#android 14

All right, so I recently posted a thing laying out the four alternate timelines established in the Androids/Cell arc of DBZ.  You can read that and come back, but the short version is this:

Timeline A: The one with the Cell Games, Majin Buu, Gotenks, etc.

Timeline B: Future Trunks’ world, which he eventually saves in DBZ Episode 194

Timeline C: Never explicitly depicted, but a world where Trunks helped Goku defeat the androids, and Cell never shows up.

Timeline D: The Bad Ending version of Timeline B, where Cell kills Trunks and steals his time machine to find the androids in Timeline A.

Even though C never gets directly referenced, we need it so the Trunks of Timeline D had somewhere to go when he used his time machine. Make sense?  No?  Well, too bad, because I’m not slowing down.

All we really know about Timeline C is that the events of DBZ Episodes 1-138 happened, then somehow Dragon Team worked out a way to beat 17 and 18, and then the Future Trunks went back home to Timeline D, where he eventually got ambushed and killed by Cell. 

I think it’s widely assumed that the victory over 17 and 18 in Timeline C was accomplished using a remote control similar to the one Dr. Gero had in Episode 133.  We saw Bulma design her own in Episode 149, using schematics found in the basement of Gero’s sub-lab.  So it’s probably not much of a stretch to assume that the Bulma in Timeline C did the same thing.  

The main reason the remote gets the credit is that it’s the simplest explanation.  It’s plausible that the Piccolo of Timeline C might have fused with Kami, except that Kami only agreed to that because of the looming threat posed by Cell.  In Timeline C, there is no threat from Cell, so maybe Kami would have refused.  It’s also possible that Goku and Vegeta would have trained to get stronger than 17 and 18, but without Cell’s involvement, they might not have bothered to use the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.   By the time they were ready to fight, the remote would have been ready to use. 

Also, whenever we see flashbacks of Cell killing Trunks in Timeline D, it always looks like Trunks never stood a chance.  So if that version of Trunks had trained to defeat 17 and 18 in combat, you’d think he would have put up more of a fight.  So if he used a remote instead, a solution that would be useless against Cell, then it makes a lot of sense.

So we’re talking about a world where Trunks helped Goku beat Gero’s androids, but Cell’s not involved, and they probably didn’t spend any time in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.  Which sounds a lot like the scenario presented in Movie 7.  It’s presented as a sequel to the Androids arc, but it ignores Cell, as if he simply never existed. So maybe Movie 7 isn’t just a non-canon side story.   Maybe it’s set in Timeline C, which is an alternate timeline, but one still necessary within the canon.    Could that work? 

Well, let’s take a look.  The main premise of the movie is that Gero’s computer has taken up his cause.  It sends three more androids to kill Goku, but they’re not new androids, because they have earlier model numbers: 13, 14, and 15.

 Presumably, these three were never meant to see action.   Remember, Gero deemed 16, 17, and 18 unsuitable for use, which is why he went into action with 19 and turned himself in to No. 20.  So I think it’s safe to say 13, 14, and 15 were deemed failures, which is why they were stored in the sub basement with the computer. 

And yet, 13 does pretty well once he absorbs the components from 14 and 15.  It makes you wonder why Gero mothballed these guys.  For that matter, why didn’t he just build the components into 13 from the start? Well, maybe Gero never designed 13 to work this way.  Maybe this was something the computer came up with on its own.

So let’s talk about the computer.   The first time we see it is in DBZ Episode 143, when Cell explains his origin story to Piccolo.  Gero had the idea for Cell, but it took too long to finish, so he programmed a computer to finish the job instead and left it to its task.  Gero’s lab was destroyed by Trunks, but the computer (and the embryonic Cell) were in a sub basement that survived the blast.  The big green chamber on the left is where Cell is gestating. 

Here’s the computer as it appears in Movie 7. It looks a little different, but the dome on top is the same, and the mechanical arms are there, so I think it’s safe to say this was intended to be the same computer.  Notably, there’s no chamber for the embryonic Cell. Maybe this shot is just at a different angle, but we never see the chamber in this movie, probably because it adds nothing to the plot. 

That’s why I always doubted that this movie depicts Timeline C, because the Cell tank really needs to be there.   That’s the computer’s job in all the other timelines. But in this movie, it leads a squad of androids instead.  I was left with the impression that in this parallel world, Gero never had the idea of Cell, and maybe Super 13 was his big, unfinished idea that the computer had to finish.  

But I don’t think Gero ever intended for his computer to go into business for itself the way it did in this movie.  In the other timelines, it just patiently works on Cell for decades until the work is finished.  In this one, it’s in a hurry, but why?  Well, here’s a hint:

We see 17 and 18 at the beginning of this movie.  They kill Gero, but we never see what happens to them after that.   We know they don’t get eaten by Cell, because Cell isn’t around to do that. We know they’re not running around terrorizing the world, because all the Z-Fighters are just hanging out in the city like nothing is wrong.   We know 18 didn’t hook up with Krillin because he’s still single, and horny for pageant contestants.   So I think it’s safe to say 17 and 18 are dead in this movie.  Maybe they used a remote to do it, or maybe it was something else, but they’re gone now. 

And Gero’s computer knows this.  Throughout the movie, the computer is in constant contact with 13, 14, and 15.   Besides that, it has access to those little spy robots Gero used to collect data and tissue samples for his research.   So it’s a safe bet that the computer was able to keep tabs on all of Gero’s creations.  So it knows that Gero, 17, and 18 are all dead.   And that’s why the computer in this movie behaves differently.  In Timeline A, it gets destroyed, but in Timelines B and D, it manages to finish creating Cell before 17 and 18 are killed.  In Movie 7, no such luck.  

And that’s why there’s no Cell incubation tank in Movie 7.  The computer figured out that 17 and 18 no longer existed, which made Cell useless.   And so it turned its attention to a different plan, a plan that it must have cooked up on its own.   If it couldn’t create Cell as Gero envisioned, then the computer decided to design a new ultimate weapon, and it used the obsolete androids in storage to do it.

This might also explain why the computer itself looks different in Movie 7.  It may have modified itself to better carry out its own plan. 

So right now you might be asking “Wait, if they built a remote to defeat 17 and 18 in this world, then why didn’t they use a similar trick on 13?”  Or you might be asking “Hold on, Bulma only managed to built a remote because of the schematics they found in the sub lab, so how did the good guys not notice the supercomputer busily plotting against them?”

Okay, here’s my answer to that.   Shortly after 18 breaks Vegeta’s arm, Dragon Team starts looking for alternative solutions, and that leads them to search the wreckage of Gero’s base.  They find the sub lab, just like they did in Episode 145.   But in this world, they’re not worried about Cell, and they don’t view the computer as a threat.  It’s just sitting there, doing its thing.   They might not even realize it’s turned on.  So they take the schematics they need and leave, never giving the computer a second thought. 

And so, later, when the computer learns 17 and 18 are dead, it figures out how that happened.   “Oh, shit, they must have built a remote to shut them off!   I’d better make sure to rewire 13 to not have the same weakness.” 

Did the computer survive the events of Movie 7?  It looked to me like it shut itself down after Goku killed Super 13, but I don’t know why that would happen.   Maybe it was dependent on 13 to support its own consciousness, and so when one died, the other did as well.   Or maybe it self-destructed.   I mean, 13 was its last shot against Goku, so after that, the computer had nothing to look forward to but an eternity of contemplating its failure to kill its worst enemy.