Concerning Imperfect Cell's timeline and the Androids strength

[MechaTrunks]

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?

Mmmm Cell had to revert to his egg phase in order to fit in the Time Machine, so I always interpreted it as if any energy he could've gathered in the future was lost in that process of reverting back to it's egg state since we know for a fact that the energy he gathers in his previous forms doesn't have any impact in the following ones.

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.

I 100% agree with this take. Furthermore, if there had been a Trunks in Cell's timeline that acted so different than the Trunks we see that changed all the events related to the Future Timelines, Cold and Mecha dying in the exact same ways they did in the TL we see makes no sense either.

Regards!

[Desassina]

Mmmm Cell had to revert to his egg phase in order to fit in the Time Machine, so I always interpreted it as if any energy he could've gathered in the future was lost in that process of reverting back to it's egg state since we know for a fact that the energy he gathers in his previous forms doesn't have any impact in the following ones.

This hinges a lot on trying to piece things so that the androids can be equal, and that is a big assumption on our part, because it should be the other way around. Cell has not given any clues about having lost power when he returned to being imperfect, he just figured that everyone was more powerful in the present than his data showed, and the super computer in the present has probably given him more info about what happened. On the other hand...

Spoiler:

I believe that Cell was always part of the past when Freeza and King Cold were killed, by either Goku in Trunks's past or by the latter himself, with the difference being that Trunks's second interference was what made Cell steal the time machine in the future. His appearance in Ginger town made the future change so that he would not steal the time machine, because Trunks knew of him by the time he returned, but the scenario in which he was killed had to happen for him to be warned. Since time moves forward, from the past to the future, these characters show up from possible futures before they're even conceived, and when they travel to them, they represent history as they knew it.

One day I will change that scheme so that Trunks does not find the lab and takes the remote blueprints with him before Cell kills him. I think that it's a bit awkward and I will just leave that future to "... something happened and the androids were destroyed." It doesn't need much thinking: if the androids are weaker in the future than in the present, then light training could defeat them with fighting effort, otherwise not be enough for Cell given that he was stronger than them.

[MechaTrunks]

This hinges a lot on trying to piece things so that the androids can be equal, and that is a big assumption on our part, because it should be the other way around.

I don't think the androids are equal, future androids were weaker as stated, but that Cell from Gingertown wouldn't have had the strength to defeat the future androids (Cell at that point had the same strength as Future SSJ Trunks more or less, but he had already absorved dozens of thousands of humans in the present TL).

If Cell's absorbed energy didn't even transfer to his upgraded forms, and he had to revert to his most primogenius phase (inside an egg again), I think it makes more sense to think that he lost that absorbed ki in the process.
Otherwise future androids would be too weak even to confront Trunks, and we know that while it was a good fight, Trunks was still in no position to defeat them just with his strength.

Spoiler:

I believe that Cell was always part of the past when Freeza and King Cold were killed, by either Goku in Trunks's past or by the latter himself, with the difference being that Trunks's second interference was what made Cell steal the time machine in the future. His appearance in Ginger town made the future change so that he would not steal the time machine, because Trunks knew of him by the time he returned, but the scenario in which he was killed had to happen for him to be warned. Since time moves forward, from the past to the future, these characters show up from possible futures before they're even conceived, and when they travel to them, they represent history as they knew it.

One day I will change that scheme so that Trunks does not find the lab and takes the remote blueprints with him before Cell kills him. I think that it's a bit awkward and I will just leave that future to "... something happened and the androids were destroyed." It doesn't need much thinking: if the androids are weaker in the future than in the present, then light training could defeat them with fighting effort, otherwise not be enough for Cell given that he was stronger than them.

Mmmm I understand the reasoning behind those timelines, but I don't agree with it. Cell can't be present in Trunk's original TL past, he in fact is the one that creates the TL we see (TL3 in order of creation), so he can't be there in the original TL or the 1st one created by Trunks until he is activated much later into the future (20 something years it was I think).

This is a quick drawing I made on my own to explain how the TL work:


Each timeline is created by a time travel to the past that changed the events of the destination TL, but once a TL is created, future travels to the past won't create more TLs as long as those travels don't end going back to before the first one that created said TL (since that TL already only exist with those time travels).

