Zamasu from the future?

[Hitiro]

This has been bothering me for a bit but how does Zamasu know who Goku is in Trunks timeline? The events from the main timeline should never have occurred in Trunks timeline, for obvious reasons, so Zamasu should not know who Goku is. I guess there is the possibility Goku met him after he died but would Goku have ever discovered the other SSJ forms while in the afterlife? Goku had a tough time taking Zamasu while he was using SSJ2 and that's also considering the fact that he has gone through an immense amount of training over the many years plus trained with Whis.

I don't really question that Zamasu probably still would have gone down the path he did about wanting to kill all humans/mortals. But any knowledge about the Super Dragon Balls and Goku should be alien to his Future self from Trunks' timeline.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

Remember those green Time Rings? They lead to other timelines. Go back to episode 54, this is explained. The Zamasu we saw is almost certainly the Future Zamasu of the regular timeline, not the HoT universe.

[Lionel]

The Time Rings apparently aren't just capable of transferring a person across the chrono spectrum. Using one allows you to transcend universes to the exact point where the diverging timeline is located.

[Hitiro]

What is the purpose of this? Surely it would make more sense for him to do it on the main timeline where Goku is actually alive? And why Trunks' timeline?

[TheMikado]

Man you just missed the party in the official announcements thread!

[Doctor.]

I'm just gonna paste what I said in the thread I made and nobody replied to:

Following the spoilers of episode 60, being that Beerus apparently kills present Zamasu, we can interpret two things from this: 1) that they thought the two Zamasus are the same being, and 2) due to Trunks feeling "uneasy", it's implied that future Zamasu still lives. In my eyes, there are three possible theories about the identity of future Zamasu:

1) He is a future version of the Zamasu we know now. Killing the present Zamasu would stop the future version from existing, so perhaps present Zamasu survives Beerus' attack, which allows him to turn into the Zamasu of the future. This creates a time paradox, because without the future Zamasu, Black would never come to the present, would never incite Goku to go fight Zamasu, etc.

2) He is a future version of the Zamasu we know now, but killing the present Zamasu won't affect him, perhaps because he's in a different timeline, universe or he's now his own seperate entity. Still a time paradox.

3) He is the Zamasu of Trunks' timeline, gone rogue because of similar circumstances the present Zamasu went through. Killing the present one obviously won't affect him since they were different entities to begin with. No time paradox because future Zamasu and Black would still exist regardless of whether or not present Goku met present Zamasu.

[Hitiro]

I'm just gonna paste what I said in the thread I made and nobody replied to:

Following the spoilers of episode 60, being that Beerus apparently kills present Zamasu, we can interpret two things from this: 1) that they thought the two Zamasus are the same being, and 2) due to Trunks feeling "uneasy", it's implied that future Zamasu still lives. In my eyes, there are three possible theories about the identity of future Zamasu:

1) He is a future version of the Zamasu we know now. Killing the present Zamasu would stop the future version from existing, so perhaps present Zamasu survives Beerus' attack, which allows him to turn into the Zamasu of the future. This creates a time paradox, because, without the future Zamasu, Black would never come to the present, would never incite Goku to go fight Zamasu, etc.

2) He is a future version of the Zamasu we know now, but killing the present Zamasu won't affect him, perhaps because he's in a different timeline, universe or he's now his own separate entity. Still a time paradox.

3) He is the Zamasu of Trunks' timeline, gone rogue because of similar circumstances the present Zamasu went through. Killing the present one obviously won't affect him since they were different entities, to begin with. No time paradox because future Zamasu and Black would still exist regardless of whether or not present Goku met present Zamasu.

Is 2 actually a time paradox, though? Beerus killing present Zamasu just means that Beerus has changed the main timeline. The future Zamasu would now exist on a different timeline. Much like the Cell, who was supposed to kill Trunks and go back in time, is now not the same Cell that they killed in the past. 3 is an issue because if that were Zamasu from Trunks' timeline then why would he know who Goku is or why he is alive in Trunks' timeline if they did actually meet in the afterlife?

