoned, but the problem is that you try to contradict what the manga tells you with them.
The manga can only be considered at fault when there's no possible way to justify what it says (for example, when Cell gave Piccolo's Cells as an excuse to regenerate but then Piccolo in the Bu saga says that had his head been destroyed he would have been dead), but when there's a way to explain what happened without contradicting, then that's the way to go.

Also, in regards to your Android 16 we do not know if he existed in this timeline, we can make a possible suggestion that he did exist and was never activated but with Cell not knowing it is possible he did not exist. The machine purposely leaving out info on another android would not make much sense, especially seeing that android could pose a possibly threat to cell

If a change in the TL had made Guero not make A16, then A17 in the future would have been called A16.
The fact that the androids have the exact same numeration in the Present than in the future already proves A16 existence there.
It wasn't activated so:
A. He was destroyed with the lab when Guero was killed.
B. He's still dormant on Guero's basement.

I don't think it was ever stated that goku had used the kai-o-ken to win against King Cold and Frieza; Goku had learnt to transform in SS at will at this point. Up to point that Trunk's intervenes, everything between both timelines played out the exact same way. Thus, Goku's strength that he demonstrated to trunks should not have been affected. We know that from their sparring match, Goku is quite capable to output the same amount of power that Trunks had used to defeat Frieza and King Cold. Therefore, the battle between Son Goku, Frieza and King Cold would have had a similar outcome as we saw with Trunks. Goku i believe even states that he would be willing to kill Frieza this time around rather than sparring him as he did not change his ways.

Yes, Goku had the same power he showed when Trunks appeared, which would put him at Namek Goku KKx10 levels of power more or less.
We know the fight had to be hard and the KK had to be used because future Goku gets ill BEFORE in the future TL, and we also know that stressing the body accelerates the illness.
We also know that Goku trained those 3 years with Piccolo and Gohan, so he probably went SSJ tons of times more than he did in the future TL.

The androids killing Dr. Gero does not discredit the hardware capabilities of the android and would be more in line with programming/software aspect of it.

And if Guero manually entered the data to their computers? Since it's energy that can't be measured by normal radars, maybe he did his own calculations and simply introduced his numbers like we do when designing robots in the real world.
The thing is, Cell knew Present A17 and A18 strenght, not his future counterparts. How we explain this, is up to us.

Except 18 by her own conversation with 16 states that vegeta was weak and questions how he got so much power (with regards to Super vegeta).

She states that Vegeta wasn't rival for her, in general, and that was true. But this doesn't contradict the fact that Vegeta in terms of pure peak strength was able to match her as stated by everyone that saw that fight.

When Android 18 is engaging with vegeta she even ask him if Son Goku was as strong as him and when he said no, she stated she would not have to worry about either of them.

Because she clearly was the superior fighter, it's just that this superiority didn't come from having more strength than Vegeta but from having unlimited energy coupled with a comparable strength.

In addition, 17 never states that with their combine power that 18 would be in trouble as he himself dispatches all of them rather easily. What he does say is that he does not want Vegeta's friends butting into their battle. It was never stated that 18 was ever endanger.

This is factually wrong, we have what 17 says translated in this very same page in fact!

Chapter: 353 (DBZ 159), P1.1-3
Context: after Trunks, Piccolo, Tenshinhan, and Kuririn arrive
No.17: “My my, some help has arrived. Even No.18 probably won’t be able to take them all on. No choice, shall I go? Or will you go, No.16?”

And regarding Vegeta matching A18 in power, this is what the z-warriors say:

Chapter: 353 (DBZ 159), P12.3-6
Trunks: “Am-amazing! I hadn’t realized that father was this strong…! To think that he’s able to fight on par with that outrageous android…!”
Piccolo: “Vegeta’s going to be killed…[ ] Watch…Bit by bit, the android is starting to push him back. It’s because his enemy’s power never falls at all, while Vegeta’s stamina falls the more he moves.”

The reason Vegeta lost is because his power fell while the Android's power remained always at maximum, but both A17 and the Z-warriors confirm that Vegeta was paired with A18 when it came to pure strength.


Regards!

But there is doubt that F. Trunks was weaker than the androids in the future because:

1. We see that both Trunks and Gohan are not accurate sources of the assessment of the androids strength. This is evident by the fact that both warriors thought they had amassed sufficient power to defeat the androids and were proven wrong. Thus affecting their statement of credibility.

2. We also know that by Gohan believing himself to be strong enough to defeat the andriods and then being told by F. 17 that he was not using even 1/2 his max power that the andriods have a way to detect trunks and Gohan strength in relations to the amount of effort they were putting in and also that they were holding back. And i don't think they were cocky or bluffing because 17 is shown alone to be rushing towards Gohan with 17 laughing, indicating that it was not out of cockiness.

3. Except Toriyama does not necessarily tell us a lot of things from Cells timeline and just gives us enough clues that cell's timeline is rather similar to that of F. Trunks with a splitting point where cell kills trunks and goes back in time. Toriyama having cell state that he does not know how trunks killed the andriods and then not long after mentioning the remote strongly suggest that the androids in this timeline were defeated by the remote.

4. Yes the android 17 does tell Cell that he is enjoying his battle with Piccolo and to buzz off and even made sure that the rest of vegeta's friends do not intevene in that the battle so they could watch the fight between him and 18. However, the fact that 17 does not look worried at all and is confident that 18 alone can kill trunks shoots down the idea that trunks was able to fight them fairly well (implying he could take both of them on at the same time).

5. Also, I am not saying that Trunks is lying. What i am saying that Trunks could very well be misinformed of his standings with respect to the androids due to them showing in the past to intentionally hold back.