First TL has no Cell and no Trunks from the future. The androids kill everyone and Trunks goes back.
The 2nd TL still has no Cell and is created by Trunks going back to the past for the first time. After he came back, he killed the androids (in TL1) and was killed by Cell, who traveled back to 1 year BEFORE Trunks 1st time travel, thus creating a new TL.
TL3 is the one we see. Cell arrives 1 year before Trunks and changes something that makes Trunks, when he arrives from TL1, to act different.
That Trunks doesn't know it, but he will never return to TL1 because he will have a different experience in the past that will make him act differently. So when this Trunks arrives to his future, he acts different and as a result TL4 is created where Trunks doesn't kill the androids and decides to come back to the past he knows (TL3) before confronting the androids and killing them.

Regards!

[Desassina]

I don't think the androids are equal, future androids were weaker as stated, but that Cell from Gingertown wouldn't have had the strength to defeat the future androids (Cell at that point had the same strength as Future SSJ Trunks more or less, but he had already absorved dozens of thousands of humans in the present TL).

If Cell's absorbed energy didn't even transfer to his upgraded forms, and he had to revert to his most primogenius phase (inside an egg again), I think it makes more sense to think that he lost that absorbed ki in the process.
Otherwise future androids would be too weak even to confront Trunks, and we know that while it was a good fight, Trunks was still in no position to defeat them just with his strength.

I just think that the scenario that Cell comes from in the future is one where Trunks defeated the androids by means that were not revealed. It doesn't make sense for us to believe that he got the blueprints, killed baby Cell, and departed without participating in the Cell Games. I mean, wouldn't he be of help in the present, or allow the others to use the remote as well? The scenario in which Cell kills Trunks in the future has to come before his reveal in the present, because it's this reveal that sets future Cell's defeat in motion, but the present developed without them knowing until then and this is how he departed. Cell came from a possible scenario that ended up not existing. The only way to get there is to be a Kaioshin with access to a ring.

Mmmm I understand the reasoning behind those timelines, but I don't agree with it. Cell can't be present in Trunk's original TL past, he in fact is the one that creates the TL we see (TL3 in order of creation), so he can't be there in the original TL or the 1st one created by Trunks until he is activated much later into the future (20 something years it was I think).

Cell is not "present" in Trunks's history. That placement is in the mainline, before Trunks's arrival to defeat Freeza and King Cold. Their defeat by Goku is only a means to say what would have happened had Trunks not arrived. Cell's presence helps the timeline split before Trunks even gets there, and it's his arrival that allows Cell to have Freeza and King Cold defeated by Trunks in his history. The thing that I would change is the lab's destruction for reasons already mentioned above. Think of this recursive chart with a loop as two timelines with many instances of the same ones. Not many places. Kinda like Toyotaro's version of the Super one.

[MechaTrunks]

I just think that the scenario that Cell comes from in the future is one where Trunks defeated the androids by means that were not revealed. It doesn't make sense for us to believe that he got the blueprints, killed baby Cell, and departed without participating in the Cell Games. I mean, wouldn't he be of help in the present, or allow the others to use the remote as well? The scenario in which Cell kills Trunks in the future has to come before his reveal in the present, because it's this reveal that sets future Cell's defeat in motion, but the present developed without them knowing until then and this is how he departed. Cell came from a possible scenario that ended up not existing. The only way to get there is to be a Kaioshin with access to a ring.

I'm against the control remote theory as well. The way Trunks defeated the future androids is implied to be the senzu beans (not available in the future as stated in the Future Trunks chapter) that Trunks took from the past in the travel he did to the TL we don't see (the one where Cell wasn't present when Trunks arrived for the first time).

Cell is not "present" in Trunks's history. That placement is in the mainline, before Trunks's arrival to defeat Freeza and King Cold. Their defeat by Goku is only a means to say what would have happened had Trunks not arrived. Cell's presence helps the timeline split before Trunks even gets there, and it's his arrival that allows Cell to have Freeza and King Cold defeated by Trunks in his history.

