Future Gohan's training gains

[JFK]

So in the original timeline, Future Gohan, who spent 13 years training, fighting, exerting himself in general and eventually tutoring/sparring with Trunks got clobbered by the Future Androids, despite amplifying his base 50x with SSj.

I was thinking about what kind of insight we can draw from this.

Gohan progressed rapidly in the RoSaT while under Goku's tutelage, but his Future self, when left to his own devices and despite being given a lot more time, failed to achieve anywhere near the same level of strength. It would appear that Gohan lacks the intuition to know how to train himself effectively, and without a mentor his growth becomes stagnant. Could a case be made that Gohan is just bad at training? Goku improved significantly in the year he spent alone on Yardrat (since he clobbered Mecha Frieza and King Cold put together in the original timeline) so whatever method he used was clearly superior to whatever Future Gohan was doing for over a decade.

Future Gohan's lack of progress indicates to me that he was not particularly inventive/creative when it comes to self-improvement. Goku's idea of making SSj your natural form to eliminate the ki wasted by transforming would never have occured to him. He was a, "welp, I guess I'll just keep doing pushups and situps for 10 more years!" kinda guy.

What's your take on the reasons behind Future Gohan's underwhelmingness?

[Polyphase Avatron]

Not only did he have no mentor, but no ROSAT, no Kaioshin powerup, no senzu beans, and I'd imagine good food was hard to come by.

[Lionel]

I agree that supply scarcity and the loss of his arm likely contributed to Gohan's difficulty in bettering his strength in the future timeline. Having said that, Gohan should have been made aware of the existence of gravity chambers as Goku trained in one during his voyage to Namek. Why couldn't he have requested that Bulma construct one for him? Were the resources necessary for it in short supply? It's the best explanation I can think of.

From my observations, Gohan's training methods shouldn't have been any less effective than others. At the beginning of the Beerus arc, Goku seemingly improved to the point of contending with Kid Buu using just SSJ after what was likely solo mental sparring sessions. Vegeta and Piccolo made some improvements in their power using the mundane environment of Earth as their only external stimuli between the Freeza arc and Goku's return to Earth. How is it they improve so much yet Gohan doesn't in spite of having a sparring partner in Trunks?

[theherodjl]

Its kinda hard to train effectively when you're constantly worrying about a couple of teenage cyborgs actively destroying the world. In the past, Gohan had the luxury of training during periods of relative peace as well as having access to a plethora of helpful teachers and resources. However, a crisis suddenly struck and Gohan had lost all of his lifelines with no one else to give him the guidance that he so desperately needed. Training was probably not a priority when survival was the most important thing from then on.

[Randio]

One also has to take into account that Future Gohan most likely didn't get the three years of intensive training with Goku and Piccolo. He started out way weaker. Plus, the other Z Fighters seemed to have died fairly quickly. So Gohan was still fairly young and inexperienced, did not have anyone left to teach him, and started out weaker than his counterpart from the timeline we followed.

[TheGodfather93]

I know it's a copout of an answer, but I attribute it to poor writing more than anything.

Future Trunks' entire timeline is a mess, and to me it makes no logical, in-universe sense that the situation there is as bad as it is.

[Jack Bz]

The point of the Trunks' timeline is basically to showcase what a future looks like with Goku taken out of the picture, which is an interesting idea, though it's hilarious how bleak Toriyama paints the world without him. It really contrasts what Goku says about him attracting danger and being better off staying dead at the end of the cell saga, though I the suppose the androids were after him in the first place.

If I had to have an explanation for Gohan not being strong enough it's that rather than training he has to constantly chase and fight the androids to prevent them from causing more harm. A lot of the reason why the protagonists retreat and train while letting the villains murderously kill civilians is that they can rationalise it with the fact that they can undo that damage with the dragon balls. Without them, I can imagine there would be a pressure to constantly intervene with the androids as any life lost from here on out is permanent.

Of course this isn't entirely a convenient explanation, but I'm not sure it matters. Goku just wasn't around to bring out the best in him.

[miguelnuva1]

Gohan didn't know how to train. He only had 6 months of training in the Trunks timeline under his belt. I'd say a year was just trying to get SS under control. A lot of moving around and then fighting the Androids and having to heal from the injuries without senzu beans. Before Super Zenkais disappeared around that time as well so remember that.