6. It would make more logical sense for the machine to inform cell of android 16's presence. The reason being that android 16 was shown to be on par with powered up cell which means that if he were ever activated, he could pose a threat to Cell's goal of becoming complete. Telling Cell of 16's presence (if he existed) would be reasonable thing for the machine to do. After all, even trunk's who was not an actual threat to Cell was told by him by the machine. Also with your regards to 17 being called 16, it is possible that he was created and scraped, it is possible he was destroyed in lab and yes it is possible that Android 16 could still be in the lab (if this one was true then cell should be aware of his creation).

7.I'm not following your logic with Goku. Trunks turned into SSJ and said the sword attacks that he had tried on Goku were the same level as the ones that he inflicted on Frieza. Before Trunks intervene, there was no deviation between trunk's and goku's timeline meaning the power that Goku displayed was the level he had in Trunks timeline. Thus, Goku has the capabilities to defeat Frieza and King Cold in a similar fashion to trunks. The battle would not have been a devastating as you said.

8.Well the thing is that it is possible that Android 17 and 18 strength could have been calculated and uploaded to cell.

9. Except Vegeta was not a rival for her. She basically said that Vegeta would not be someone to worry about which is not something you would tell a rival. But it had nothing to do with being the superior fighter, 18 in her private conversation with 16 told him that she thought vegeta was weak. This is not something that you would say of a rival.

10. Thank you for pointing out 17's panel. I missed that. As you pointed out. The androids cannot sense ki energy and it is entirely possible that 17 thought that the other warriors were somewhat comparable in power to Vegeta that their inclusion into the fight would sway the battle in Vegeta's favor. However, we see this is not the case as 18 easily breaks Trunk's sword, which is then proceeded by 17 knocking him down followed by him easily dispatching Tien and Piccolo with single attacks.

11.Piccolo's statement when looked into the context and the manga seems to mean that 18 is utilizing power on par with vegeta, however she is slowly pushing him back and winning the fight. It does not mean that she was using her max. Especially seeing that we know that 17 is only somewhat stronger than 18. This would mean that if 17 could fight the likes of Kamicolo to an evenly match that 18 max power should be closer to him. In addition,if we assume that cell's data is in relation to the present timeline andriods then by his statement of Piccolo being the only one that can fight them would imply that someone of vegeta's power level at the time would have been inadequate.

[MechaTrunks]

But there is doubt that F. Trunks was weaker than the androids in the future because:

1. We see that both Trunks and Gohan are not accurate sources of the assessment of the androids strength. This is evident by the fact that both warriors thought they had amassed sufficient power to defeat the androids and were proven wrong. Thus affecting their statement of credibility.

They can't detect the android's KI, but Gohan was never convinced he could win, that's why he left Trunks out of the battle. He didn't know to which extent the androids had been hiding their power but he surely knew how dangerous they were.

2. We also know that by Gohan believing himself to be strong enough to defeat the andriods and then being told by F. 17 that he was not using even 1/2 his max power that the andriods have a way to detect trunks and Gohan strength in relations to the amount of effort they were putting in and also that they were holding back. And i don't think they were cocky or bluffing because 17 is shown alone to be rushing towards Gohan with 17 laughing, indicating that it was not out of cockiness.

??? A17 only says he used half his strength in his last fight (a fight we don't even see), nothing about detecting Gohan's power which is obvious they couldn't do.
And cockiness is A17's main personality trait (we never saw that fight, we don't know if Gohan was able to put a good fight against both androids like he did in the anime ova for example, but we can asume he did if he was at Trunk's level when he came back).

3. Except Toriyama does not necessarily tell us a lot of things from Cells timeline and just gives us enough clues that cell's timeline is rather similar to that of F. Trunks with a splitting point where cell kills trunks and goes back in time. Toriyama having cell state that he does not know how trunks killed the andriods and then not long after mentioning the remote strongly suggest that the androids in this timeline were defeated by the remote.

If Cell's data was that of the present androids him not knowing how Trunks killed those androids is only normal, but we have already been told by Trunks that future androids were weaker and that he could fight them fairly well.

With the control remote theory you're contradicting Trunk's words and forcing a much more implausible course of events -Trunks suddenly finding things he didn't know even existed-.

If Toriyama had wanted the future androids to be stronger than Trunks he had no need to make Trunks say what he said. I mean, Trunks had already established the future androids as two unstoppable monsters much stronger than him when he first came to the past to warn the z-warriors.
And he had no need to retcon this after the fight with the present androids if this wasn't true. I can understand Trunks exaggerating the strength of the androids in his first meeting with Goku because what he really wanted was to create a TL where the world wasn't destroyed, so him exaggerating their strength to make sure that Goku & co would be as prepared as possible was the best course of action.
And him telling them the truth after the present androids turn to be much stronger than the future ones also makes a lot of sense, since that piece of info was important at that point.
Toriyama specifically made Trunks retcon the future android's strength to justify how Trunks could've killed the future androids in his TL, he wouldn't have made Trunks say that if there wasn't a plot purpose.

4. Yes the android 17 does tell Cell that he is enjoying his battle with Piccolo and to buzz off and even made sure that the rest of vegeta's friends do not intevene in that the battle so they could watch the fight between him and 18. However, the fact that 17 does not look worried at all and is confident that 18 alone can kill trunks shoots down the idea that trunks was able to fight them fairly well (implying he could take both of them on at the same time).

A17 was convinced that Trunks could never dispatch A18 in a single Ki blast, that's it.
He just let A18 make the first move, they had unlimited energy so any non fatal injury that A18 could have taken would have been negated, so from his POV there was no reason to not let A18 act as she did.

