Dragon Ball might seem like a simple battle-oriented Shonen manga, but there are several complex sagas that only true Dragon Ball-heads can decipher. The Future Trunks Saga is definitely one of the most confusing plot points of the popular franchise, but it is also extremely satisfying.
The Future Trunks Saga led to the unveiling of several timelines in the Dragon Ball multiverse. The audience realized that the actual plot of the series is ongoing in the main timeline, or Timeline 1. The timeline in which Future Trunks originates is Timeline 2. However, by crossing over to the main timeline, Future Trunks seals his fate.
Future Trunks Saves Goku But Endangers His Own Universe in Dragon Ball
In Timeline 2, Goku dies of a heart virus after Trunks is born. After this, Dr. Gero activates Androids 17 and 18, who proceed to kill all the Z Fighters except Gohan. The Dragon Balls also disappear permanently due to Piccolo’s death. For the next 13 years, Gohan repeatedly tries to defeat the Androids but to no use, as he gets killed in battle.
Thus, Bulma builds a time machine for Trunks to travel to the past and save Goku from his deteriorating heart condition as well as to destroy the androids. Trunks goes to Timeline 1 and grants Goku the medicine that would save him and also warns them of the androids. He also helps them fight the Androids and Cell.
Then, Future Trunks returned to his timeline, which is Timeline 2, and destroyed Cell as he had already become more powerful. However, after 8-9 years, Goku Black visited the original timeline to wreak havoc. Black also kills most of the population of the Earth, and Future Trunks has to once again run to the Z Fighters from Timeline 1 for help.
Trunks Sets Out to Save His Timeline but Ends up Destroying it
Dragon Ball Xenoverse implied that before Trunks used Bulma’s time machine, only a single timeline existed, Timeline 2. However, due to the time machine’s usage, a distortion was created in the history of the universe and it led to the creation of alternate universes.
If you think Goku kindly offering a Senzu bean to Cell was the worst thing to ever happen in Dragon Ball, then you obviously forget how Trunks destroyed his own timeline in his attempt to save it. By the end of the saga, Future Trunks’ timeline and all the universes in it were destroyed. The only survivors were Future Trunks, Future Mai, and Future Zeno.
Timeline 2 is nothing but a void now due to it being erased by Future Zeno. Zeno wiped out Future Trunks’ world out of disgust for Zamasu’s actions. However, Future Trunks and Future Mai take shelter with their counterparts and leave Timeline 2.
Dragon Ball is available to read on Viz Media, and the anime is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