In that case we agree on how the TL work, it's just that I can't see where the original TL is in your schema (sorry for not getting it).

[Desassina]

No problem. Trunks's history is not there indeed. The events between the mainline and the future are split by those arrow like things. Cheers!

[Incarnate]

There's only two timelines, the Future timeline and the Main timeline.

[Desassina]

It's what we're suggesting. The Kaioshins can travel to previous instances of the future too.

[Seekeroftruth]

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!

1. In my reply to your previous statement, you stated that Gohan was never convinced that he could win and he left trunks behind because he was not sure of how much power the androids were holding back. However, this contradicts what we see in the panel. Gohan shows confidence and claims to 17 that he was going to make them pay which shows that he believed he had a chance of winning only to be shocked by how much the androids were holding back on him.

2. Bulma cannot detect ki but Trunks can and he did not objective or question Bulma's assesment of his power. Trunks was also confident that he had gotten enough power to beat the androids now when they did attack, and based on his time with Son Gohan and knowing that they killed him, that he would have had to exceed his power pass this point to be confident that he had a chance.

"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."

The only source of this comes from trunks who as we have seen is a questionable source with regards to the android strength. I've stated in my previous points why trunks claim cannot be considered fact.

3. "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."

I am not sure what you are implying here. I am saying that the spy robots are not stagnant and was actively updating the central computer about current power levels in the world. This is why the spy robots were able to tell Imperfect cell about how strong trunks was and how powerful the androids are. If Gero can accurately tell cell about the androids strength, it seems reasonable that he would attach a device on these robots to track the androids power.

4. "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)."

I'm not really sure why you think this is so hard to believe. They were rather close in the android arc to stopping gero. It is not hard to believe that in another timeline that they did stop him from activating 17 and 18.

5. "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?"

Well there is more evidence to support the remote theory by toriyama having cell state he has no idea of how trunks defeated the androids and then state that he is glad the remote controller was destroyed in the main timeline and that if inactivated they could easily be destroyed.

6. "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."

Toriyama did actually retcon the androids and their backstory a little. In the manga, trunks refers to them as two metal men and refers to them as android 19 and 20. He also calls them incredibly strong but states to goku that the reason he is losing so badly is because he has to fight them alone. Trunks second trip to the past, he does not recognize 19 and 20 (who were meant to be original androids before Toriyama editor decided to change them to 17 and 18). We also see that Toriyama drops several hints that we cannot take trunks word seriously as i have addressed in my previous post.

7. "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."

If we look at the context of the overall picture. 17 refers to piccolo as entertainment and tells cell to buzz off as he is enjoying his fight. In the context of trunks, he refers to him as a fool for returning and both androids look more annoyed than thrilled to fight him.After which he caution 18 that killing trunks would destroy the few remaining sources of entertainment they have for amusement. Again we should also factor in the personality difference of the 2 cyborgs.

8. "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."

The point is that vegeta thought that he had a chance to defeat cell after getting royally owned. He even states after his training in ROSAT next time that he would win the cell games and was confident he could beat cell. However, as we know cell is holding back and vegeta quickly finds out that his current power was not enough.

In a similar instance, trunks has no clear marker of how much power the androids use against him of him fighting fairly well is also muffled by the androids obviously holding back their power. Thus, he is basically shooting in the dark and his assessment of his performance depends on how much the androids will use on him in a given fight.

9. "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."

16. "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!"

Except it has never been stated that cold has a form beyond his second form. Just like we can't assume Chilled has other forms and he just never got a chance to transform against bardock. Assuming just because character A of one race can do it that another character can is a false premise. We see that perfectly well with Cabba not being able to turn into a SSJ.

17. "We never see Raditz or Nappa turning into giant Apes.

18. "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."

I'm not sure how you can't follow the basic logic of my previous statement. I suspect it may be out of pride and not wanting to change your view but there is no logical reason why goku would not use SSJ during this time period.

19. As for your other points i have already addressed that. Cell who has full knowledge says in front of trunks that no one but piccolo can put up a good fight against the androids. It's pretty clear and toriyama puts the final coffin that everyone else had no chance of even tipping the scale by showing 17, one shoting them. Piccolo even tells vegeta after the imperfect cell fight to not seek cell out as he is stronger than him (and we know at this time cell is weaker than the androids).