This doesn't contradict the statment Trunks made about them at all, it only does it if we interpret it in the way you do, but there can be tons of reasons on why A17 and A18 acted how they did besides them being much stronger that Trunks.

5. Also, I am not saying that Trunks is lying. What i am saying that Trunks could very well be misinformed of his standings with respect to the androids due to them showing in the past to intentionally hold back.

There's no logical reason as to why Trunks could have had a more accurate image of the android's power the first time he came from the future than the second one.
You don't make a character retconn something he said in the past if that new info isn't meant to be the valid one, and if we look at Trunks as a character and his goals, he had no reason to retconn the information he had given to them if he wasn't sure of what he was saying.

And even if one can't detect Kis, it's very easy to tell if soemone is fighting with everything he's got or if he is still hiding more strength.
Besides, I don't remember a single instance of a fighter playing with another one and the other fighter not realising it even after the fight has ended.

6. It would make more sense for the machine to inform cell of android 16's presence. The reason being that android 16 was shown to be on par with powered up cell which means that if he were ever activated, he could pose a threat to Cell's goal of becoming complete. Telling Cell of 16's presence (if he existed) would be reasonable thing for the machine to do. After all, even trunk's who was not an actual threat to Cell was told by him by the machine. Also with your regards to 17 being called 16, it is possible that he was created and scraped, it is possible he was destroyed in lab and yes it is possible that Android 16 could still be in the lab (if this one was true then cell should be aware of his creation).

A16 never went online in the future, but he surely existed in the Future Timeline as well becasue A17 is still A17 (A16 not being activated or destroyed is the most plausible explanation of Trunks not knowing about him).
And Guero didn't inform Cell about A16 because we see that Cell simply doesn't have any info on him.

7.I'm not following your logic with Goku. Trunks turned into SSJ and said the sword attacks that he had tried on Goku were the same level as the ones that he inflicted on Frieza. Before Trunks intervene, there was no deviation between trunk's and goku's timeline meaning the power that Goku displayed was the level he had in Trunks timeline. Thus, Goku has the capabilities to defeat Frieza and King Cold in a similar fashion to trunks. The battle would not have been a devastating as you said.

Goku & Trunks were equal in strength, true, but the difference is that Trunks killed Cold before Cold could use his true form (which Cold refuses to do in the TL we see due to a misunderstandment regarding Freeza's strength and Trunk's sword).
But Goku wouldn't have acted like Trunks. He probably would've told Freeza the miserable state he was in and gave them the opportunity to run, only for King Cold to fight him at full strength and not trying any stupid sword trick (and we know from the fight against Freeza that Cold was between 25%-50% Freeza's power, which puts him in that seetspot where he can be above a SSJ but still be defeated with the KKx20).

All in all, what we know is that stress accelerates the illnes, that there's only 1 technique that puts more stress on Goku's body than going into unmastered SSJ (the KK) and that Goku got ill 6 months later in the present TimeLine despite him having spent the last 3 years training nonstop with Piccolo and Gohan (as a SSJ, of course).

There's only one point in the story where such situation (Goku being forced to use the KK because the SSJ wouldn't be enough) could've happened, which is in the fight against Cold & Mecha.

8.Well the thing is that it is possible that Android 17 and 18 strength could have been calculated and uploaded to cell.

Possible, but the problem is that it doesn't accomodate the stated facts.
Cell had the info of Present A17 & A18 despite him being future Cell and his androids being weaker. That means that he wasn't updated.
The reason this happened or if us as Guero woduld've acted differently doesn't negate the fact that future Cell had present A17 & A18 data in his head.

9. Except Vegeta was not a rival for her. She basically said that Vegeta would not be someone to worry about which is not something you would tell a rival. But it had nothing to do with being the superior fighter, 18 in her private conversation with 16 told him that she thought vegeta was weak. This is not something that you would say of a rival.

Except that Vegeta not being a rival to her wasn't because Vegeta had less raw strength but because of A18's unlimited stamina.
The manga is clear regarding that. A18 gets serious, Vegeta matches her, everyone comments that Vegeta is fighting her at her same level, A17 also confirms it after seeing Vegeta fight and when Vegeta loses Piccolo explains that Vegeta loses because of stamina problems.

Defeating someone with unlimited stamina in DB is even harder than defeating someone with 10% more strength than you (a difference that would be considered big by DB standards).
In DB stamina is the key of every fight, so A18 being as strong as Vegeta but with unlimited stamina already puts her in a league of her own.

10. Thank you for pointing out 17's panel. I missed that. As you pointed out. The androids cannot sense ki energy and it is entirely possible that 17 thought that the other warriors were somewhat comparable in power to Vegeta that their inclusion into the fight would sway the battle in Vegeta's favor. However, we see this is not the case as 18 easily breaks Trunk's sword, which is then proceeded by 17 knocking him down followed by him easily dispatching Tien and Piccolo with single attacks.

Do you think it's possible that A17 misjudges everyone's strength and that all the Z-warriors also misjudge what they're seeing?
I mean, every single piece of info we're given in that fight, from every side, points to SSJ Vegeta matching A18 in strength for a moment and then losing badly because of the android's unlimited stamina.
Vegeta not being in the same league as A18 is compatible with A18 having a strength comparable to Vegeta + unlimited stamina.
Her being much stronger than Vegeta invalidates everything that A17 and the Z-warriors told us about the fight between A18 and Vegeta.

When debating about the manga we have to try to accomodate EVERY piece of info we're given.

11.Piccolo's statement when looked into the context and the manga seems to mean that 18 is utilizing power on par with vegeta, however she is slowly pushing him back and winning the fight. It does not mean that she was using her max. Especially seeing that we know that 17 is only somewhat stronger than 18. This would mean that if 17 could fight the likes of Kamicolo to an evenly match that 18 max power should be closer to him. In addition,if we assume that cell's data is in relation to the present timeline andriods then by his statement of Piccolo being the only one that can fight them would imply that someone of vegeta's power level at the time would have been inadequate.

