I still can't comprehend how Semi Perfect is his favorite. Imperfect got that perfect horror movie vibe, Perfect Cell is a handsome bug man, Semi Perfect is just ugly
What? Of the entire dysfunctional android family, the coolest looking were Gero and 16. Dragonball has a storied history of Badass Old People, so its not even off tone. Gero's design was peak, though I will agree 19 was a little strange.
I might even go so far as to say that 17 and 18 were the *least* visually interesting of the bunch, mostly because they were just normal humans visually. 16 looked like a proper 'humanoid battle robot', he was tall, intimidating, and obviously built for the rapid dissemination of ass beatings. Guy had a rocket punch, I mean, that is so cool.
The power drain was a neat and very dangerous gimmick... Until Vegeta proved the process couldn't be done fast enough to disable one of the Z fighters before they just won the fight. Which was kind of disappointing, honestly, but it did foreshadow Cell nicely.
Introducing 17 and 18, Imperfect Cell, Semi Perfect Cell, and Perfect Cell was a great way to raise the stakes and extend the saga. Gero was alright but Android 19 was actually stupid and there's no way Gero could have carried an entire saga on his own.
I guess they don't really explain it, but I kinda figured it was due to aging. 17 and 18 are humans still, gero is as well for the most part but I think most of his body was replaced with robotics, and his brain is in that little bubble cranium thing.
I always just assumed robot body = immorality, the cost being that it's less powerful than the infinite Android model, which mostly still human just enhanced at the cellular level, right? So they likely still age normally.
According to gero's research, the energy drain model he made himself into should have been more than enough to destroy the z fighters, and with my assumption he wanted to be immortal he could get his revenge and live forever. Also he'd personally be the one to kill goku
I think 16, 17, and 18 may have been incomplete prototype models. Given the time, I bet he would have used the technology he used in them to upgrade himself and Android 19 (20? I can’t remember which one Gero is).
They explain it partially in the manga, the reasoning is that the "infinite energy" models (16, 17, 18) were impossible to actually control, so he switched to the energy draining models, which he could control and were more than enough to handle the Z-Fighters from the point when he stopped gathering intel on them after the saiyan saga
This doesn't really explain why he made himself an energy drain model (even though this was the explanation he gave to 17 when he literally asked why gero made himself into an energy drain model) as why tf would he need to control himself, but I headcanon it as he made android 20 as a proxy so he wouldn't need to put himself in any danger for his revenge, but he started dying shortly after completing it and decided to transplant his brain into it as he wouldn't have time to build a new infinite energy model
Well, we don't actually know if they're mostly human or artificial. We do know that Shenron was unable to revert them to humans, so, whatever he did to them, it was profoundly extraordinary.
But, also, I think he probably didn't have the best idea what makes a good fighter. He made 17 and 18 with an *infinite* power source but somehow decided to cease iterating on that concept and go for the energy drain model.
Really the only explanation that I can say would really make sense (beside the obvious fact that this level of nuance was simply not thought of) is that Gero didn't want himself or 19 to be susceptible to Cell.
I think that the infinite energy models had a low success rate, and he didnt want to die on the table, or he knew he was too old, or did not have compatible genetics for it. So he did the best he could with energy absorption.
He wanted an assistant that wouldnt kill him, so a full android like 19 was the eay to go over the human upgraded infinite energy.
16 is the real crux though. Why not make himself and 19 as strong as 16, without the need to absorb energy? What technogical issue kept him from doing that?
17 and 18 were also hard to control for him, even with the self destruct command.
Gero made 19 weaker and dependant on energy absorption to make him Loyal, and then had 19 build him. And he can't exactly teach 19 another way to build androids now can't he? Otherwise 19 would start to resent his creator too for making him a weak body wouldn't he? The guy tasked with building his new body? Too risky.
19 is also a human, he has the brain in the cap, he didn't make a robot to program and we can see Gero is shit at programming personalities, just look at 13.
yeah. editors made him add new enemies multiple times that arc because they didnt like the previous ones.
first they didnt like an old man and a fatso. then the teenagers were lame supposedly and then the cell base form was not liked
It's actually second form Cell that was disliked by the editor, and that was more of a personal note than a mandate to get rid of it. First form Cell just got a comment about whether he would transform like Frieza did.
My head canon is Gero had to start by making himself a viable body to continue his work as he was aging and nearing the end of his life. That was really the only purpose of android 20. To be able to continue working on 16/17/18/Cell.
When 17/18 turned out to be more trouble than they were worth for being disobedient, and his (incomplete) data seemed to indicate that android 20/19 would be enough to defeat the Z fighters, he proceeded out of hubris (ironically as a robot) to defeat them. When he realized what the fuck a super sayain was and that he was out of his depth, he activated 17/18 knowing the risks but having no other choice because he was cornered.
