Why were Gero and #19 walking around the city?

[Kamiccolo9]

We all know that the Androids were going to show up on (insert date that I have forgotten here), because Trunks told us so. But what were they doing there in the first place? Was Gero trying to draw out Goku and the others? If so, why not just go to Goku's house?
Was he just bored, and wanted to stretch his legs some by getting out of his lab-cave, and go blow up a city? If so, why wait until Goku and co. arrive to blow it up?
Was he just there to get groceries? If so, what does he eat? Do Androids eat?

[Gyt Kaliba]

Hmm...I would say that most likely he just wanted to draw Goku out, yeah...but...that is really weird when we consider that he had to have known where Goku lived since 16 had that info.

I guess in the future timeline, where it was just 17 and 18 that popped up in a city, then it was probably just them "having fun" and destroying things. But for 19 and 20...huh. Unless maybe the initial plan was to absorb energy from a lot of people there (even normal people's energy, with enough of them, proved to be effective in powering up Cell after all) before going after Goku?

[dbgtFO]

I always took their reactions to easily killing random earthlings, as him and #19 testing out their new power.
Having Goku appear didn't seem to be part of their plans at this point.

[Mystic Buu]

He probably wanted to draw them out.Gero and #19 were sure that they are much stronger that Goku and Z fighters and wanted avenge the RRA.

[Kamiccolo9]

He probably wanted to draw them out.Gero and #19 were sure that they are much stronger that Goku and Z fighters and wanted avenge the RRA.

Then why not just go to Goku's house? Gero knew where he lived, or at least his computer did.

[Mystic Buu]

He probably wanted to draw them out.Gero and #19 were sure that they are much stronger that Goku and Z fighters and wanted avenge the RRA.

Then why not just go to Goku's house? Gero knew where he lived, or at least his computer did.

Hmmm...Gero was an evil man(android)and that's why he and #19 destroyed most of the city.He probably knew that Goku and the others would come to fight them.#16 knew where Goku lived so I don't see the reason why he wouldn't know that.I think that Gero wanted to play like #17 and #18.It probably wasn't fun to come to Goku's house and kill him.

[Gyt Kaliba]

That's just it though, is Gero really the type to want to 'play'? It almost seemed like that was another part of 17 and 18's insubordination that made him turn them off again, was because they just wanted to go crazy out there rather than do too much about Gero's mission.

Which, now that I think about it...what exactly were Gero's post-killing-Goku plans? World domination?

[Mystic Buu]

That's just it though, is Gero really the type to want to 'play'? It almost seemed like that was another part of 17 and 18's insubordination that made him turn them off again, was because they just wanted to go crazy out there rather than do too much about Gero's mission.

Which, now that I think about it...what exactly were Gero's post-killing-Goku plans? World domination?

RRA wanted world domination but I think it's said somewhere that he wanted to replace humans with androids.I don't know if this is correct.

[RocktheDragon]

I take the wanted to test out their powers/cause havoc and destruction route. I agree that if Gero wanted to go after Goku immediately he would not have gone terrorizing the city. At the same time he would have known that Goku and friends would approach him with his killing spree so who really knows. :p What a none answer I have given!

[Polyphase Avatron]

Probably a combination of absorbing ki from lots of people and just testing out their powers

[Kamiccolo9]

Probably a combination of absorbing ki from lots of people and just testing out their powers

Maybe, but they never actually absorbed ki from anyone other than Yamcha. Gero popped a guy's head off, and 19 headbutted someone, but we never even see them try to absorb energy.

And I don't really see them thinking that terrorizing a city would be a good test of their powers. I mean, Daimao was doing that a long time ago, they are fully aware of Saiyan Arc Vegeta, who could blow up planets, and, by this point, have also gotten data on Freeza and Cold. What is walking around a city, occasionally pulling cars apart, going to prove? Besides, shouldn't they already know how strong they are? I mean, they are as strong as Gero made them. It's not like they recently had a huge powerup and need to gauge their strength; they were created to be that strong.

[Polyphase Avatron]

Yeah but they might need to get used to their bodies, movements, etc.

[mAcChaos]

I'd assumed that by that point Gero's plans had gone past simple revenge on Goku and had turned into a grudge against the world at large.

Otherwise he wouldn't be so callous when dealing with people other than Goku. He could have just programmed all his androids to only try to kill Goku and that's it.

[Kamiccolo9]

Yeah but they might need to get used to their bodies, movements, etc.

Why? They are purely mechanical robots (Gero's brain aside). They know what capabilities they have; the ones they were built with. It's not like Cell, who was built to evolve, or 17 and 18, who had an organic base, and were "changed" moreso than "created."

I'd assumed that by that point Gero's plans had gone past simple revenge on Goku and had turned into a grudge against the world at large.

Otherwise he wouldn't be so callous when dealing with people other than Goku. He could have just programmed all his androids to only try to kill Goku and that's it.

They were only programmed to kill Goku. 16 said it all the time and 17 said that when they beat up Vegeta and co. I'm pretty sure that Gero says that about 19 as well, but I'd have to check. Cell seems to be the only Android to have a "grander" scheme in mind, and even he doesn't seem to know what to do after becoming complete.

[Polyphase Avatron]

People in real life who have prosthetic limbs need to practice to get the hang of them

[Kamiccolo9]

People in real life who have prosthetic limbs need to practice to get the hang of them

...That's not really analogous to this situation. Prosthetic limbs are added to people after they lose their natural ones. Practice is necessary in order to learn to compensate for this.

19 and 20 were created the way they are. Nothing indicates that they are anything other than 100% comfortable with their capabilities. The only one of Gero's androids who seems to think this is Cell, who, as we all know, is a totally different situation than the other Androids.

[Super Saiyan Turlast x4]

They were probably just looking to stir trouble. I could really see them taking a walk throughout the entire city before deciding to blow it up. Maybe they were just waiting for someone to annoy them before they began causing destruction.

Other than that, I'm not sure there's any real explanation on why they were walking around in the city. Since the Z-fighters confronted them rather quickly, we never had a chance to see what they were really up to. We know they definitely weren't expecting to come across any powerful fighters there, so...

[mAcChaos]

Yeah but they might need to get used to their bodies, movements, etc.

Why? They are purely mechanical robots (Gero's brain aside). They know what capabilities they have; the ones they were built with. It's not like Cell, who was built to evolve, or 17 and 18, who had an organic base, and were "changed" moreso than "created."

I'd assumed that by that point Gero's plans had gone past simple revenge on Goku and had turned into a grudge against the world at large.

Otherwise he wouldn't be so callous when dealing with people other than Goku. He could have just programmed all his androids to only try to kill Goku and that's it.

They were only programmed to kill Goku. 16 said it all the time and 17 said that when they beat up Vegeta and co. I'm pretty sure that Gero says that about 19 as well, but I'd have to check. Cell seems to be the only Android to have a "grander" scheme in mind, and even he doesn't seem to know what to do after becoming complete.

I mean he could have programmed them to avoid killing anybody BUT Goku.

[SSDBZGOD]

Most likely it was a plan to draw Goku and the rest of the Z fighters to them, saving the trouble of searching for Goku. Did it work? Of course it did.

[hleV]

They're evil, so they went to do some killing for fun.