I hate to use numbers but Gohan also had to come from 200,000+ to 3,000,000+ to start being a threat to the Androids.

[TheGodfather93]

The point of the Trunks' timeline is basically to showcase what a future looks like with Goku taken out of the picture, which is an interesting idea, though it's hilarious how bleak Toriyama paints the world without him. It really contrasts what Goku says about him attracting danger and being better off staying dead at the end of the cell saga, though I the suppose the androids were after him in the first place.

If I had to have an explanation for Gohan not being strong enough it's that rather than training he has to constantly chase and fight the androids to prevent them from causing more harm. A lot of the reason why the protagonists retreat and train while letting the villains murderously kill civilians is that they can rationalise it with the fact that they can undo that damage with the dragon balls. Without them, I can imagine there would be a pressure to constantly intervene with the androids as any life lost from here on out is permanent.

Of course this isn't entirely a convenient explanation, but I'm not sure it matters. Goku just wasn't around to bring out the best in him.

I get that things would be worse without Goku there, but the world shouldn't be anywhere near as bleak as Toriyama made it seem.

The other members of the Dragon Team who got offed by the Androids would've kept their bodies after death and gone to train with King Kai. Goku and King Kai, even if they didn't care to periodically check in on Earth, would be made aware of the situation. If any of them cared a modicum about Gohan, Trunks, Bulma, Chi-Chi, the Earth etc., they would've gotten in touch at some point over the next 13 years and informed Gohan and Trunks about the ROSAT. Or they could've told Bulma the coordinates for New Namek, so she can go and use their Dragon Balls. She had a few spare spaceships lying around.

As for Gohan, even if he had no one to instruct him, surely someone with his immense potential could've grown strong enough in over a decade of training to surpass an Android 17 only using 50% of his power. With how shit things were, he could've tried abusing zenkais, going to Roshi for whatever advice he could give, experimenting with different methods of getting stronger, ANYTHING. It's absurd how pitifully weak Future Gohan was.

[Jack Bz]

The point of the Trunks' timeline is basically to showcase what a future looks like with Goku taken out of the picture, which is an interesting idea, though it's hilarious how bleak Toriyama paints the world without him. It really contrasts what Goku says about him attracting danger and being better off staying dead at the end of the cell saga, though I the suppose the androids were after him in the first place.

If I had to have an explanation for Gohan not being strong enough it's that rather than training he has to constantly chase and fight the androids to prevent them from causing more harm. A lot of the reason why the protagonists retreat and train while letting the villains murderously kill civilians is that they can rationalise it with the fact that they can undo that damage with the dragon balls. Without them, I can imagine there would be a pressure to constantly intervene with the androids as any life lost from here on out is permanent.

Of course this isn't entirely a convenient explanation, but I'm not sure it matters. Goku just wasn't around to bring out the best in him.

I get that things would be worse without Goku there, but the world shouldn't be anywhere near as bleak as Toriyama made it seem.

The other members of the Dragon Team who got offed by the Androids would've kept their bodies after death and gone to train with King Kai. Goku and King Kai, even if they didn't care to periodically check in on Earth, would be made aware of the situation. If any of them cared a modicum about Gohan, Trunks, Bulma, Chi-Chi, the Earth etc., they would've gotten in touch at some point over the next 13 years and informed Gohan and Trunks about the ROSAT. Or they could've told Bulma the coordinates for New Namek, so she can go and use their Dragon Balls. She had a few spare spaceships lying around.

As for Gohan, even if he had no one to instruct him, surely someone with his immense potential could've grown strong enough in over a decade of training to surpass an Android 17 only using 50% of his power. With how shit things were, he could've tried abusing zenkais, going to Roshi for whatever advice he could give, experimenting with different methods of getting stronger, ANYTHING. It's absurd how pitifully weak Future Gohan was.

Yeah, characters in dragon ball do ignore things for convenience of the story pretty often. Earthlings haven't learnt fusion to stay relevant, no one has had their potential unlocked by old kaioshin, the super saiyan god ritual has never been repeated, Beerus never intervenes in any danger. Trunks' timeline is definitely bleaker than it should be if the characters used every option available to them, that's definitely true.