The way I see it this is what happened.

Main Timeline
Present Zamasu------------Future Zamasu
                                               |
                                      Future Zamasu(Trunks' Timeline)

Here, the future Zamasu is from is the Main timeline. In this timeline, Goku and the others are not aware of what Zamasu has done and then at the event of Goku and Vegeta going to Trunks' timeline they unknowingly created a new main timeline in which they know Zamasu is bad. So Beerus kills Zamasu, but that won't affect the future Zamasu because the future Zamasu comes from the original timeline where they didn't know about him.

Main Timeline
Present Zamasu------------Future Zamasu

Original Main Timeline which is now a separate timeline itself
Present Zamasu------------Future Zamasu
                                               |
                                      Future Zamasu(Trunks' Timeline)

But this still doesn't explain why Zamasu went to Trunks' timeline or why he chose that timeline.

[Doctor.]

I'm just gonna paste what I said in the thread I made and nobody replied to:

Following the spoilers of episode 60, being that Beerus apparently kills present Zamasu, we can interpret two things from this: 1) that they thought the two Zamasus are the same being, and 2) due to Trunks feeling "uneasy", it's implied that future Zamasu still lives. In my eyes, there are three possible theories about the identity of future Zamasu:

1) He is a future version of the Zamasu we know now. Killing the present Zamasu would stop the future version from existing, so perhaps present Zamasu survives Beerus' attack, which allows him to turn into the Zamasu of the future. This creates a time paradox, because, without the future Zamasu, Black would never come to the present, would never incite Goku to go fight Zamasu, etc.

2) He is a future version of the Zamasu we know now, but killing the present Zamasu won't affect him, perhaps because he's in a different timeline, universe or he's now his own separate entity. Still a time paradox.

3) He is the Zamasu of Trunks' timeline, gone rogue because of similar circumstances the present Zamasu went through. Killing the present one obviously won't affect him since they were different entities, to begin with. No time paradox because future Zamasu and Black would still exist regardless of whether or not present Goku met present Zamasu.

Is 2 actually a time paradox, though? Beerus killing present Zamasu just means that Beerus has changed the main timeline. The future Zamasu would now exist on a different timeline. Much like the Cell, who was supposed to kill Trunks and go back in time, is now not the same Cell that they killed in the past. 3 is an issue because if that were Zamasu from Trunks' timeline then why would he know who Goku is or why he is alive in Trunks' timeline if they did actually meet in the afterlife?

The way I see it this is what happened.

Main Timeline
Present Zamasu------------Future Zamasu
                                               |
                                      Future Zamasu(Trunks' Timeline)

Here, the future Zamasu is from is the Main timeline. In this timeline, Goku and the others are not aware of what Zamasu has done and then at the event of Goku and Vegeta going to Trunks' timeline they unknowingly created a new main timeline in which they know Zamasu is bad. So Beerus kills Zamasu, but that won't affect the future Zamasu because the future Zamasu comes from the original timeline where they didn't know about him.

Main Timeline
Present Zamasu------------Future Zamasu

Original Main Timeline which is now a separate timeline itself
Present Zamasu------------Future Zamasu
                                               |
                                      Future Zamasu(Trunks' Timeline)

But this still doesn't explain why Zamasu went to Trunks' timeline or why he chose that timeline.

That's still a time paradox because the reason that Beerus kills present Zamasu and Goku and Vegeta go to Trunks' timeline is because Black exists and Black came to the past. And Black exists presumably because of Zamasu. And Zamasu hates mortals because he fought Goku. And Goku fought him... because he fought Black...

