Non-thread-worthy discussions

[Noah]

Cell claims a Trunks from his timeline killed Frieza and Cold.

Cell's timeline is like the main timeline, but everyone dies to the androids for whatever reason. It's a "bad ending", basically.

Wasn't this filler? I remember the anime showing a flashback about it, but I don't remember it is implied in the manga too

It doesn't make sense that Cell is from a timeline like the main timeline since Trunks was there content that he found way to destroy the androids and was willing to go back to the past

[Sailor Haumea]

Cell claims a Trunks from his timeline killed Frieza and Cold.

Cell's timeline is like the main timeline, but everyone dies to the androids for whatever reason. It's a "bad ending", basically.

Wasn't this filler? I remember the anime showing a flashback about it, but I don't remember it is implied in the manga too

It doesn't make sense that Cell is from a timeline like the main timeline since Trunks was there content that he found way to destroy the androids and was willing to go back to the past

No, that was in the manga. The manga showed Frieza sliced in half and Cold against a wall, with a hole through his chest, just like they died to Trunks. He says they could've collected Trunks's cells, but they already had enough Saiyan samples.

So no, that's not filler.

[Noah]

No, that was in the manga. The manga showed Frieza sliced in half and Cold against a wall, with a hole through his chest, just like they died to Trunks. He says they could've collected Trunks's cells, but they already had enough Saiyan samples.

So no, that's not filler.

So the Trunks from this timeline is actually the baby Trunks after 20 years that his future counterpart warned Goku about the androids but they were killed anyway? Is that possible?

[Sailor Haumea]

No, that was in the manga. The manga showed Frieza sliced in half and Cold against a wall, with a hole through his chest, just like they died to Trunks. He says they could've collected Trunks's cells, but they already had enough Saiyan samples.

So no, that's not filler.

So the Trunks from this timeline is actually the baby Trunks after 20 years that his future counterpart warned Goku about the androids but they were killed anyway? Is that possible?

Timeline 1 (unseen) - Androids kill everyone.
Timeline 2 (Cell's timeline) - T1 Trunks warns everyone about the androids. Everyone dies to androids. T1 Trunks either returns to his timeline or is killed by the androids here. T2 Trunks goes to T3. After returning to T2, he deactivates the androids and is killed by Cell, who goes back in time and creates T4.
Timeline 3 (unseen) - T2 Trunks warns everyone about the androids. He gets the remote and returns to his time.
Timeline 4 (main timeline)
Timeline 5 (Trunks's timeline)

It's unclear whether the Trunks that kills Frieza and Cold in Timeline 4 is from Timeline 2 or from Timeline 5.

[Noah]

Good lord. There are possibly more things I don't get about all this time travels stuff

Daizenshuu timeline guide theorizes that Trunks and the others found the blueprints for the shutdown remote, which actually makes some sense, because it's what the Future Trunks we get to know talks about finding before Cell comes along and mucks everything up. Presumably they'd then use the remote to shut the Androids down and possibly destroy them, and then Trunks could return to his future and use it to shut down his Androids there. Then Cell appears and kills him for his trouble... But that doesn't make much sense either since this Trunks would go back to the past not to say that he found way but that actually he triumphed and Cell says that he didn't change anything in the Time Machine cordinates, so by this theory Cell would go to the same timeline that they shutdown the androids? Damn...

[Robo4900]

I always thought it was:

T1 (Cell's timeline): The androids kill everyone, so Trunks goes to T2. When he comes back, he kills or deactivates the androids, and then is killed by Cell, who creates T4.
T2 (Unseen timeline): Trunks from T1 appears, and warns everyone about the Androids. The Androids are defeated or deactivated, and Cell eventually emerges and is likely killed by Goku or Vegeta.
T3 (Trunks's timeline): The androids kill everyone, so Trunks goes to T4. When he comes back, he kills the androids, and this timeline's Cell.
T4 (Main timeline): Trunks from T3 appears, and warns everyone about the Androids. But, the timeline has been changed by T1 Cell, so the Cell Games happen.

I don't quite understand why there needs to be 5 timelines in your version TBH.

