Dragon Ball Z Timelines Explained.

In this Dragon Ball Z Timelines Explained video we examine the Cell Saga and the DBZ time loops therein. We breakdown the confusion of Dragon Ball Z time travel when Trunks travels in time creating this anime time loop curing Gokus heart virus. I'll also explain where Cell came from, the unseen timeline, how did Trunks kill the androids in the future, and where each timeline is split. Are there 2 future Trunks? Which timeline is future Trunks from? What are the rules of time travel in Dragon Ball Z? What happens when Cell and Trunks travel in time? How does Trunks kill Cell if Cell killed Trunks? Is there a cell games in the unseen timeline?Answers to these questions and more are within.

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En este video de Dragon Ball Z Timelines Explained pasamos por los eventos de la Cell Saga en DBZ para examinar la paradoja del tiempo creada. Analizamos la confusión de lo que sucedió en Dragon Ball Z con Trunks viajando en el tiempo. ¿De dónde vino Cell? ¿De dónde vino el segundo Tronco del futuro? ¿De qué línea de tiempo es Trunks en el futuro? ¿Cómo funciona el viaje en el tiempo en el Universo Dragon Ball? ¿A qué hora se crean las paradojas cuando Cell y Trunks viajan en el tiempo? ¿Cómo mata Trunks a Cell si Cell mató a Trunks? Las respuestas a estas preguntas y más están dentro de. Entra si te atreves.

[benberlowitz]

I was so confused on how the timelines worked as a kid. Finally it makes sense now

[kurtshawarmafiend]

Damn, this stuff more complicated than math thats tuff

[user_Z-]

Not the most complex timeline but you did a fantastic job explaining everything. It’s epic how future trunks makes his return in DBS too

[ObsoleteTutorials]

main problem with time travel in general is you can't travel back to your original timeline once you've altered the past (you can only travel to the altered past's future, unless you go back in time again to prevent yourself from altering the past in the first place).

[dannybans]

Very well put together, love the visual timelines, well done!!
So ironic how Cell kills Trunks twice, but Trunks also kills Cell twice!!

[joshjames]

It’s funny because cell killed trunks in the future but by him going in the past and changing the timeline he inadvertently saved trunks from dying

[WackySwackyAdventure]

The official timeline is actually just wrong, and a little poorly thought out. This is what _actually_ happened:

*Timeline 1* = _Original Timeline:_ Goku kills Frieza when he arrives back on Earth. Goku later dies of the heart disease. The Z Fighters are killed by Dr. Gero's Androids. Bulma builds the time machine and Trunks goes back in time to save Goku. Trunks returns from the past and then waits a year before going back. When he returns from his second trip to the past, he returns with the Blueprints for the Androids and creates the destruction device. Trunks uses this device to destroy the Androids. Three years later Cell shows up, kills Trunks, and then travels back to the past to find the Androids. Only Bulma survives and presumably the Earth is rebuilt by the surviving humans. Buu probably never shows up due to the Z Fighters not being present.

*Timeline 2* = _Unseen Timeline:_ Trunks arrives from the future and kills Frieza before Goku arrives. Goku survives the heart disease due to the vaccine given to him by Trunks. Trunks warns the Z Fighters about the Androids and then leaves back to his timeline. After a year, Trunks comes back to the past. He finds the blueprints for the Androids and takes them back to the future. Trunks never returns, having been killed in the future by Cell, and the Z Fighters have to fight the Androids without him. They are victorious against the Androids, and Cell doesn't appear in this timeline until the year 788 (21 years after Trunks left with the Blueprints). Cell, having matured from his fetal form into Imperfect Cell, emerges to find the Androids have already been destroyed. It is unknown if the Z Fighters survived their fight with this Cell (though it is very likely), or if Buu ever shows up in this version of the timeline.