But the fact is that it was very difficult to write the story Toriyama wanted to tell of a character coming from a bleak future in the dragon ball universe if he followed all those rules. The characters in our timeline had to have some way of winning, and logically you can just ask why trunks' timeline couldn't have those OP options available to them. Characters keep their bodies in death and can communicate across worlds, there are dragon balls on another planet, baba can even bring the dead back to earth for a day if she wishes. It's a difficult thing to write around, so I'm fine with how he wrote it for the most part. I'm not sure how I would went about it.

One thing I'm not sure of is if Goku would get to keep his body in this timeline. He died from a disease which is a natural cause, which I'm pretty sure is why he was never wished back. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with body preservation in the afterlife, otherwise I don't know why the dragon balls would have such an issue with natural causes of death.

[miguelnuva1]

As far as Future Gohan goes I would have it that 2 Androids are needed to over power 1 Super saiyan in the future and then it is a shock when 18 in the present can beat an even stronger Vegeta.

[LightBing]

It boils down to never thinking about going past Super Saiyan like Goku and Vegeta. He plateaued for the his current reach.
The same thing happened to current timeline Saiyans, their progress in 3 years wasn't that stunning(ignoring Vegeta getting SSJ).
They had to be beaten down by the Androids to even realize their limitations and go for the next level.

My insight is that Gohan thought their hope was on Trunks, so that's what he focused on, besides having the distraction of living in a destroyed World where most of his friends and family were dead.

Even if he realized that going past SSJ was the way, he had no chance of doing it fast. RoSaT plus a strong training partner speed up the process by a lot.

Personally Gohan doesn't come off as inadequate, he was just in a messed up situation without allies. Dude could actually defeat a single Android, that's big.
Imagine if instead of having Freeza to face, Goku had to face two Freezas at the same time who never got tired...
Gohan inherit at messed up situation.

As far as Future Gohan goes I would have it that 2 Androids are needed to over power 1 Super saiyan in the future and then it is a shock when 18 in the present can beat an even stronger Vegeta.

It should be noted that Future Androids are weaker than Present Androids.

[TheGodfather93]

Personally Gohan doesn't come off as inadequate, he was just in a messed up situation without allies. Dude could actually defeat a single Android, that's big.

In the History of Trunks TV special he could, but in the manga, he got killed by a 17 who was only using 50% of his power.

[TobyS]

Personally Gohan doesn't come off as inadequate, he was just in a messed up situation without allies. Dude could actually defeat a single Android, that's big.

In the History of Trunks TV special he could, but in the manga, he got killed by a 17 who was only using 50% of his power.

To be fair he got killed by a 17 who said he wasn't using half of his power last time
We don't know how much he then had to use to beat this improved Gohan. Probably 100%

Gohan was reasonably confident that he had comfortably surpassed this 1-49% 17 and presumably had to allow to potentially fight 18 as well or right after. In addition to this he says Trunks will surpass him soon.

Trunks then becomes about as strong as him and loses too. I can't remember how long after that the time machine is then ready. He later becomes stronger then that training for a year before his 2nd trip to the main timeline.

During this visit he then says he can fight them both pretty well.

People like to say they were faking and holding back again. But he's already stronger than the Gohan that forced 17 to presumably go above 50% so there's not really any room left for them to be holding back.

[LightBing]

Personally Gohan doesn't come off as inadequate, he was just in a messed up situation without allies. Dude could actually defeat a single Android, that's big.

In the History of Trunks TV special he could, but in the manga, he got killed by a 17 who was only using 50% of his power.

Oh yeah, Manga Future Gohan is way weaker.
Although when #17 used less than 50% of his power was in their penultimate fight. Hard to pinpoint but I'll give the benefit that Gohan forced #17 to use 60%- 70% in their last bout.

This makes Manga Future Gohan a bit inefficient.

[miguelnuva1]

Personally Gohan doesn't come off as inadequate, he was just in a messed up situation without allies. Dude could actually defeat a single Android, that's big.

In the History of Trunks TV special he could, but in the manga, he got killed by a 17 who was only using 50% of his power.

Oh yeah, Manga Future Gohan is way weaker.
Although when #17 used less than 50% of his power was in their penultimate fight. Hard to pinpoint but I'll give the benefit that Gohan forced #17 to use 60%- 70% in their last bout.

This makes Manga Future Gohan a bit inefficient.

17 used his full power. The way 17 words less than half power is written to shown where Gohan actually was and how 17 is now going all out.