A18 tells Vegeta she's going to fight seriously (in other words, not restraining her strength).
A17 acknowledges that A18 won't be able to beat Vegeta if he has help, even before seeing Vegeta's max power (not that he was hiding it much, either, but he probably was fighting at 85-90%).
After A18 gets serious, all the Z-warriors agree in that Vegeta matches her.

Those are stated claims from that fight. There's no doubt about what where Toriyama's intentions when it came to the android's strength at that scene.
He obviously made Vegeta lose badly because that was the Android's presentation and they had to look cool, but like it happened with Goku vs Nappa, that superiority wasn't like when Perfect Cell or Freeza stomped Vegeta but for reasons besides raw strength.

Regards!

[Seekeroftruth]

But there is doubt that F. Trunks was weaker than the androids in the future because:

1. We see that both Trunks and Gohan are not accurate sources of the assessment of the androids strength. This is evident by the fact that both warriors thought they had amassed sufficient power to defeat the androids and were proven wrong. Thus affecting their statement of credibility.

They can't detect the android's KI, but Gohan was never convinced he could win, that's why he left Trunks out of the battle. He didn't know to which extent the androids had been hiding their power but he surely knew how dangerous they were.

2. We also know that by Gohan believing himself to be strong enough to defeat the andriods and then being told by F. 17 that he was not using even 1/2 his max power that the andriods have a way to detect trunks and Gohan strength in relations to the amount of effort they were putting in and also that they were holding back. And i don't think they were cocky or bluffing because 17 is shown alone to be rushing towards Gohan with 17 laughing, indicating that it was not out of cockiness.

??? A17 only says he used half his strength in his last fight (a fight we don't even see), nothing about detecting Gohan's power which is obvious they couldn't do.
And cockiness is A17's main personality trait (we never saw that fight, we don't know if Gohan was able to put a good fight against both androids like he did in the anime ova for example, but we can asume he did if he was at Trunk's level when he came back).

3. Except Toriyama does not necessarily tell us a lot of things from Cells timeline and just gives us enough clues that cell's timeline is rather similar to that of F. Trunks with a splitting point where cell kills trunks and goes back in time. Toriyama having cell state that he does not know how trunks killed the andriods and then not long after mentioning the remote strongly suggest that the androids in this timeline were defeated by the remote.

If Cell's data was that of the present androids him not knowing how Trunks killed those androids is only normal, but we have already been told by Trunks that future androids were weaker and that he could fight them fairly well.

With the control remote theory you're contradicting Trunk's words and forcing a much more implausible course of events -Trunks suddenly finding things he didn't know even existed-.

If Toriyama had wanted the future androids to be stronger than Trunks he had no need to make Trunks say what he said. I mean, Trunks had already established the future androids as two unstoppable monsters much stronger than him when he first came to the past to warn the z-warriors.
And he had no need to retcon this after the fight with the present androids if this wasn't true. I can understand Trunks exaggerating the strength of the androids in his first meeting with Goku because what he really wanted was to create a TL where the world wasn't destroyed, so him exaggerating their strength to make sure that Goku & co would be as prepared as possible was the best course of action.
And him telling them the truth after the present androids turn to be much stronger than the future ones also makes a lot of sense, since that piece of info was important at that point.
Toriyama specifically made Trunks retcon the future android's strength to justify how Trunks could've killed the future androids in his TL, he wouldn't have made Trunks say that if there wasn't a plot purpose.

4. Yes the android 17 does tell Cell that he is enjoying his battle with Piccolo and to buzz off and even made sure that the rest of vegeta's friends do not intevene in that the battle so they could watch the fight between him and 18. However, the fact that 17 does not look worried at all and is confident that 18 alone can kill trunks shoots down the idea that trunks was able to fight them fairly well (implying he could take both of them on at the same time).

A17 was convinced that Trunks could never dispatch A18 in a single Ki blast, that's it.
He just let A18 make the first move, they had unlimited energy so any non fatal injury that A18 could have taken would have been negated, so from his POV there was no reason to not let A18 act as she did.

This doesn't contradict the statment Trunks made about them at all, it only does it if we interpret it in the way you do, but there can be tons of reasons on why A17 and A18 acted how they did besides them being much stronger that Trunks.

5. Also, I am not saying that Trunks is lying. What i am saying that Trunks could very well be misinformed of his standings with respect to the androids due to them showing in the past to intentionally hold back.

There's no logical reason as to why Trunks could have had a more accurate image of the android's power the first time he came from the future than the second one.
You don't make a character retconn something he said in the past if that new info isn't meant to be the valid one, and if we look at Trunks as a character and his goals, he had no reason to retconn the information he had given to them if he wasn't sure of what he was saying.

And even if one can't detect Kis, it's very easy to tell if soemone is fighting with everything he's got or if he is still hiding more strength.
Besides, I don't remember a single instance of a fighter playing with another one and the other fighter not realising it even after the fight has ended.

6. It would make more sense for the machine to inform cell of android 16's presence. The reason being that android 16 was shown to be on par with powered up cell which means that if he were ever activated, he could pose a threat to Cell's goal of becoming complete. Telling Cell of 16's presence (if he existed) would be reasonable thing for the machine to do. After all, even trunk's who was not an actual threat to Cell was told by him by the machine. Also with your regards to 17 being called 16, it is possible that he was created and scraped, it is possible he was destroyed in lab and yes it is possible that Android 16 could still be in the lab (if this one was true then cell should be aware of his creation).

