Summary
Dragon Ballhad never tackled time travel before,up until Future Trunks made his debut, defeating Freeza and eventually contributing against the Androids and Cell in each respective arc. The character of Future Trunks made it this way to the story, and from there developed an understanding of two different timelines that we expected to be simple. Eventually, we were told and given an idea of what Future Trunks' timeline must have been like considering it’s a world where the world had no protectors aside from him and Future Gohan, and the chain of events in this timeline remained largely unaffected for a huge majority ofDragon Ball.
However, what exactly happened in the timeline that Future Trunks comes from, and how long does this chain of events go on? Leading from the deviations in the android arc, all the way to the Goku Black Arc, the Future Trunks' timeline will be mapped out.
Goku’s Tragic Death Creates the Worst Possible Scenario
And The Darkness That Followed
The Future Trunks Timeline is largely the same except for one huge difference. The Death of Goku occurred because of the heart virus, which meant that Goku died of natural causes and thus couldn’t be resurrected by the Dragon Balls. Soon after that, theAndroids 17 and 18 made their introductionto the world. The Z-Fighters, including Vegeta, all died at the hands of these androids, along with Piccolo, meaning that the world had to live without any Dragon Balls. This is also the timeline where Future Gohan and Future Trunks are trained in, which leads to the History of Trunks special many fans are familiar with.
This timeline also includes the darkness that was Future Gohan’s death, Future Trunks' first defeat against the androids, and his eventual decision to travel to the past to help change some time. However, the chain of events this would cause in the primary timeline would be surprising to a lot of fans at the time. The majority of the world has been destroyed by the Androids, leading to darkness and devastation for many years, to the point that Bulma has aged enough to have a fully-grown Future Trunks. However, when Trunks returned from the primary timeline after the Cell Saga, hehad grown strong enoughto defeat the Androids, along with the Imperfect Cell of his timeline, with no problems.
Generally, speaking, the Death of Goku is what started this chain of events in the darker timelines. However, Future Trunks won’t stop dealing with threats after the Androids and Cell. But before he had to deal with a Dark Doppelgänger, he had to deal with the case of a wizard and a Demon King.
An Even Bigger Threat Than Future Cell
Goku Black Wreaks Havoc in Future Trunks' Timeline
Some time had passed between the defeat of Cell, so much so that the Majin Buu Saga became non-existent, because Buu was never awakened and King Dabura and Babidi were defeated really quickly. This is a major difference from the timeline Future Trunks comes from, where Future Trunks managed to prevent the entirety of the Majin Buu Saga. However, he wasn’t able toprevent the Goku Black arcfrom occurring. After all, it was that timeline when Goku Black arrived to the timeline and began systematically destroying universes and saved Future Trunks' for last.This exact scenario is what caused the Goku Black arc to happen. However, a major difference now that we know the events of the timeline is that this is the darkest timeline with nary any hope, or even any existence at all.
Because when Zamasu became too big of a threat to the multiverse, Goku had to bring Zeno into the situation. This led to the Universe 7 of that timeline to being erased from existence, and for the only survivors to be Future Trunks and Future Mai. Another huge difference in this timeline is the death of Bulma at the hands of Goku Black. Truthfully, Future Trunks wasn’t able to prevent all of these tragedies from happening for the following reasons.
It is no surprise that the timeline has gone through the darkest turn of events, especially since Future Trunks was the only protector of earth, who still fell short when fighting on his own. This means that the Future Trunks timeline currently remains erased and unable to be recovered. A possible post-apocalyptic turn of events, one which ends with Future Trunks and Mai going to a different timeline, and with a second Zeno being in the main timeline.Dragon Ballcertainly cansay that its time travel plots aren’t boring,even if they can also be rather complicated.
Dragon Ball
Dragon Ball is a franchise by Akira Toriyama which follows the adventures of Goku, a powerful warrior who protects the earth with his group of friends. A recent title from the series is Dragon Ball: The Breakers, an action style game where 7 players have to survive being hunted by the Raider.