No matter how you slice it, present Zamasu and future Zamasu being one and the same is a time loop and a paradox. The only way it fixes things is if the future Zamasu is actually the Zamasu from Trunks' timeline, not connected in any way to the present timeline, then Black and future Zamasu would still exist regardless of whether or not Goku ever gets to fight present Zamasu. He knows about Goku and such perhaps because future Goku fought him at some point? He probably experienced similar circumstances to present Zamasu that brought him to that point.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

I'm just gonna paste what I said in the thread I made and nobody replied to:

Following the spoilers of episode 60, being that Beerus apparently kills present Zamasu, we can interpret two things from this: 1) that they thought the two Zamasus are the same being, and 2) due to Trunks feeling "uneasy", it's implied that future Zamasu still lives. In my eyes, there are three possible theories about the identity of future Zamasu:

1) He is a future version of the Zamasu we know now. Killing the present Zamasu would stop the future version from existing, so perhaps present Zamasu survives Beerus' attack, which allows him to turn into the Zamasu of the future. This creates a time paradox, because, without the future Zamasu, Black would never come to the present, would never incite Goku to go fight Zamasu, etc.

2) He is a future version of the Zamasu we know now, but killing the present Zamasu won't affect him, perhaps because he's in a different timeline, universe or he's now his own separate entity. Still a time paradox.

3) He is the Zamasu of Trunks' timeline, gone rogue because of similar circumstances the present Zamasu went through. Killing the present one obviously won't affect him since they were different entities, to begin with. No time paradox because future Zamasu and Black would still exist regardless of whether or not present Goku met present Zamasu.

Is 2 actually a time paradox, though? Beerus killing present Zamasu just means that Beerus has changed the main timeline. The future Zamasu would now exist on a different timeline. Much like the Cell, who was supposed to kill Trunks and go back in time, is now not the same Cell that they killed in the past. 3 is an issue because if that were Zamasu from Trunks' timeline then why would he know who Goku is or why he is alive in Trunks' timeline if they did actually meet in the afterlife?

The way I see it this is what happened.

Main Timeline
Present Zamasu------------Future Zamasu
                                               |
                                      Future Zamasu(Trunks' Timeline)

Here, the future Zamasu is from is the Main timeline. In this timeline, Goku and the others are not aware of what Zamasu has done and then at the event of Goku and Vegeta going to Trunks' timeline they unknowingly created a new main timeline in which they know Zamasu is bad. So Beerus kills Zamasu, but that won't affect the future Zamasu because the future Zamasu comes from the original timeline where they didn't know about him.

Main Timeline
Present Zamasu------------Future Zamasu

Original Main Timeline which is now a separate timeline itself
Present Zamasu------------Future Zamasu
                                               |
                                      Future Zamasu(Trunks' Timeline)

But this still doesn't explain why Zamasu went to Trunks' timeline or why he chose that timeline.

[spoiler]We know from the episode title leaks that Beerus "destroys" Zamasu. It's entirely possible that he uses one of the green Time Rings to escape at the last minute.[/spoiler]

By the way, I have a hunch that Zamasu's immortality is similar to Boo's regeneration, and he can't return to normal if he's totally destroyed. That would give him plenty of incentive to escape. All of this is speculation though.

[Hitiro]

That's still a time paradox because the reason that Beerus kills present Zamasu and Goku and Vegeta go to Trunks' timeline is because Black exists and Black came to the past. And Black exists presumably because of Zamasu. And Zamasu hates mortals because he fought Goku. And Goku fought him... because he fought Black...

No matter how you slice it, present Zamasu and future Zamasu being one and the same is a time loop and a paradox. The only way it fixes things is if the future Zamasu is actually the Zamasu from Trunks' timeline, not connected in any way to the present timeline, then Black and future Zamasu would still exist regardless of whether or not Goku ever gets to fight present Zamasu. He knows about Goku and such perhaps because future Goku fought him at some point? He probably experienced similar circumstances to present Zamasu that brought him to that point.