A16 never went online in the future, but he surely existed in the Future Timeline as well becasue A17 is still A17 (A16 not being activated or destroyed is the most plausible explanation of Trunks not knowing about him).
And Guero didn't inform Cell about A16 because we see that Cell simply doesn't have any info on him.

7.I'm not following your logic with Goku. Trunks turned into SSJ and said the sword attacks that he had tried on Goku were the same level as the ones that he inflicted on Frieza. Before Trunks intervene, there was no deviation between trunk's and goku's timeline meaning the power that Goku displayed was the level he had in Trunks timeline. Thus, Goku has the capabilities to defeat Frieza and King Cold in a similar fashion to trunks. The battle would not have been a devastating as you said.

Goku & Trunks were equal in strength, true, but the difference is that Trunks killed Cold before Cold could use his true form (which Cold refuses to do in the TL we see due to a misunderstandment regarding Freeza's strength and Trunk's sword).
But Goku wouldn't have acted like Trunks. He probably would've told Freeza the miserable state he was in and gave them the opportunity to run, only for King Cold to fight him at full strength and not trying any stupid sword trick (and we know from the fight against Freeza that Cold was between 25%-50% Freeza's power, which puts him in that seetspot where he can be above a SSJ but still be defeated with the KKx20).

All in all, what we know is that stress accelerates the illnes, that there's only 1 technique that puts more stress on Goku's body than going into unmastered SSJ (the KK) and that Goku got ill 6 months later in the present TimeLine despite him having spent the last 3 years training nonstop with Piccolo and Gohan (as a SSJ, of course).

There's only one point in the story where such situation (Goku being forced to use the KK because the SSJ wouldn't be enough) could've happened, which is in the fight against Cold & Mecha.

8.Well the thing is that it is possible that Android 17 and 18 strength could have been calculated and uploaded to cell.

Possible, but the problem is that it doesn't accomodate the stated facts.
Cell had the info of Present A17 & A18 despite him being future Cell and his androids being weaker. That means that he wasn't updated.
The reason this happened or if us as Guero woduld've acted differently doesn't negate the fact that future Cell had present A17 & A18 data in his head.

9. Except Vegeta was not a rival for her. She basically said that Vegeta would not be someone to worry about which is not something you would tell a rival. But it had nothing to do with being the superior fighter, 18 in her private conversation with 16 told him that she thought vegeta was weak. This is not something that you would say of a rival.

Except that Vegeta not being a rival to her wasn't because Vegeta had less raw strength but because of A18's unlimited stamina.
The manga is clear regarding that. A18 gets serious, Vegeta matches her, everyone comments that Vegeta is fighting her at her same level, A17 also confirms it after seeing Vegeta fight and when Vegeta loses Piccolo explains that Vegeta loses because of stamina problems.

Defeating someone with unlimited stamina in DB is even harder than defeating someone with 10% more strength than you (a difference that would be considered big by DB standards).
In DB stamina is the key of every fight, so A18 being as strong as Vegeta but with unlimited stamina already puts her in a league of her own.

10. Thank you for pointing out 17's panel. I missed that. As you pointed out. The androids cannot sense ki energy and it is entirely possible that 17 thought that the other warriors were somewhat comparable in power to Vegeta that their inclusion into the fight would sway the battle in Vegeta's favor. However, we see this is not the case as 18 easily breaks Trunk's sword, which is then proceeded by 17 knocking him down followed by him easily dispatching Tien and Piccolo with single attacks.

Do you think it's possible that A17 misjudges everyone's strength and that all the Z-warriors also misjudge what they're seeing?
I mean, every single piece of info we're given in that fight, from every side, points to SSJ Vegeta matching A18 in strength for a moment and then losing badly because of the android's unlimited stamina.
Vegeta not being in the same league as A18 is compatible with A18 having a strength comparable to Vegeta + unlimited stamina.
Her being much stronger than Vegeta invalidates everything that A17 and the Z-warriors told us about the fight between A18 and Vegeta.

When debating about the manga we have to try to accomodate EVERY piece of info we're given.

11.Piccolo's statement when looked into the context and the manga seems to mean that 18 is utilizing power on par with vegeta, however she is slowly pushing him back and winning the fight. It does not mean that she was using her max. Especially seeing that we know that 17 is only somewhat stronger than 18. This would mean that if 17 could fight the likes of Kamicolo to an evenly match that 18 max power should be closer to him. In addition,if we assume that cell's data is in relation to the present timeline andriods then by his statement of Piccolo being the only one that can fight them would imply that someone of vegeta's power level at the time would have been inadequate.

A18 tells Vegeta she's going to fight seriously (in other words, not restraining her strength).
A17 acknowledges that A18 won't be able to beat Vegeta if he has help, even before seeing Vegeta's max power (not that he was hiding it much, either, but he probably was fighting at 85-90%).
After A18 gets serious, all the Z-warriors agree in that Vegeta matches her.

Those are stated claims from that fight. There's no doubt about what where Toriyama's intentions when it came to the android's strength at that scene.
He obviously made Vegeta lose badly because that was the Android's presentation and they had to look cool, but like it happened with Goku vs Nappa, that superiority wasn't like when Perfect Cell or Freeza stomped Vegeta but for reasons besides raw strength.

Regards!

1. Gohan did not go into the fight thinking he had no chance of winning. He went into the fight thinking that he had a good chance of winning based on his own estimate of the androids power. He left Trunks behind because he did not want trunks to die as well in case he lost and relied o him being the last hope.

