Wanted to talk about the Universes here, and debunk some myths as I see it.
Ready for my 4000 word Part 3 on Timelines!
Added a reference to Daima in part 1 now on the google docs version, but not a lots changed or been confirmed with Diama yet.
Dragonball Lore Deep Dive Part 2: Universes
So, as we talked before about how Universe 7 looks and how Universe 10 looks the same, let's talk about what we know about the rest of the Multiverse.
So, at the end of the Battle of Gods Arc, To encourage his further growth, Beerus tells Goku about there being other Universes, and presents the idea there might be more strong guys out there.
He also mentions that Goku is only the second strangest mortal warrior that Beerus has ever fought. (Presumably to prevent him assuming he can’t grow anymore as a mortal)
At the start of the Universe 6 Arc Whis reiterates this, for Vegeta’s (and the reader’s) benefit. The new info here is that each currently existing universe is part of a pair, 6 & 7 are more than just a pair, they are like “twins”, and Beerus and Champa are also literal twins. Both universes had planets like Earth and Sadala. These universes are not identical, they developed differently, perhaps starting out the same, but they have diverged now. Universe 6’s Earth was destroyed in a senseless war, Saiyans stayed on Planet Sadala etc.
Now I wanted to bring this up to cover another misconception. Fans are often confused about a couple of things here, conflating it with other fictional multiverse systems, like those from Marvel or DC comics. This isn’t like Spider-verse when every universe has a Spider-man, or a Goku. There will be Kaioshins and Hakaishin, but they are different people. Perhaps people got confused with there being twin universes and Beerus and Champa being literal twins to boot, but he's always described as his *brother* not his “Earth-2 counterpart” or some such silly shit.
The point here is there is no “Universe 6 Goku” like some fans still think to this day. Sometimes fans will say “ah well Frost is the U6 equivalent to Freeza”. It just doesn’t work like this. Someone might fill the same position in a god Hierarchy (we already saw that Universe 10 has the same structure as 6 & 7, and we know every universe has a Kaioshin/Hakaishin combo). But this isn’t true for individual mortals, just that there are different people of the same race.
In the loosest sense you could argue that Kale from U6 is the “equivalent” of Broly from U7, if you take the “once in a 1000 years Legendary Super Saiyan legend" thing at face value. But it’s not like it’s a case of “Broly is a girl in Universe 6 and called Kale there”. They are different people… ok you get it. Cool.
So, moving on. One final mega confusion we need to clear up:
The Multiverse exists *inside* of one shared timeline.
When a new timeline is created it’s effectively a copy of the existing multiverse at a certain point in time.
A lot of fans get confused, especially when familiar with other fictional systems. Dragonball follows it’s *own* specific version of the “The Many-Worlds Interpretation” of time travel. This is different in a couple of ways to other fictional settings.
In Marvel Comics for example there is a multiverse. Alternate Universe and Alternate Timeline are generally synonymous. When you time travel to the past you create an alternate timeline (Unless you use a Doomlock)
There may be pre-existing alternate universes, I don’t think they were all created by time travel, but travelling backwards adds a new one to the list.
In Dragonball the order of operations is different. The multiverse exists *within* a timeline, so new timelines duplicate not just the universe the time traveller did his thing in, but all the others along with it. Time runs concurrently in each timeline. In other words there is a Universe 6, and a Jiren in both the Main Timeline and the future Trunks came from.
If it didn’t work this way there would be two Universe 12’s and a bunch of Universe 7’s and one of the rest. Would the rest have no access to the multiverse or would there be a bunch more universes with just a U7 in it? Can you see what a mess that would be?
Now we are all hopefully on the same page regarding Cosmology, the universes, and how timelines work we can get into discussing those timelines!
So parts 1 and 2 of this series were really a big “I say that, to say this”. See you in part 3.
