Time Travel Discussion (Potential DB Super Spoilers)

[Cipher]

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

That's exactly what I was getting at.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

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

It should have, but it didn't. Both versions of the story, as well as Toei's official chart explicitly state that the timeline split once Beerus killed Zamasu, which is a sizable contributor to the arc's incongruence.

[TheUltimateNinja]

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

That's exactly what I was getting at.

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

It should have, but it didn't. Both versions of the story, as well as Toei's official chart explicitly state that the timeline split once Beerus killed Zamasu, which is a sizable contributor to the arc's incongruence.

This new method makes no sense and contradicts Toriyama's previously established time travel mechanics which were actually quite sound. The first time time Trunks went back to the past he created our timeline since he couldn't change his own already established one, but after that he could come back to our timeline without creating any new ones since this timeline had no set future. Zamasu subverting this rule could easily be explained without contradicting Toriyama's earlier time travel logic.

[dbgtFO]

This new method makes no sense and contradicts Toriyama's previously established time travel mechanics which were actually quite sound. The first time time Trunks went back to the past he created our timeline since he couldn't change his own already established one, but after that he could come back to our timeline without creating any new ones since this timeline had no set future. Zamasu subverting this rule could easily be explained without contradicting Toriyama's earlier time travel logic.

Yeah, Toriyama really ballsed it up on this one. It's like it was a child that came up with this poorly constructed sequence of events
I don't see what the big deal is with just having Black's timeline be the previous main timeline and Trunks then unwittingly ending up creating the newest incarnation of the main timeline, where Beerus kills Zamasu.
In the anime Black's timering would then be allowing him to temporarily go after Trunks, because a new timeline was created and that's why it didn't react later on.

[Nejishiki]

I probably misunderstood that comment but what does Goku Black remember that he shouldn't? From my recollection, Goku Black acknowledges he is present Zamasu & that actions performed from his past (Dragon Ball Super's "normal" setting) won't affect him due to the Time Ring. It's at this point I feel I should highlight that Time Rings are proper instruments for parallel world hopping. They're not (or shouldn't be) comparable to Future Trunks' time machine workings. It seems the same soul (terminology for the sake of this interpretation) can be marked twice if you look at the timeline like a map. In practice, it'll appear as a loop & Beerus' destruction of present Zamasu prevented a third, fourth, & so on marker on "the map" from appearing back & forth. From that, I think it's more that we're crossing two methods of time travel rather than Future Trunks' method of time travel being compromised.

[TheUltimateNinja]

I probably misunderstood that comment but what does Goku Black remember that he shouldn't? From my recollection, Goku Black acknowledges he is present Zamasu & that actions performed from his past (Dragon Ball Super's "normal" setting) won't affect him due to the Time Ring. It's at this point I feel I should highlight that Time Rings are proper instruments for parallel world hopping. They're not (or shouldn't be) comparable to Future Trunks' time machine workings. It seems the same soul (terminology for the sake of this interpretation) can be marked twice if you look at the timeline like a map. In practice, it'll appear as a loop & Beerus' destruction of present Zamasu prevented a third, fourth, & so on marker on "the map" from appearing back & forth. From that, I think it's more that we're crossing two methods of time travel rather than Future Trunks' method of time travel being compromised.

My way of explaining it would be that once Zamasu went to the future using the time ring, he created a set future that could no longer be changed. The time ring ensured that every change he made would stay no matter what, thus when Trunks came back he created a new timeline whereas normally he wouldn't have since he changed Zamasu's fate.

[Cipher]

I probably misunderstood that comment but what does Goku Black remember that he shouldn't?

Black remembering a fight against Goku (not outright stated in the anime, but heavily implied) is the problematic/erroneous part. They only fight because of Trunks' presence, which ultimately leads to the prevention of Black's creation.

It's possible they could meet under different circumstances in the original version of events, but the anime at the very least fails to make this distinction, and goes so far as to include a flashback to the sparring match we watched earlier.

[TheUltimateNinja]

I probably misunderstood that comment but what does Goku Black remember that he shouldn't?

Black remembering a fight against Goku (not outright stated in the anime, but heavily implied) is the problematic/erroneous part. They only fight because of Trunks' presence, which ultimately leads to the prevention of Black's creation.

It's possible they could meet under different circumstances in the original version of events, but the anime at the very least fails to make this distinction, and goes so far as to include a flashback to the sparring match we watched earlier.

This is headcanon, but perhaps the time ring attempts to maintain the timeline as much as possible while still retaining the end result, so while Trunks' interference was unable to stop Black, Black's past was altered somewhat.

[Nejishiki]

Well, that's part of the issue. Goku Black & Future Zamasu's Time Ring logs didn't create new parallel worlds either. That's why I get the feeling the normal Time Ring method is akin to "classic time travel" where you can have legitimate doubles instead of parallel ones. It simply has a feature to scan & travel to split timelines, too. Until Beerus forced a split, Goku's death & the destruction of the Super Dragon Balls were "established history" as Zamasu's murder of the Babari was. As noted earlier, I forget the post, "established history" was tampered when that happened & reality had to solve its contradiction.