2.Andriod 17 is confident but he is not an idiot. We see in the panel that after 17 says these words he rushes towards Gohan with 18 smiling. This indicates in the panel that everything 17 said was in fact true and Toriyama wanted to affirm his claim. Again, we can affirm that Gohan did not put up a good fight in the OVA because upon Trunks return to the future, Android 17 was self assured that 18 alone could finish him off. This indicates that in their last encounter, that Trunks was no match for even a single Andriod. And this Trunks would have been much stronger than Gohan. How do we know this? Because Bulma stated that Trunk's was around Gohan's PL just before he made his first time trip into the past.

3.We see that the spy robot's were active for sometime that Cell had information on Trunks and was self assured of his power level.

The remote is not convoluted idea as this Trunks could have taken a different course of action from the one that we see in the main timeline as you said. The events of him in his second time trip into the past does not have to be exactly the same as the one from this timeline. For example this timeline that Trunk's takes a second trip, the z-senshi could have reached Dr. Gero's lab before he had time to activate the Androids. Trunks could have found the remote controller in his lab and destroyed 17 and 18 in this timeline and return to his future with it.

It's not so convoluted to believe that he could have gotten the remote without Cell telling him.

In regards to Toriyama, yes he had every reason to say what he did. Trunks stated they were incredibly strong in his first introduction but he also stated that he could fight against them and the main concern was that he was all alone fighting them. Toriyama also stated in his original introduction for androids that they were both males (and his original plan were to have Androids 19 and 20 be the androids). Trunks statement was to show all along that the future Androids were in fact playing him and he did not actually have a chance at all. His entire belief system of him being able to put up a good fight is put into question.

4. Android 17 and 18 looked at Trunk's as an annoyance and a fool from looking at their facial expression and referring to him as a "Fool for returning" in addition to calling him a "toy". All these terms indicate that they did not see him as someone worthwhile fighting but merely an amusement that was now becoming an annoyance. We also see, that A17 is confident that A18 could dispatch trunks. You talk about non-fatal wounds but if we are to assume that Trunks can rival and fight both andriods together there would be a probability that A18 could in fact be severly damage.

5. Except Toriyama specifically shows us in his panels of both Trunks and Gohan incorrectly estimating the androids full power, thereby showing that Trunks statement of their power was questionable. And in regards to a particular fight in which a fighter was not sure if a warrior was giving all they had or was just playing. Also we have seen fights like that. For example, Vegeta fights Perfect Cell for the first time and loses to him, he then trains and believes that his new power would be sufficient enough to beat Perfect cell only to be proven wrong as Cell held back the lionshare of his power and only released a certain amount to make Vegeta think he had a chance at beating him.

6.Android 16 could have been created and put in stasis, destroyed or even just a conceptual art that Gero had in design phase that he never created. However, if we are to assume that he did exist then it would seem rather strange that the computer would give cell all this data on every other combatant that could be a threat to him but leave out A16.

7.Except you assume too much such as Cold having a true form. Also, it has never been shown in the series of a character with a bunch of other transformations dying to a weaker character before they could have transformed. If Cold did have extra power to exceed Trunks then he would not have died from his ki blast. Goku we know can output more power than what trunks did to easily dispatch Cold and Frieza, thus the idea that the battle would be long and grueling doe not make sense. Nor is Goku using KK over the SSJ transformation which provides more power and causes less stress on his body.

8. Except the manga clearly points out that Vegeta is not a rival to A18 and you need to be Kamicolo level to even beat 18. We see this because when Cell and Piccolo were fighting in Gingertown, 16 states that Piccolo strength could rival the androids. Imperfect Cell states only piccolo could put up a good fight against an Android. When Piccolo is contemplating on destroying the androids before cell could get to them he states that he cannot defeat all 3 with his current power (this is before he even knew about 16's strength). Just before Piccolo fights 17, he is HOPING that he could at least take out 1 android.

9. Except we see in the manga that trunks is basically done for by a 1 hit KO from 17, Piccolo is knocked out by a 1 hit K.O, 17 takes his time choking out Tien and Krillin just stood there in fear. We see first hand that none of them would actually make much of a difference in the battle, and the only logical conclusion was that 17 miscalculated and assume that they had grown a comparable strong like vegeta that their addition to the fight could have tipped the favor in his favor but they were wrong.

Chapter: 355 (DBZ 161), P8.2
Context: after Kuririn apologies for not joining the fight with No.17 and No.18
Piccolo: “Don’t worry about it. Even Trunks as a Super Saiyan was done in with basically one blow. It wouldn’t have made any difference if you had come.”

[MechaTrunks]

1. Gohan did not go into the fight thinking he had no chance of winning. He went into the fight thinking that he had a good chance of winning based on his own estimate of the androids power. He left Trunks behind because he did not want trunks to die as well in case he lost and relied o him being the last hope.

No one said that he thought he had no chance to win, I said that Gohan wasn't sure of his victory either. Not being sure of your victory doesn't mean thinking you don't have any chance so you're not answering to what I'm saying there.

2.Andriod 17 is confident but he is not an idiot. We see in the panel that after 17 says these words he rushes towards Gohan with 18 smiling. This indicates in the panel that everything 17 said was in fact true and Toriyama wanted to affirm his claim. Again, we can affirm that Gohan did not put up a good fight in the OVA because upon Trunks return to the future, Android 17 was self assured that 18 alone could finish him off. This indicates that in their last encounter, that Trunks was no match for even a single Andriod. And this Trunks would have been much stronger than Gohan. How do we know this? Because Bulma stated that Trunk's was around Gohan's PL just before he made his first time trip into the past.

Oks look:
1. Bulma can't detect Kis.
2. Your interpretation on 17s attitude can't have more weight than STATEMENTS made by the manga that weren't contradicted anywhere. Oks so you think 17s attitude meant that he thought A18 was going to trash Trunks.
I think that 17s attitude meant that he thought Trunks wouldn't be able to trash A18.