I don't see how it is a time paradox? Future Zamasu is from a future in which Goku and the others don't know his intentions. By having Black come back to the past Black inadvertently changed the timeline because Zamasu was under suspicion from then on. All it means is the future changed sooner than when I stated. Of course now Goku and Vegeta know for certain that Zamasu was behind this. So until the point in which Black came back in time the present Zamasu was still part of the timeline of the future Zamasu. When Black comes back he creates a new timeline. The concept of diverging timelines doesn't really make a time paradox anyway. That is why it is the safest concept of timetravel to use. Paradoxes come into the plot with the timetravel concept that there is only one timeline that gets influenced by the events.

[Doctor.]

But there are no new timelines being created. The story changes from Trunks' timeline to Goku's, no new ones are made because the time rings don't create new timelines and, following the manga, as long as Trunks doesn't change the coordinates on his time machine, he can travel between the two timelines at will without creating a new one. So, since no new timelines are created, it's a time paradox we're dealing with.

[Hitiro]

But there are no new timelines being created. The story changes from Trunks' timeline to Goku's, no new ones are made because the time rings don't create new timelines and, following the manga, as long as Trunks doesn't change the coordinates on his time machine, he can travel between the two timelines at will without creating a new one. So, since no new timelines are created, it's a time paradox we're dealing with.

They don't create new timelines if you travel to the future with them, no. Because normally you shouldn't be able to travel to the past to influence it. But Black does this when he travels backward in time. Arguably Trunks altered the timeline just by going back there. In fact, it's stated that the reason Black could come back with the time ring is because the Time Ring reacted to a disturbance in time that has been recently altered by an individual. In this case, Trunks had altered the past just by going back there. This created a distortion in time which allowed Black to come back for a short time.

[Hugo Boss]

What if there are three Zamas and Black is Zamas from Cell's timeline? I'm still under the impression Zamas merged with Goku's body at some point, explaining why Black knows Instant Transmission and has a ki sword similar to Zamas. Not to mention they have the same objective and share Potara, time rings, black cloths.

[Hitiro]

What if there are three Zamas and Black is Zamas from Cell's timeline? I'm still under the impression Zamas merged with Goku's body at some point, explaining why Black knows Instant Transmission and has a ki sword similar to Zamas. Not to mention they have the same objective and share Potara, time rings, black cloths.

Why would Zamasu merging with Goku's body allow Black to know Instant Transmission? The gods don't use Instant Transmission. They use Kai Kai which doesn't require sensing Ki. Also Black uses a Kamehameha without ever seeing one. I'm sure it will be explained in due time but I personally don't think Zamasu merged with Goku's body.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

What if there are three Zamas and Black is Zamas from Cell's timeline? I'm still under the impression Zamas merged with Goku's body at some point, explaining why Black knows Instant Transmission and has a ki sword similar to Zamas. Not to mention they have the same objective and share Potara, time rings, black cloths.

Why would Zamasu merging with Goku's body allow Black to know Instant Transmission? The gods don't use Instant Transmission. They use Kai Kai which doesn't require sensing Ki. Also Black uses a Kamehameha without ever seeing one. I'm sure it will be explained in due time but I personally don't think Zamasu merged with Goku's body.

There was a good hypothesis thrown out by Whis this episode, but I have a feeling that it's a red herring.

[Hugo Boss]

What if there are three Zamas and Black is Zamas from Cell's timeline? I'm still under the impression Zamas merged with Goku's body at some point, explaining why Black knows Instant Transmission and has a ki sword similar to Zamas. Not to mention they have the same objective and share Potara, time rings, black cloths.

Why would Zamasu merging with Goku's body allow Black to know Instant Transmission? The gods don't use Instant Transmission. They use Kai Kai which doesn't require sensing Ki. Also Black uses a Kamehameha without ever seeing one. I'm sure it will be explained in due time but I personally don't think Zamasu merged with Goku's body.

The technique Black used against Goku is Instant Transmission, not Kai Kai. So, I think Goku's body has the memory of his techniques.

[Hitiro]

The technique Black used against Goku is Instant Transmission, not Kai Kai. So, I think Goku's body has the memory of his techniques.