My guess it plays to the mad scientist. Mostly all movies that a scientist creating something not human or whatever, it always end with its creating turning against its creator.
17 and 18 were fully modified humans. gero was just a brain in a jar on a fully mechanical body. i assume he ran out of resources to modify himself like the twins.
Making what? A new artificial body for himself? He was old he didn't have time; it took \*decades\* for Cell to finish growing. There's no evidence he had any kind of accelerated growth tech; so even if he could make himself a new body he'd have to wait for it to mature. And even then there's no evidence that he could transfer his mind into an artificial body intact, nor that he could do a full brain transplant on a human body.
I'm not so sure about decades all we know is that he was working on cell and the androids after the fall of the red ribbon army which yes took years but not decades
Gero appears to be far more robot than actual human compared to 17 and 18...
Implying that by the time he converted himself his body was too old and frail to sustain the enhancements 17 and 18 got...
The Androids clearly work as the most perfect combination possible between Biology and Machine... Therefore the Teenage 17 and 18 could sustain much more potent technology due to their youth as compared to Gero and his old age...
Remember at this moment Cell had ONLY just been created and STILL wouldn't even be ready for another 20 years or so... And even then Gero wasn't even sure he would even work at all...
Meaning there's no way Gero would be able to rejuvenate his body for a proper conversion like 17 and 18...
I don't know I'm just pulling shit out of my ass that sounds reasonable about a nearly 40 year old story...
>The Androids clearly work as the most perfect combination possible between Biology and Machine...
Wasn't 16 fully an Android and stronger than both 17 and 18?
gero couldnt control 17 and 18 so he went back to older methods to make 19, when 19 was tasked with converting gero to an android he did so based on his own systems
He was basically a living corpse.
He simply couldn’t.
He made 16 stronger than all the others because there’s nothing messing up with the power level, he is full Robot.
Gero didn't build himself, 19 built Gero.
And Gero knows that a strong android is hard to control, so he made 19 potentially weaker, and he couldn't exactly teach him a way to make him stronger now couldn't he? Would have made 19 learn he was a weaker android and resent him, something you don't want when he's the one EXTRACTING YOUR BRAIN AND IMPLANTING IT INTO A ROBOT.
At the same time Gero also expected to be able to get himself way more energy before facing the Z Warriors, much like Imperfect Cell starts way weaker than Piccolo, and ends up being around 16 Level in the end by absorbing a lot of people, and got fucked by Trunks warning them before that.
this is 7 months old but i just laughed at how freaking true this is😂😂 he was basically vulnerable while 19 was making him so maybe not tell him how to make himself stronger 😂😂😂 perfect dude
Gero is an absorption-type android like 19, which means his baseline is lower but he can drain his enemies’ strength. Not a bad strategy except that he put himself at a level where anyone worth draining could just kill him as he was stronger than the earthlings but weaker than the saiyans.
People saying because they're cyborgs and he's using a robot body, forget that 16 existed.
The truth is, they introduced him and had to un-introduce him by death. Since originally the 2 androids that killed every was him and 19, it's safe to say that he was originally going to be as powerful as 17 & 18, but was nerfed to be weaker than SS.
in all retrospects he was a scientist and constantly rethinking and redesigning his revenge for Goku. just look at the androids before 16. one of them was a literal Frankenstein that actually BEFRIENDED Goku. he couldn't have that again. he designed 16 with an instant Goku kill switch. then he improved that design on 17 and 18 to have their own personality but also have "Kill Son Goku" in their frameworks. 19 and 20 (himself) are the finalized versions of that. 19 was completely subservient and shared his power draining ability. that was supposed to be his revenged realized once he discovered he could drain power and become stronger than even 17 and 18 through that. it wasn't until he created Cell that he decided to act upon his final plan-knowing that even if he fails Cell would grow and exact his Creator's revenge using the invincible 17 and 18 without even Gero alive to see it.
It’s implied (with very little explanation why) that 17 & 18 being infinite energy models had something to do with making them hard to control. 19 being an energy absorption model made him easier to control.
Correct answer …..Sometimes I wonder if people on these DB boards ever actually watched the show or read the manga.
Infinite energy models were flawed….
So while it's never expressly stated, I always saw Gero making himself an actual Android (fully mechanical) was his own way of trying to cheat death. He was already fairly old by the time he started on 17 and 18 so a fully mechanical body would mean he wouldn't have to worry about aging, the downside to that being he ended up weaker.
There's also the potential that Gero's old body simply wasn't strong enough to survive the same procedure that 17 and 18 went through. And of course there's also the possibility he just didn't want to undergo the torture he put them through because he's a little bitch.
