Why didn't Dr. Gero just make himself as strong as 17 & 18?

[AvatarReiko]

I was wondering. Gero turned himself into an android but turned himself into a energy absorbing model, mainly composed of robotic and mechanical parts. This model is much weaker than 17 and 18. Why did he not just make himself like 17 and 18? This way, had they turned against him, he could have stood a chance or destroyed them. Surely he could have done at least that, considering that he and them were originally human.

[TheDevilsCorpse]

He was an old man and probably wouldn't have withstood the surgery to make the enhancements. Also, who was going to do do it? I'm sure it's extremely complicated. Is he going to risk his life and trust one of his creations with something as complex as modifying his entire body? At least with building the energy absorption model, he could build the entire robot himself and then just have #19 cut out and plunk his brain in the jar on top of #20's body.

[Monkey D Goku]

He was an old man and probably wouldn't have withstood the surgery to make the enhancements. Also, who was going to do do it? I'm sure it's extremely complicated. Is he going to risk his life and trust one of his creations with something as complex as modifying his entire body? At least with building the energy absorption model, he could build the entire robot himself and then just have #19 cut out and plunk his brain in the jar on top of #20's body.

Wasn't #16 built the same way as 17 and 18 the only difference being his completely mechanical. So he couldn't he have just a built a similar body that never runs out of energy and placed his brain inside of it. Maybe he intended to do that with 16 lol

[Blade]

I always assumed that the problem that Gero had in controlling 16, 17 and 18 was tied somehow to their infinite reactors. His decision to take the route of an inferior technology, in this case energy absorption, seemed to be largely due to its relative stability and, more importantly, predictability.

Why augment yourself with something that you've largely given up on ever getting to work properly? It would be too risk, and of all people, Gero would have known exactly what the extents of those risks were.

[rereboy]

He only considered #19 to be a success, he considered all the other androids failures. That is stated in the title page that explains his androids.

As such, he probably only wanted to have a body of an android that he considered a success.

[SSJ YUSUKE]

Theoreticaly he is, I mean unlike 17 and 18 he can absorbe energy and get stronger and if he comes up against an opponent who is stronger than he is he could always just sneek up on then and absorbe their energy, of course it did not exactly work out in the series.

[RocktheDragon]

My own personal theory would be that Dr. Gero just ran out of time to convert himself to the same type of model as 17 and 18. Perhaps the time it took for the conversion was so long that by the time he realized they were failures and could not be controlled he didn't have the time or the will to do the same to himself.