*Timeline 3* = _Main Timeline:_ Cell, after killing Trunks in the Original Timeline, travels back in time to the year 763 and creates a new version of the past. Having had to revert into an egg form in order to fit into the time machine, cell has to wait 4 years in order to mature back into his Imperfect form. When Trunks travels back in time from the Timeline 1 to save Goku from his heart disease, this time he arrives in this new version of the past that has been altered by Cell's arrival in 763. Trunks kills Frieza before Goku arrives. Trunks warns the Z fighters about the Androids and then travels back to his own timeline. A year later, he returns to the past and finds the blueprints for the Androids. They discover the Old Time Machine from the picture, and they deduce that something has gone wrong. Trunks this time doesn't go back to his own timeline to destroy the Androids with the Blueprints, but instead stays and helps the Z Fighters defeat the Androids in this timeline. The events of the Android and Cell Sagas takes place in this timeline. Trunks returns to his own future. The Buu Saga takes place some years later, as well as the events of Dragon Ball Super.

*Timeline 4* = _New Future Timeline:_ Trunks returns to the future from Timeline 3 and proceeds to destroy the Androids with ease, due to the strength he had gained from his time with the Z Fighters in Timeline 3. 3 years later Imperfect Cell emerges, and Trunks defeats him easily as well. Trunks defeats Dabura and Babidi and prevents the resurrection of Buu. The events of the Goku Black Arc then takes place, leading to more timelines being created (I won't go into those for now).

[damonpono]

Timelines were so confusing this really helped thank you

[GorshFlytgear]

Should I make a vid on Super's timelines? I would use the manga version of events.

[MK.__]

Really really really really well explained👏🏻👏🏻

[donny]

This was so easy to understand, thank you 🙏🏼

[saurabhnaik]

Tbh.. This Timeline thing makes much MUCH more sense now to me! Thanku so much 🙌 It's a causal loop! One event happens cuz of the other but the latter one is responsible for the original event!

[HAUNTED]

I've got a couple things I'd like to discuss with you.

Cell says "we could have added Trunks's cells to the line, but we had enough Saiyan samples." This implies that the time Cell comes from had Trunks visit when Frieza arrived.

Also, in your explanation, why would the new timeline 4 created by Trunks deciding to stay because of Cell in 767 now all of a sudden not have Cell arrive from the future 4 years prior? Wouldn't all events that occur before the creation of a new timeline still happen?

Lastly, if timeline 4 Trunks (that didn't decide to stay) was the one that cell eventually killed in timeline 3 when he went back, wouldn't there have been 2 Trunkses in timeline 3? That one as well as the one that did end up staying. At least up until Cell tries to hijack the time machine.

Let me know what your thoughts are. Can you tell I loved your video and watched it a lot? Great video!

[danielshottopics]

The Timelines that Trunks Created Traveling through Time Should of Splintered off into More Parallel Realities so Trunks Created a Multiverse of Madness.

[iTechtronicz]

You explained it well. My only 2 questions now are:
1) in episode 143 (age 767) imperfect cell tells piccolo that his fetal self would be awaken in 24 years. So shouldn’t this mean that cell would kill trunks in the future in age 791 instead of age 788?
2) in that same episode, piccolo says he understands and says that cell killed trunks in the future and went back to the original coordinates that trunks had put. So why were the coordinates put for 1 year before freeza and Goku arrived?...since that’s when cellfirst traveled back in time

[elementeliteye]

This was amazing, My Dragon Ball fan.... Because i watch all time DB, DBZ, DBGT, Super all story episode 😁
Dawn I never seen that for real dawn Cell saga. At 4:30 i remember that Truck appear time travel after Truck saw a dead body android 19 and Goku get injury with virus heart.
I never knew Truck person timeline. That correct...

Here, i watch what happened Dragon Ball Super Truck future end of the world very sad.

[BrianVaughnVA]

The timelines in DBZ make zero sense honestly. They sound more like dimension hopping and timeline hopping.