Both are valid justifications of A17s attitude, with the difference that your stance contradicts Trunks's statement that wasn't retconned anywhere after it was made.
Furthermore, we know that the future androids are weaker than Trunks from that same sentence of him. I mean, if you admit that the future androids are weaker than the Present ones then you also have to admit that Trunks could fight against the future androids fairly well, because both pieces of info are given at the exact same moment.

3.We see that the spy robot's were active for sometime that Cell had information on Trunks and was self assured of his power level.

They were already active in the 23rd Budokay if I don't recall it bad, but it makes no difference, those robots didn't follow other androids but living beings.

The remote is not convoluted idea as this Trunks could have taken a different course of action from the one that we see in the main timeline as you said. The events of him in his second time trip into the past does not have to be exactly the same as the one from this timeline. For example this timeline that Trunk's takes a second trip, the z-senshi could have reached Dr. Gero's lab before he had time to activate the Androids. Trunks could have found the remote controller in his lab and destroyed 17 and 18 in this timeline and return to his future with it.

Yeah, or maybe Babidi decided to go sooner to the earth and awakened Bu before the Cell games!
Or maybe Pilaf decided to help trunks by making him a controller!

Or maybe things went like the manga told us and we don't need to invent any theory that contradicts the characters and what we're being told (because the z-senshi reaching Guero before the Android's activation completely destroys the narrative of the series).

It's not so convoluted to believe that he could have gotten the remote without Cell telling him.

You only need to invent time-travels that were never implied to exist and contradict how the characters acted in the manga to make it work.
And on the other hand Future Trunks being able to kill the androids because he is able to fight them fairly well seems impossible just because they were cocky?

Trunks statement was to show all along that the future Androids were in fact playing him and he did not actually have a chance at all. His entire belief system of him being able to put up a good fight is put into question.

If that was the case it would happen like it always happens: First you would see Trunks saying that he could fight the future androids fairly well and then you'd see a scene where we are told that the future androids are in fact stronger and that they were playing.
What we have here instead, is Trunks first saying that the 2 androids were too strong for him to even fight one on one and then Trunks saying that he in fact was able to fight them fairly well once the present Androids prove to be too strong.

Toriyama is retconning the claim where the androids are too strong to fight for Trunks in the future, not the one where he says he could fight them fairly well.

4. Android 17 and 18 looked at Trunk's as an annoyance and a fool from looking at their facial expression and referring to him as a "Fool for returning" in addition to calling him a "toy". All these terms indicate that they did not see him as someone worthwhile fighting but merely an amusement that was now becoming an annoyance. We also see, that A17 is confident that A18 could dispatch trunks. You talk about non-fatal wounds but if we are to assume that Trunks can rival and fight both andriods together there would be a probability that A18 could in fact be severly damage.

For 17 being a FUN toy means the fight was good (the important thing here is the word FUN), so again, it's your personal take on some vague claims that can be interpreted in multiple ways against a very specific claim of Trunks that you have to contradict without any plausible explanation besides the character simply being wrong.

And no, we never see A17 being confident of A18 dispatching Trunks like nothing, this is also your take on the scene which is subjective.

Objective statements > subjective interpretations.

5. Except Toriyama specifically shows us in his panels of both Trunks and Gohan incorrectly estimating the androids full power, thereby showing that Trunks statement of their power was questionable.
And in regards to a particular fight in which a fighter was not sure if a warrior was giving all they had or was just playing. Also we have seen fights like that. For example, Vegeta fights Perfect Cell for the first time and loses to him, he then trains and believes that his new power would be sufficient enough to beat Perfect cell only to be proven wrong as Cell held back the lionshare of his power and only released a certain amount to make Vegeta think he had a chance at beating him.

Yeah but Vegeta didn't leave the fight against Perfect Cell thinking that he was matched with him. He maybe underestimated how much Cell was holding back, but he never told anyone "hey, I could fight Perfect Cell fairly well there" which is what you're saying Trunks did.

There are moments where a character hopes the other one is not hiding more strength, but a character LEAVING A FIGHT thinking he has done a good fight when his opponent has been playing with him? This only happens with Satan in his most comical situations and to make you laugh, but to imply that Trunks was crushed in the future with the androids just playing with him and him being stupid enought to think that was an even fight is nuts.
Since when is just Trunks such an incompetent and comical character?

6.Android 16 could have been created and put in stasis, destroyed or even just a conceptual art that Gero had in design phase that he never created. However, if we are to assume that he did exist then it would seem rather strange that the computer would give cell all this data on every other combatant that could be a threat to him but leave out A16.

That's what I'm saying then. We don't know that happened with A16 but he surely existed in the canon of the future TL
I'm not saying that he was ever activated, just that he existed in that TL in some form as well.

7.Except you assume too much such as Cold having a true form.

That's like assuming that Nappa can turn into a Giant Ape while seeing the moon. Of course Cold has a TRUE form, that's why it's called true form in fact, because it's their real form and not a transformation!

Also, it has never been shown in the series of a character with a bunch of other transformations dying to a weaker character before they could have transformed.

We never see Raditz or Nappa turning into giant Apes.
And in Trunks specific case, in the fight vs Cell Trunks tries to kill him while he is transforming. It doesn't work, but he tried to do exactly what you're saying that never happens in the series.

It's not something that usually happens but it wasn't the first time for sure.

If Cold did have extra power to exceed Trunks then he would not have died from his ki blast.

Cold in his 2nd form didn't have power to exceed Trunks and that's why he was killed. It doesn't matter how much strength you're hidding, as proven by Vegeta in Namek where he hides his power so Krillin is able to hurt him, and if it wasn't for Dende that Vegeta would've been killed right there by Krillin.
Same applies to Cold and any other fighter that receives a fatal injury while not using all his strength.