[Nejishiki]

These are the established timelines with the least amount of interpretation:

Spoiler:

Cell arrives in AGE 763.
Future Trunks arrives in AGE 764, defeats Freeza & Cold, gives Goku his medicine, and returns home.
Goku doesn't develop heart disease symptoms on the same date, so he never takes it. The future is altered.
Cell's time machine is reported, the Artificial Humans attack, Future Trunks returns, and Cell makes his presence known after the previous encounters end.
Kuririn and Future Trunks find No. 17's blueprints & destroy Gero's lab and present Cell.
Cell completes himself and holds the Cell Game. Gohan is the victor.

Spoiler:

Goku defeats Freeza & Cold and dies soon after this.
The Artificial Humans attack and Dragon Team perishes.
Future Gohan trains Future Trunks and later dies.
Bluma finishes the time machine.
Future Trunks leaves, returns, and charges the time machine for 8 months.
Future Trunks leaves again, returns again, and defeats his Artificial Humans.
Cell awakens, plots to kill Future Trunks for his time machine after 3 years pass, and is defeated by Future Trunks.

Spoiler:

Goku defeats Freeza & Cold and dies soon after this.
The Artificial Humans attack and Dragon Team perishes.
Future Gohan trains Future Trunks and later dies.
Bluma finishes the time machine.
Future Trunks leaves, returns, and charges the time machine for 8 months.
Future Trunks leaves again, returns again, and defeats his Artificial Humans.
Cell awakens and is unable to find No. 17 and No. 18 after two years of searching. He kills Future Trunks and takes his time machine.

Spoiler:

Future Trunks arrives however many times he did and eventually never returns.
A Cell Game is held.

As far as the narrative is concerned, only Goku and Future Trunks' era are of importance. The other two are for background consistency and it's no surprise they contain nonexistent elaboration.

[Cipher]

Sailor Haumea is right in that Cell's line about Trunks killing Freeza and Cold exists in both the manga and anime and could be explained with a fifth "original" Trunks who failed to make substantial changes in his trip back (and whom our Trunks never learned about), but it's more common to write the line off as an error and stick with the simpler four-timeline reading.

The story doesn't benefit from having this fifth Trunks who fails to provide the heart medicine, etc. for unknown reasons (or rather, whose showing up prompts the Trunks of that timeline to bring the heart medicine on his trip back for unknown reasons), and it hinges on a single line that could easily contain the kind of error Toriyama was prone to writing into the series with its week-to-week plotting, so I go with the four-timeline theory myself.

Re: Above: That "Cell Games" bit in the "unseen" timeline makes absolutely no sense. It comes from a Daizenshuu tidbit, and I think they were totally trippin'. They'd have to occur more than twenty years after they do in the main timeline, when that timeline's Cell is done developing, and they'd only be a threat if the androids weren't defeated and he still managed to absorb them. It is a massively weird detail to include.

[Nejishiki]

It's too bad video game continuity can't apply. I would buy it if they adapted No. 17 and 18 feeding alternate versions of themselves to Cell as a joke gone wrong in their boredom. But, alas, it doesn't work out smoothly.

[Noah]

*snip*

Well, updating:

The most controversial topics to discuss in DB fanbase in general:

- Broly
- Canon
- Time travels
- GT
- Goku vs. Superman
- Plot holes
- Power levels
- The strongest Majin Boo
- The strongest earthling
- The strongest in Boo Arc
- Was Gohan OOC in the Cell Games?
- Was Gohan a SSJ2 against Dabura?

*snip*

But what was the story in Cell's timeline? The same Trunks that killed Freeza in his timeline was the same killed by Cell?

[Nejishiki]

There's two schools of thought: Toriyama made an error or Cell was referring to "present" events. Recall that he was underground during Freeza & Cold's failed mission. The former is practical but I like making everything work, if possible. Cell killed his Future Trunks and they both share an origin point where Goku defeated the invaders. That's pretty clean, I think.

[Cipher]

There's two schools of thought: Toriyama made an error or Cell was referring to "present" events. Recall that he was underground during Freeza & Cold's failed mission. The former is practical but I like making everything work, if possible. Cell killed his Future Trunks and they both share an origin point where Goku defeated the invaders. That's pretty clean, I think.