With Goku Black's memory: it's likely a mistake, looped memories, or something that happened later when it was supposed to. If I'm remembering right, the flashback doesn't detail the rest of the scenery. In the event that the storyboard was poorly handled, it's saved by its own possible ambiguity in-universe. If seems like I'm cheating by using this example but if Trunks can keep his exact birthing moment & "earn" separate personalities, I figure Goku can lunge at Zamasu similarly for a single moment in dual history.

[Jinzoningen MULE]

I'm going to update the description with what we know about the timelines soon, as well as known contradictions and possible contradictions relating to them. Being monolingual and all, I'll be forced to base it on the Viz translation. I'd appreciate if anyone could PM me any discrepancies between Viz and the Japanese before I start, if there are any, as to avoid any mistakes or confusion.

[Anonymous Friend]

I probably misunderstood that comment but what does Goku Black remember that he shouldn't?

Black remembering a fight against Goku (not outright stated in the anime, but heavily implied) is the problematic/erroneous part. They only fight because of Trunks' presence, which ultimately leads to the prevention of Black's creation.

It's possible they could meet under different circumstances in the original version of events, but the anime at the very least fails to make this distinction, and goes so far as to include a flashback to the sparring match we watched earlier.

Trying to follow this thread while also watching Green with Evil. So maybe I missed something here. Also, I'm about to add in some copious amounts of fanwanking.

Is it possible that were dealing with more timelines than what we're being shown and talked about? Did Black specifically state that the sparring match we saw them have was the match he had that directed him down his path? There was already going to be a inter-universe tournament coming. I know I'm stretching, but who's to say Goku didn't encounter a Supreme Kai in training who was also a very gifted fighter. But, you know, like I said: Stretching. Just the very nature of time traveling and being able to freely travel to different timelines created by time travel, makes for a large number of different scenarios. Black could definitely be referring to the fight we saw. While unmentioned, there could be a few extra Zamasus out there. We know that he isn't above colabbing with alternate time line himselves. Non-black Zamasu being Zamasu-Prime (because F.Trunk's timeline is the only non-altered time line). It's very late and I can't really think of a proper scenario, though.

About the different splits that occur. I believe that the sole act of traveling causes a split. Even if the change is so miniscule as to make no observable difference. In the original series we have Trunks arriving during Goku's return to Earth, Trunk's return during the Android attack, and Cell's trip back one year before Trunk's first trip (Which just caused me to realize that there is a timeline where there's Cell but no Trunk's warning or medicine. Goku dies to heart virus. Gero and C19 still go on a rampage. I wonder if Cell still goes on a people drinking spree, or is able to encounter Gero and gets handed C17 and C18 with no trouble. Gero lives because C17 and C18 have no chance to kill him. ) I count four timelines for Z. And I count five timelines in Super (I'm not counting Black following Trunks back, as the Time Ring just magically followed Trunks to his new location. It's as if they both traveled together essentially.), although it doesn't feel like time traveling when you're going to an alternate future that you have zero chance of creating because they have a totally different past as you.

And I thought DC and Marvel had some bonkers time travel shenanigans.

[Terra-jin]

This new method makes no sense and contradicts Toriyama's previously established time travel mechanics which were actually quite sound.

Agreed! What I like about Dragonball's time travel is that it can be explained in a coherent, elegant model, with a few basic laws/rules from which it all follows. It's actually better in this respect than stuff like Terminator or BTTF. But unfortunately Super's additions make this a lot more difficult (the time rings and Beerus' intervention). The original series had its plot holes, too, (a.g. Trunks supposedly being in Cell's timeline) but it was far less confusing than Super.

[TheMikado]

I probably misunderstood that comment but what does Goku Black remember that he shouldn't?

Black remembering a fight against Goku (not outright stated in the anime, but heavily implied) is the problematic/erroneous part. They only fight because of Trunks' presence, which ultimately leads to the prevention of Black's creation.

It's possible they could meet under different circumstances in the original version of events, but the anime at the very least fails to make this distinction, and goes so far as to include a flashback to the sparring match we watched earlier.

This is exactly correct. The fault in thinking is that Goku is supposed to defeat Zamasu or Beerus is supposed to kill Zamasus. It's the opposite. The unaltered timeline concludes with Zamasu destroying the universe. Trunks and Beerus created another split by an action. The problem is that we've always assumed that not only does the time machine create a new timeline but it takes the user to the timeline as well, however that has NEVER been established as fact just fan and guidebook assumption. It appears the way it actually works is that time machines take users to the last timeline they were actually in until they forcible make an action which alters that timeline and splits it from its predestination.