Goku we know can output more power than what trunks did to easily dispatch Cold and Frieza, thus the idea that the battle would be long and grueling doe not make sense. Nor is Goku using KK over the SSJ transformation which provides more power and causes less stress on his body.

Goku was paired with Trunks in their respective SSJ forms at that point.
The SSJ is established to be more or less equivalent at Goku using the KKx10 in Namek (and we know Goku can reach the KKx20) and we also know that Cold can reach above Goku KKx10 levels of power from Freeza's words in his fight against Goku in Namek.

8. Except the manga clearly points out that Vegeta is not a rival to A18 and you need to be Kamicolo level to even beat 18. We see this because when Cell and Piccolo were fighting in Gingertown, 16 states that Piccolo strength could rival the androids. Imperfect Cell states only piccolo could put up a good fight against an Android. When Piccolo is contemplating on destroying the androids before cell could get to them he states that he cannot defeat all 3 with his current power (this is before he even knew about 16's strength). Just before Piccolo fights 17, he is HOPING that he could at least take out 1 android.

Yes, the manga is very clear in that if you want to fight an opponent with unlimited stamina you'll have to be quite a bit stronger than him to compensate for htat.
And the manga is also very clear in the fact that SSJ Vegeta was able to macth A18 for a brief period of time in terms of strength.

Everything is very clearly stated, it's just that for whatever reason you simply only stick with the statements you like and magically want to erase any statement you don't like.
But the manga is a pack, you can't simply grab what fits your vision and ignore what contradicts it!

9. Except we see in the manga that trunks is basically done for by a 1 hit KO from 17, Piccolo is knocked out by a 1 hit K.O, 17 takes his time choking out Tien and Krillin just stood there in fear. We see first hand that none of them would actually make much of a difference in the battle, and the only logical conclusion was that 17 miscalculated and assume that they had grown a comparable strong like vegeta that their addition to the fight could have tipped the favor in his favor but they were wrong.

A17 is stronger than A18 and Trunks & Piccolo were weaker than SSJ Vegeta. I don't see how this invalidates the fact that A18 wouldn't have been able to win against them all if they had teamed up when Vegeta was still in his top condition (and thus able to match A18).

So if A17 > SSJ Vegeta = A18 > SSJ Trunks & Piccolo >>>> any other z-warrior present in the scene, it's obvious why A18 vs SSJ Vegeta + SSJ Trunks + Piccolo could be a problem for A18.

So A17 miscalculated and every single z-warrior miscalculated as well when they all said that Vegeta was fighting A18 at her same level? Or maybe it's you that simply don't want to accept the stated facts!

Chapter: 355 (DBZ 161), P8.2
Context: after Kuririn apologies for not joining the fight with No.17 and No.18
Piccolo: “Don’t worry about it. Even Trunks as a Super Saiyan was done in with basically one blow. It wouldn’t have made any difference if you had come.”

So Piccolo telling Krilin that he wouldn't have made a difference against A17 and A18 automatically means that Piccolo + SSJ Trunks wouldn't have made a difference against A18 in helping SSJ Vegeta?
I mean, you're doing the same as with the future androids: contradicting direct statements that for whatever reason you don't like with very convoluted interpretations of statements that simply doesn't say what you want them to say.

Where is Krillin in relation to Piccolo and SSJ Trunks in terms of strength? And why are you comparing a fight vs both A17 and A18 to dismiss a claim that was made with "everyone vs A18" in mind?

How can this claim of Piccolo regarding Krillin even be used to prove A17 wrong?

Regards!

[Desassina]

Cell needed humans to gain strength in order to absorb the androids in the present. He was ready for them in the future. That alone is proof of whom was stronger. The super computer was informing Cell even in the present when he arrived. Trunks's interference in Freeza and King Cold's death was a reference to the events that we saw since baby Cell's development in the lab was the only thing that mattered in Cell's conversation with Piccolo. Isn't it easier that way?

[SSJgogeto]

Now this leads to a problem. If a trunks did go back in Cell's timeline (the timeline in which he kills Trunks and uses his time machine), why do the events still unfold exactly the same in Trunk's timeline?

My guess is: the events didn't unfold exactly the same. As far as we know, this Trunks go back in Cell's timeline ONCE, not twice.

This is what I think that possibily happened:

1 - Trunks was killed before he can go back in Cell's timeline again.
2 - The androids killed everyone in Cell's timeline, except Gohan (maybe) and Trunks.
3 - Somehow Bulma found Gero's blueprints, and Trunks deactivate and destroyed the andoids.
4 - Trunks tried to came back in time to warn the Z warriors about these blueprints, but Cell killed him first and stoled the time machine.

[Incarnate]

In the manga, he doesn't specifically say that Trunks kills them but Toriyama shows a panel of them dying the same way and makes claim that the machine could have obtained Trunk's cells as well even though Trunks had no injuries in that battle.

I've went back and reread the manga myself, and Toriyama showing panels of Freeza/King Cold dying the same way is just chalked up to him being lazy (which he's infamous for being), since it's much easier to just reuse the panels of Freeza/King Cold dying than it is to create new ones of Goku killing them. This is made clear when Cell is shocked by the fact that Goku is still alive, proving in his timeline (the original / future timeline) Goku died to the heart virus and nothing weird happened where an alternate reality Trunks came to save the day.

Also, the reason the machine "could have obtained Trunks' cells" is because even after the Androids attacked in the future timeline it continuously looked for cells to steal (this is even seen in the present timeline with the bug wanting to steal Piccolo-Kami's cells).