If Toriyama had stuck to his original plan for the Android saga?

[ABED]

I understand breaking away from formula, but if that's it and there is no other twist, then that seems like a very short arc

[Majin Jator]

To be honest, I agree with the ex-editor who told Toriyama that an overweighted mime and an old geezer weren't exactly "cool" villains.
But I do think that C16 could have been an interesting Big Bad Boss, especially if Toriyama had used the "lost Gero's son" plot. His calmed demeanour would have been an original change of pace compared to the other villains.

[GreatSaiyaJeff]

I am curious, I wonder how they would carry the arc. WOuld Gero have fleed and absorb more people like Cell did? Would he have 20 actually been Gero? Was that more of a last minute change because he needed to shift the story to 17 and 18? So many questions that will probbaly never be answered.

[Wizard Sesame]

I think 16 is the sore thumb in the arc, meaning that I think 16 would have been the end game from the start but due to outside forces, Toriyama created Cell to take the role that perhaps 16 was meant to take from the start. I also don't think Android 20 was supposed to be Gero from the start, but that's more of a tossup than 16, I feel.

[One_Instance]

Y'know I've thought about this before, but for some reason, seeing this thread gave me an idea rather than my usual "guess we'll never know.

I obviously can't get to specific, but 19 and Gero would both definitely be way more powerful than we know them to be now, so they could probably hold their own and maybe even cause the Z Warriors to take a temporary retreat during the initial contact. At some point, I could see either one of the pair (likely 19, I imagine he would be the weaker one) being near death at some point and then being repair fairly quickly, which would just go to show their terrifying invincibility. Speaking of being terrifying, could you imagine how it could've been if they were strong enough to avoid having their hands taken off? Until toward the end of the arc, ki blasts would've been completely off limits. I also feel like as part of his plot for revenge, Gero would begin gathering the Dragon Balls in order to make a new Red Ribbon Army that rules the Earth, which would lead to the potential of having an even darker future than in Trunks' timeline (though the good guys would prevent it from lasting too long, obviously).

[Attitudefan]

ki blasts would've been completely off limits.

And I think I see what Toriyama was going for initially. Since the stakes got so high with Freeza, how can we ground this back to Earth without the characters being able to use their overpowered, planet-buster techniques. Yet, due to his editor and whomever else, we got Cell instead and the notion of ki blast mania became the staple of the series from this arc onwards.

See, being able to handicap your characters' abilities can create very interesting ways the plot can work around it. Instead, however, we got the opposite. It makes sense that any of the Z-fighters could go up into the air and take out the big bad instantly. But if you cannot sense them, and using those abilities gives them more power through absorption, the basics of martial arts come back to the fore. You can kind of see that with Goku fighting 19, with the Super Saiyan transformation and the ki blasts were shown to be subverted completely.

In many ways, we can see that the initial idea was going back to the basics, to the roots of fighting. That plays into how Gero is related to Goku's roots as a fighter, as they go way back with the Red Ribbon Army. If this was Toriyama's plan, then seeing the characters go back to their foundational skills, with transformations and ki blasts subverted and dangerous to them, we would have a more martial-arts based plot. But who really knows...

[One_Instance]

[spoiler]

And I think I see what Toriyama was going for initially. Since the stakes got so high with Freeza, how can we ground this back to Earth without the characters being able to use their overpowered, planet-buster techniques. Yet, due to his editor and whomever else, we got Cell instead and the notion of ki blast mania became the staple of the series from this arc onwards.

See, being able to handicap your characters' abilities can create very interesting ways the plot can work around it. Instead, however, we got the opposite. It makes sense that any of the Z-fighters could go up into the air and take out the big bad instantly. But if you cannot sense them, and using those abilities gives them more power through absorption, the basics of martial arts come back to the fore. You can kind of see that with Goku fighting 19, with the Super Saiyan transformation and the ki blasts were shown to be subverted completely.

In many ways, we can see that the initial idea was going back to the basics, to the roots of fighting. That plays into how Gero is related to Goku's roots as a fighter, as they go way back with the Red Ribbon Army. If this was Toriyama's plan, then seeing the characters go back to their foundational skills, with transformations and ki blasts subverted and dangerous to them, we would have a more martial-arts based plot. But who really knows...

[/spoiler]
This came to mind as I was writing my previous post, it's a shame we didn't get to see that happen.

[Gligarman]

If 18 and 17 never appeared I'd like to think that Kuririn would have eventually hooked up with someone.