[MechaTrunks]

1. In my reply to your previous statement, you stated that Gohan was never convinced that he could win and he left trunks behind because he was not sure of how much power the androids were holding back. However, this contradicts what we see in the panel. Gohan shows confidence and claims to 17 that he was going to make them pay which shows that he believed he had a chance of winning only to be shocked by how much the androids were holding back on him.

What did you want, Gohan to go in front of the Androids explaining to them all his insecurities? Him telling Trunks that the earth would need a warrior in the future in case he is killed already tells you everything about how Gohan felt at that point.
Convinced he had a chance of winning? Of course.
Convinced he would 100% win the fight? Not at all.

Future Trunks thinking he was able to fight fairly well against the androids when he was completely outclassed is a level of retardedness never seen in the series.

2. Bulma cannot detect ki but Trunks can and he did not objective or question Bulma's assesment of his power. Trunks was also confident that he had gotten enough power to beat the androids now when they did attack, and based on his time with Son Gohan and knowing that they killed him, that he would have had to exceed his power pass this point to be confident that he had a chance.

If Trunks didn't see him capable of doing better than Gohan he wouldn't have atttempted to beat the androids.
You have to put things into each character's perspective: Bulma is trying to convince Trunks not to fight the androids there and she uses Gohan's death to do it.
That sentence wasn't mean to be taken as an exact measure of Trunks power or anything, but Bulma simply not wanting to lose her son.

The only source of this comes from trunks who as we have seen is a questionable source with regards to the android strength. I've stated in my previous points why trunks claim cannot be considered fact.

Trunks is not questionable at all when it comes to assessing an opponent's power.
He may be inexperienced and forget about concepts like being a balanced fighter or missing small details like in the fight between A18 vs Vegeta, but he never got an opponent's power so wrong as you imply.
The thing is that nobody contradicts Trunks in the fact that the future androids are weaker than the Present ones, so you can't dismiss that piece of info just based on how you interprete other scenes which can have dozens of different meanings.

I am not sure what you are implying here. I am saying that the spy robots are not stagnant and was actively updating the central computer about current power levels in the world. This is why the spy robots were able to tell Imperfect cell about how strong trunks was and how powerful the androids are. If Gero can accurately tell cell about the androids strength, it seems reasonable that he would attach a device on these robots to track the androids power.

Never in the series is that robot stated to measure the power of any android, and considering Cell's data on his TL androids wasn't accurate (he had data on the current, present androids) your theory is contradicted by that fact.
Why didn't the spy robot update him? Facts > theories.

I'm not really sure why you think this is so hard to believe. They were rather close in the android arc to stopping gero. It is not hard to believe that in another timeline that they did stop him from activating 17 and 18.

Because that's a point that's specifically addressed in the main TL we see, and the Z-warriors tell her to fuck off (with good words).
What could have happened in that TL that could change Goku's personality to the point of him wanting to kill Guero and defeat the androids without even fighting?
Changes have to be something that can be explained by the different events that happened in those TL, not just "anything can happen" to a point where you transform Goku's personality to fit a theory.

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?"

Who said that Future Trunks killed them just because they got coky? My explanation is that Trunks took with him some senzu-beans from the past which is what gave him the key of overcoming the android's unlimited strength.
If a Trunks that couldn't waste his energy was able to fight the future androids fairly well, a Trunks that can fight burning his stamina without caring for his durability, taking down one android at a time while eating senzus, could very easily kill them.
Burning all your stamina in short bursts gives you a good extra 20-30% of power, which could grant fatal blows to the androids not giving them the chance to even fight back.

Well there is more evidence to support the remote theory by toriyama having cell state he has no idea of how trunks defeated the androids and then state that he is glad the remote controller was destroyed in the main timeline and that if inactivated they could easily be destroyed.