A third theory would be that there's an original Trunks who does make a trip back and introduces subtle changes to Cell/Trunks' timeline, but fails to actually stop the androids or radically alter events for whatever reason. You end up with five timelines that way.

I know it's what Sailor Humea subscribes to, and technically there's nothing logically wrong with that reading, but it's a lot of complication for a single, probably erroneous line.

Personally, I write it off as a mistake and assume that Goku killed Freeza and Cold in Cell/Trunks' future just as Trunks believes he will when he goes back to the past. I know most others take that approach as well, which is why it's become accepted fandom "wisdom" that there are four timelines by the end of the arc (in addition to the Daizenshuu taking that approach, despite the weirdness of its details).

But what was the story in Cell's timeline? The same Trunks that killed Freeza in his timeline was the same killed by Cell?

It's either 1) an error, and Goku killed them just as Trunks believes should happen 2) a Trunks from a fifth, "original" timeline, or 3) Cell's talking about the present, even though that'd be really weird, since he brings it up in context of the probe deciding not to take Trunks' cells for his own development.

I really think it's an error, but anyone's free to go with one of the other explanations, should they want to keep everything strictly in-universe.

[Nejishiki]

I won't say it's not an interesting twist, but I also try to inherit authorial spirit in whatever I consume. Toriyama attempts simplicity, so I take the same approach with his story. (Not that I wouldn't look beyond what is transcribed. It's probably obvious I always do that.) Had this been written by anyone else, I think having the original Future Trunks fail to such a degree would be fun to think about. It strengthens why time traveling is a bad idea. One simple trip to a parallel world can spiral out of control and run several different events that can no longer be reliably tracked. As you mentioned, there's better workarounds for Cell's exposition, which was intended to reveal all that we needed to know. A sub-story like that would gain spotlight then and there by virtue of how the scene was executed. Ultimately, it wasn't written with the complete implications considered... beyond the explicit ones we're provided.

[Soppa Saia People]

In the Viz translation, is Ed supposed mean editor or some guy named Ed ?

[Jinzoningen MULE]

In the Viz translation, is Ed supposed mean editor or some guy named Ed ?

What chapter is it in? Or could you give a screenshot or photo, so we can have the context?

[Soppa Saia People]

In the Viz translation, is Ed supposed mean editor or some guy named Ed ?

What chapter is it in? Or could you give a screenshot or photo, so we can have the context?

It's basically a note for when attacks are using the original name (IE, the Kienzan or KiKoHo) or to explain something that the reader might not now (IE, when Karin first appears in "z" at says "It's a long story, read Dragon Ball, Vol. 8") and Toriyama's QA section. It can't take a screenshot on my kindle.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

In the Viz translation, is Ed supposed mean editor or some guy named Ed ?

What chapter is it in? Or could you give a screenshot or photo, so we can have the context?

It's basically a note for when attacks are using the original name (IE, the Kienzan or KiKoHo) or to explain something that the reader might not now (IE, when Karin first appears in "z" at says "It's a long story, read Dragon Ball, Vol. 8") and Toriyama's QA section. It can't take a screenshot on my kindle.

Not sure what it means, other than it's a footnote. Do you need to know for some reason, or are you just curious?

[Soppa Saia People]

What chapter is it in? Or could you give a screenshot or photo, so we can have the context?

It's basically a note for when attacks are using the original name (IE, the Kienzan or KiKoHo) or to explain something that the reader might not now (IE, when Karin first appears in "z" at says "It's a long story, read Dragon Ball, Vol. 8") and Toriyama's QA section. It can't take a screenshot on my kindle.

Not sure what it means, other than it's a footnote. Do you need to know for some reason, or are you just curious?

Curious. I've always wanted to know.

[Lunatic Fringe]

Is it me or are senzu bean bags out of proportion a lot of the time? There can be three or four left but the bag makes it look out to be there being fifty or so in it.

[Nejishiki]

In the Viz translation, is Ed supposed mean editor or some guy named Ed ?

*Editor's note.