If we talk about the 4th dimension we're able to (in theory) see our future and see our past and go directly forward and backward in that straight line.

5th dimensional travel speaks of seeing different branches within the linear timeline and being able to explore them.

So in this case I don't think he's traveling to different timelines, he's traveling to different dimensions.


Original Dimension: Goku lands on Earth, fights off Frieza/Cold, dies of a cold, Trunks survives the shit hole and goes "back into the past", but really is just going to...

Dimension 2: Goku lands on Earth "after" Trunks kills Frieza/Cold as he feels he has no choice, saves Goku, then goes back into his original dimension. He returns once to help with the battle of the androids, they all somehow defeat them, then Trunks goes home to kill his own androids and bam - after doing so - he dies.

Dimension 3: Cell goes to a third dimension where Goku is out of commission for the android fight and Trunks steps in. Things plan out as we see in the anime and Trunks after the defeat of Cell returns to his own dimension, which is the original dimension.

This all makes the assumption that Trunks always goes back and always dies at some point, triggering Cell to always go back in order for them to discover Cell to save a different Trunks.

"IF" the rules of time travel do not follow logical time travel rules in DBZ (what affects the past affects the future etc) then it's dimension hopping, not time travel.

Then Super comes along with zero logic and fucks it all up further.

Least in my opinion.

[mcdscombo]

I'm just gonna steam role through my interpretation of everything

* Timeline 1: Goku defeats Frieza/Cold; Goku dies of heart virus; Androids 17 & 18 terrorize the planet; Trunks travels back in time to give Goku the cure.
* Timeline 2: Trunks defeats Frieza/Cold; Goku survives the virus; Androids 19 & 20 are defeated; Trunks returns to his time (Timeline 1) with the schematics for Android 17 & 18 (this return trip creates an other timeline due to an alternate version of Trunks traveling to the exact same point in the future [this is elaborated on later, but for now this Trunks will arrive in Timeline 4]).
* Timeline 4: Trunks returns from Timeline 2; The Androids are disabled and destroyed; Cell kills Trunks and uses his time machine to travel back to Timeline 2 one year before Trunks originally traveled back and defeated Frieza/Cold (though frankly I'm not sure why the time machine didn't take him back to Timeline 1, one year before Goku defeated Frieza/Cold).
* Timeline 2 (cont'd): Cell arrives; Cell's presence (namely the time machine and his fight with Piccolo) result in a new timeline (Timeline 3) where Trunks decides to stay instead of leave with the schematics.
* Timeline 3 (the timeline we experience): The events of the Cell saga take place; Trunks becomes stronger and returns to his original timeline, Timeline 1. However, Trunks returns to Timeline 1 twice: once in Timeline 2 with the Androids' schematics (when there was no Cell), and once in Timeline 3 after the events of the Cell games. Theoretically they should have run into each other given that they both returned to the exact same point in the future (which would have created a paradox). Therefore, a new Timeline must have been created for both Trunks' - Timelines 4 & 5 - with Timeline 3 Trunks going to Timeline 5.
* Timeline 5: Trunks destroys Android 17 & 18; Trunks defeats Cell.

There are a number of problems with this that I'm aware of, but this is the best I can do without a definitive explanation on how time travel really works in the DBZ universe. There's the problem of Trunks returning to the future for the first time which theoretically should have just taken him to Timeline 2's future, but instead it took him back to his timeline (Timeline 1) which makes no sense due to the double Trunks paradox. This forced me to created Timeline's 4 & 5 which implies that each time someone time travels, an alternate timeline is automatically created if a paradox would occur. In any case there are many more problems to fish out of this, but I'm at my limit with this explanation. Thanks if you read until the end.

[thegeakshow]

WOW great discription I'm playing around w/ RPG maker doing a chrono trigger game and I wanted to use the trunks time theory

[parrishmartin]

I watched the video and finally understood then I read the comments and now I’m confused again 😂😂😂