Sorry, my question was more like how could you draw the conclusion that Zamasu merging with Goku's body would explain why Black would know Instant Transmission. I don't see your reasoning. Now I can see how Zamasu merging with Black could teach Black how to use the Ki sword because obviously, Zamasu would have the technique and the merging of their minds would allow Black to know things that Zamasu would know. But if we were to say that Black didn't know instant transmission but merging with Zamasu taught him that technique then I can't see how you could logically come to that conclusion unless Zamasu knew that technique himself? I know that Black used instant transmission. I just don't know how you drew your original conclusion of him gaining the knowledge of the technique by merging with Zamasu. Now, your theory that him having Goku's body which retained the memories of the techniques is more understandable. Being that Goku has trained for 40+ years so all of Goku's techniques would be engrained into the body via muscle memory. But your original theory doesn't make much sense unless you can explain your thought process behind why the two of them merging would explain why Black knows instant transmission. Really I don't see how it would explain it at all.

[Hugo Boss]

The technique Black used against Goku is Instant Transmission, not Kai Kai. So, I think Goku's body has the memory of his techniques.

Sorry, my question was more like how could you draw the conclusion that Zamasu merging with Goku's body would explain why Black would know Instant Transmission. I don't see your reasoning. Now I can see how Zamasu merging with Black could teach Black how to use the Ki sword because obviously, Zamasu would have the technique and the merging of their minds would allow Black to know things that Zamasu would know. But if we were to say that Black didn't know instant transmission but merging with Zamasu taught him that technique then I can't see how you could logically come to that conclusion unless Zamasu knew that technique himself? I know that Black used instant transmission. I just don't know how you drew your original conclusion of him gaining the knowledge of the technique by merging with Zamasu. Now, your theory that him having Goku's body which retained the memories of the techniques is more understandable. Being that Goku has trained for 40+ years so all of Goku's techniques would be engrained into the body via muscle memory. But your original theory doesn't make much sense unless you can explain your thought process behind why the two of them merging would explain why Black knows instant transmission. Really I don't see how it would explain it at all.

I never said Black would know Instant Transmision from Zamasu. I said that merging with Goku's body would allow Zamas (Black) to use Instant Transmission, while attaining his original techniques, like the ki sword.

[Hitiro]

I never said Black would know Instant Transmision from Zamasu. I said that merging with Goku's body would allow Zamas (Black) to use Instant Transmission, while attaining his original techniques, like the ki sword.

The way you worded it sort of implied that he would know because of the merging. Because you said that "Zamasu merging with Goku's body would explain how Black knows the Instant Transmission technique and the Ki sword technique". But merging with Zamasu has no bearing on why Black knows the Instant Transmission technique. It is purely because Black has Goku's body that he knows the technique. If you had said that "Zamasu merging with Goku's body would also explain how Black knows more than just Goku's techniques" then it would have been clearer. But I digress. I see what you mean now after you explained it more clearly.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

I never said Black would know Instant Transmision from Zamasu. I said that merging with Goku's body would allow Zamas (Black) to use Instant Transmission, while attaining his original techniques, like the ki sword.

The way you worded it sort of implied that he would know because of the merging. Because you said that "Zamasu merging with Goku's body would explain how Black knows the Instant Transmission technique and the Ki sword technique". But merging with Zamasu has no bearing on why Black knows the Instant Transmission technique. It is purely because Black has Goku's body that he knows the technique. If you had said that "Zamasu merging with Goku's body would also explain how Black knows more than just Goku's techniques" then it would have been clearer. But I digress. I see what you mean now after you explained it more clearly.

Here's a thought, maybe he learned it by seeing Goku use it. At the beginning of the anime arc, Black looked like Goku, but didn't share any of his techniques. However, as he's fought Goku, he's learned Super Saiyan God, the Kamehameha, and instantaneous movement. Black's technique seems to become more and more like Goku the more the two interact.