Trunks/Time Travel Question

Tyro · Post by **Tyro** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 3:11 am

Now I may have just done the math wrong, but I’m fairly sure I’ve just ran across another plothole in the series. Today I was working on a possible timeline theory, but I needed to know all the specific events we know about that happened in the original timeline. So I looked through "Trunks The Story", and was reading Bulma’s dialog about what Trunks will do when he gets healthy enough to pilot the time machine. She says the first thing Trunks will do is take the time machine back in time seventeen years to give Goku his medicine. Now this is what got me confused:

Trunks is seventeen years old. He was going to take the time machine back in time seventeen years. Wouldn’t that put him around the time when he’s born? Isn’t that near the end of the three year period before the artificial humans arrive? That would make him about two and a half years too late. To check up on this I read what Trunks told Goku when he first arrived to fight Freeza. He said he came from a time twenty years in the future. So wouldn’t he need to go back twenty years into the past to give Goku the medicine?

Humpski · Post by **Humpski** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:38 am

"...what Trunks will do when he gets healthy enough to pilot the time machine."

Maybe it took him 3 years to get healthy enough?

Olivier Hague · Post by **Olivier Hague** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 10:03 am

Humpski wrote:Maybe it took him 3 years to get healthy enough?

How would that make things better? ^^;

Humpski · Post by **Humpski** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 10:09 am

Because if he was 17 when Bulma said that, and then when he came back Trunks said that, "he comes from a time twenty years in the future."

Then the math would add up.

Olivier Hague · Post by **Olivier Hague** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 10:14 am

Didn't Trunks tell the others he was 17?

Tyro · Post by **Tyro** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 10:31 am

Yes, he did.

Super 17 · Post by **Super 17** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 11:35 am

Actually I don't remember Trunks telling his age, only that he's Twenty years from the future.

raz1337 · Post by **raz1337** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 2:05 pm

If he did, it would've been in the manga or jap anime. He never stated his age in the Funi dub.

sailorspazz · Post by **sailorspazz** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 3:36 pm

Yes, the dub didn't mention his age, but the original did. I think it was Bulma (?) who asked what his name and age were, and he said that he couldn't tell them his name, but his age was 17.

Dayspring · Post by **Dayspring** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 5:29 pm

I just figured they later realised (off-camera) that going 17 years into the past wouldn't change anything since Goku'd be dead already.

Either that or Toriyama simply screwed up the math in that saga. Again.

Saiyan · Post by **Saiyan** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:27 pm

No..I've always read it in the manga that he is 17, and comes from 20 years in the future, which is mathematically correct, so Toriyama didn't screw this one up.

Tyro · Post by **Tyro** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 2:55 am

Saiyan wrote:No..I've always read it in the manga that he is 17, and comes from 20 years in the future, which is mathematically correct, so Toriyama didn't screw this one up.

True, he didn't screw it up going forward in time, because logically 3 + 17 = 20. But there would be no reason for Trunks to only go back in time 17 years when Goku would have been dead by then, because he died soon after the three year period started, as stated by Trunks.

Tsukento · Post by **Tsukento** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 6:41 am

Not only would it make more sense to get to Goku before he dies, but also supply everyone with enough time to train to be prepared once the Artificial Humans arrive. So jumping twenty years into the past made more sense than when Trunks was born or when Goku dies.

Sun_Wukong · Post by **Sun_Wukong** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 12:13 pm

You all seem to be forgetting that the first time Trunks showed up, the current Trunks wasnt born yet. When Trunks comes back 3 years later, current Trunks is born. So its safe to say that the current Trunks was born anywhere from a few months to a year before Trunks came back, since it was never said when he was born.

When Trunks came back the first time, he was in fact from 20 years in the future, since it was 3 years before Goku was infected by the heart virus.

Olivier Hague · Post by **Olivier Hague** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 12:27 pm

Sun_Wukong wrote:You all seem to be forgetting that

No, we're not, really. ^^;

Dayspring · Post by **Dayspring** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 3:04 pm

Saiyan wrote:No..I've always read it in the manga that he is 17, and comes from 20 years in the future, which is mathematically correct, so Toriyama didn't screw this one up.

It is a mistake. What Mirai Bulma mentions in book 33 (Trunks the story) is, but not what Trunks in book 28 mentions. Bulma's exact words are that Trunks will go back 17 years into the past and give Goku the medicine. However, Goku died at least 19 years prior that point, which is why Trunks goes 20 years (not 17) back into the past. 17 years is smply how long the Androids have been around, not when Goku needed the medicine.