A tad difficult considering Toriyama took a lot of care in placing anything related with the remote control in a place impossible to reach without Cell explaining it's existence.
In fact, considering that Cell knew all about the secret lab, him saying that he doesn't know how Trunks killed the androids proves that Trunks finding that secret lab wasn't even a possibility for Cell.
On the other hand, the future androids being weaker and Cell not being aware of it (he had PRESENT androids data in his head) perfectly explains this.

As you can see, theories have to adapt to the stated facts, and not the opposite.

Toriyama did actually retcon the androids and their backstory a little. In the manga, trunks refers to them as two metal men and refers to them as android 19 and 20. He also calls them incredibly strong but states to goku that the reason he is losing so badly is because he has to fight them alone. Trunks second trip to the past, he does not recognize 19 and 20 (who were meant to be original androids before Toriyama editor decided to change them to 17 and 18). We also see that Toriyama drops several hints that we cannot take trunks word seriously as i have addressed in my previous post.

We know Toriyama retconned various things internally, but except for Trunks calling the future androids 19 and 20, the rest of the story was well written enough to be perfectly solid even with all the changes that may had happened behind the scenes.
But here is the thing, THE LAST PIECE OF INFO WE'RE GIVEN ABOUT THE FUTURE ANDROIDS is that Future Trunks was able to fight them fairly well.
That piece of info is given to us after the rest, and at a point where it made sense for Trunks to give it because of the context of the story, so it's the valid one because it's never contradicted again.

And no, you have not adressed Trunks being so retarded as to think that he could have a good fight witht the androids when in reality the fight was one-sided in favour of the androids.

If we look at the context of the overall picture. 17 refers to piccolo as entertainment and tells cell to buzz off as he is enjoying his fight. In the context of trunks, he refers to him as a fool for returning and both androids look more annoyed than thrilled to fight him.After which he caution 18 that killing trunks would destroy the few remaining sources of entertainment they have for amusement. Again we should also factor in the personality difference of the 2 cyborgs.

Statements > your interpretation on a scene. A17 never says what you imply, and no, A17 says he is going to lose a good toy, which means he had fun and wasnt' simply annoyed.
It doesn't matter though, because Trunks sentence leaves no doubt, so anything future A17 and A18 do has to be adapted to that if possible (and it's very, very possible to do it).

The point is that vegeta thought that he had a chance to defeat cell after getting royally owned. He even states after his training in ROSAT next time that he would win the cell games and was confident he could beat cell. However, as we know cell is holding back and vegeta quickly finds out that his current power was not enough.

The point is that Trunks was speaking of his past fights with the androids, so no, Vegeta underestimating Perfect Cell BEFORE losing to him badly isn't the same.
You're saying that Trunks had a lost against the future androids comparable to the one Vegeta had against Perfect Cell, and that he is so retarded that when he explains it to the other Z-warriors in the present timeline he thinks that fight was fairly even?

Trunks is comparing the Present androids to the Future ones he had already fought, so no, it's as I've said: Vegeta being so retarded to claim he could fight Perfect Cell fairly well is the appropiate comparison.
Of course, this never happens in the series with anyone not called Mr. Satan.

Except it has never been stated that cold has a form beyond his second form.

It also was never stated that Future Trunks had a cock. Did future Trunks had a cock? Of course he had!
Cold is Freeza's father, of course he had the same forms of his son (since we know Freezer never trained in his life and that his transformations are something all his race shares).
I mean, Cold didn't had a true form and Kuriza (Freezer's son in another canon but written by Toriyama) and Frost (a member of Freeza's race but from a different universe also written by Toriyama) had one?

Come on, let's be serious.

I'm not sure how you can't follow the basic logic of my previous statement. I suspect it may be out of pride and not wanting to change your view but there is no logical reason why goku would not use SSJ during this time period.

Who's saying that Goku didn't use the SSJ in that fight? I'm saying that Cold was stronger than the SSJ and that Goku had to use the KK as a last trick resort to kill him.
Of course Goku would've only used the SSJ if possible, but we know he forced his body much, much harder than in the present TL we see and in that TL Goku endured a 3 year training going constantly into his SSJ form.
Future Goku, even if he trained, probably did to a much lesser extent than Present Goku, but still had the virus affect him BEFORE than in the Present TL.

Facts > theories.

Regards!