Trunks is in the 4th line and the time machine never took him to the past of the 5th timeline because it didn't exist yet. It took him to the past of the 4th and by his actions he created the 5th split. We can clearly see you can split a timeline without realizing it or noticing it. We have wrongly assumed for that time machines themselves create the splits but this is inaccurate and still allows the previous mechanics to work.

These mechanics are also supported by the number of time rings that were created.

[Nejishiki]

Normally, one would be open to multiple worlds. Unfortunately, the narrative goes out of its way to end the arc with six parallel worlds. I can't imagine ambiguity after that if only because it seems counterproductive.

Did Black specifically state that the sparring match we saw them have was the match he had that directed him down his path?

Spoiler:

I just noticed that merging flub, don't mind that. Anyway, it's specifically present Zamasu. As far as extra Zamasu go, there's the Cell era Zamasu (doesn't meet Goku), Unseen era Zamasu (a Goku exists, so maybe!), Beerus-created Zamasu (will eventually perish), & Whis-created Zamasu (sealed by his Beerus). A fun thought: Maybe the Beerus-created Zamasu partnered with the unseen era Zamasu? I'm sure they'll get killed anyway though. Both Future Trunks warned Goku of the Artificial Humans & defeated them. It's the original Future Trunks who manages to die by Future Cell's hand.

There's no fault in the thinking, only "thinking direction". Present Zamasu was defeated by Goku; Beerus ended the chain of events. Don't think of them as moments which occurred linearly. Imagine a film you're walking into after one hour passed. It's like that. The "unaltered timeline" doesn't conclude with Future Zeno destroying the worlds. That honor was awarded to the duplicate Future Trunks era. Future Trunks' time machine takes him to the alternate past of his present, yes. Altering the settings will have him visit another parallel world based on his present. That's why the first trip was specifically guided towards when Goku & company were alive & he kept using the same pathway back-and-forth.

[Basaku]

I probably misunderstood that comment but what does Goku Black remember that he shouldn't?

Black remembering a fight against Goku (not outright stated in the anime, but heavily implied) is the problematic/erroneous part. They only fight because of Trunks' presence, which ultimately leads to the prevention of Black's creation.

It's possible they could meet under different circumstances in the original version of events, but the anime at the very least fails to make this distinction, and goes so far as to include a flashback to the sparring match we watched earlier.

I guess this falls under the part of literally changing the past-future within 1 timeline while avoiding the splits thanks to Time Ring. As in events have already changed and sparring with Goku + Beerus about to kill him is now part of his memory and history, due to loop. In the end, those "additions because of loop" don't change much really. Zamasu already had his motives/plan before and goes though with it in one of the timelines.

It's all rather clunky but Toriyama did kind of save his own ass from absolute clusterfuck of looped history logic by introducing timesplit due to Beerus killing Zamasu. With that action, we do have separate parrarel timeline where Beerus did not kill him, and Zamasu proceeded with his plan.

[The gr]

I just realized something a timeline with zamasu switching body with goku should never happened in the first place in the DBS anime

[Lord Beerus]

I just realized something a timeline with zamasu switching body with goku should never happened in the first place in the DBS anime

Why do you think that is the case?

[The gr]

I just realized something a timeline with zamasu switching body with goku should never happened in the first place in the DBS anime

Why do you think that is the case?

I'm not in a mood of making a long ass paragraph about why it doesn't make sense but I'll leave to this video to explain this mess https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OZfmaE0b944

[Jinzoningen MULE]

I just realized something a timeline with zamasu switching body with goku should never happened in the first place in the DBS anime

Why do you think that is the case?

I'm not in a mood of making a long ass paragraph about why it doesn't make sense but I'll leave to this video to explain this mess https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OZfmaE0b944

It's a shame this video was so disorganized, it's really hard to recommend. However, it's pretty much the only one that addresses the problem at all. We should really have someone make a diagram of all the issues. I know I should do it myself since I thought of it, but I'm horrible with charts.

[Cipher]

I'm not in a mood of making a long ass paragraph about why it doesn't make sense but I'll leave to this video to explain this mess https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OZfmaE0b944

It's a shame this video was so disorganized, it's really hard to recommend. However, it's pretty much the only one that addresses the problem at all. We should really have someone make a diagram of all the issues. I know I should do it myself since I thought of it, but I'm horrible with charts.

Someone give me the tl;dr on the video. Does it just cover the issue of Zamasu citing a fight between himself and Goku that should never have happened without Trunks (and Black's) intervention in the past?

If so, it's right. I just give that the same big fat "This is a mistake and can't line up with anything else; ignore it!" that I give Cell's dialogue about Trunks killing Freeza and Cold in the manga/Z.

(I'm aware that there are ways to make both lines function in-universe, but they require so much bending around the obvious answers and make things so needlessly obtuse that I can't imagine Toriyama or Toei realized the implications as they wrote them. Dragon Ball's a series I have no problem assuming comes with a few gaps.)