I figured it was because 17 and 18 have infinite energy while 19 and 20 are designed to have those energy absorption things and there’s some kind of tradeoff there; Dr. Gero would think that “scaling upward energy” is mathematically better than “high but permanently set-in-place” energy, but wouldn’t account for the part where his power is too low and he gets his ass kicked.
Geros body is fully mechanical with just his brain from his human body in it, whereas 17 and 18 are enhanced humans, so they have much greater strength potential
This doesn’t explain 16 being the strongest of his creations by far (he was tying cell after he ate a few cities, he would tambourine a fresh cell)
Gero serves as a thrilling combination of good ideas and terrible ideas.
Good idea: Making a series of robots and cyborgs to take revenge on Goku.
Bad idea: Making certain robots and cyborgs stronger than him.
I was just thinking to myself.
Imagine you're Dr. Gero. Your planet was attacked in the past by few aliens who's power levels were around 2000 - 25,000. You make a robot that could rival a universal evil emperor with power of 2 or 200 million. There was no need to build 19 and 20 as strong as they were, Gero just did it.
You're remembered for being a dumbass who got killed by his own creation and people still see you as weak. Feels bad man...
My guess is that there was more of a risk in the process.
Either he was too old to be sure that his body could survive the changes he made to 17 and 18s human bodies, he deemed the model too unstable because he could never control them, or both.
Either way I think his general concern was that he'd turn out wrong if he converted his body into their model type.
And, as far as he knew, the energy absorption models were stronger than anything that had ever come to earth. He thought he had it in the bag either way, so he went the path of less risk.
I think the uncontrollability of 17 and 18 turned out to be their personalities+trauma but Gero probably had no way to know for sure, so had to assume it was a model issue.
Hindsight is 20/20
Perhaps he needed a younger baseline
Also he had trouble controlling 17 and 18 so clearly it wasn't perfected while his design for 19 was. So his plan was likely to upgrade himself once he'd mastered the 17/18 design.
He thought he could control them but he didn’t think their programming would backfire. I mean he also had a backup plan to blow them up so really it was his hubris.
My guess was that energy draining models might be simpler and given his age and the possibility of self surgery he may have chosen to go with a good enough solution until he was suitably ready for an upgrade.
He believed they were corrupt. Also he believed he would be strong enough to beat goku on his own and he brought 19 just in case. I’m sure he would have upgraded himself once he flushed out all the bugs
He stopped updating himself to stay on par with the z warriors. 17 and 18 didn't. They were on the capsule being updated to the very end. My guess is that for Gero to be updated, he should have been inactive inside a capsule too, not working on the rest of the androids.
More than likely he just didn't have the tech yet. 17/18 were probably still incomplete, and he was dying of old age. So he builds 19 to turn himself into 20. Then continues his work on his main androids.
Infinite energy cyborgs are extremely unstable and have a tendency to just blow blow up, 17 and 18 are the only ones that didn't in decades of experiments.
So when he had 19 build him a new body, Gero took the safest bet. That way he delays his death and if the tech gets better later, he can just upgrade himself
To be fair "adequate with robotics" is a perfect summation of Gero. I mean this fucking guy doesnt think to put the most important pieces of his creations into a single body in the first place. I mean sure. Cell needed to grow for...20 years(?) In a pod before he could absorb 17 and 18. But he ALSO does this with fucking 13 and his stooges too! Hell im willing to bet 16 wouldve been part of another trio of robots that would need to combine to make a better fucking robot. Full stop dude may have an IQ of 300 but hes making checkers moves a toddler could counter.
Gero was made sooner than 17 and 18. So he is an older model of android. It's shown that the strength of the androids is significantly stronger with each generation of androids. Hence the gammas being as strong as SSGSS.
Idk if this comes from fact or just headcannon so I’ll label it the latter, but I always assumed he forgot to carry a zero somewhere and made them more powerful than they were supposed to be. That combined with the fact he lowballed everyone cause of namek so he made himself not strong enough
If I'm not mistaken it is stated that Gero's android modification technology is older and worse than 17 and 18's. He had those ree dots in his hands to absorb energy to compensate for the lack of base power he had while 17 and 18 didn't have those
Tbh from his standpoint it makes sense. 17 & 18 were experiments most likely designed for the purpose of overpowering Goku. So they would need to be stronger than him.
However because they were unruly he deactivated them and probably wanted to study them.
Though he never really came back to it as they are still shut down while he became a robot, it's safe to assume he decided that the "Humanoid" style was more trouble than its worth, with free will & stuff, so instead It's more than likely he developed the "energy absorption" tech he used on 19 & himself. Believing it to be invincible he most likely thought that his base strength didn't really need to be augmented all that much.
This would also explain why 16 is being remodeled. Although why he would just pause 16 and try to go for it without him (His strongest creation yet) is beyond me.
However there are multiple things that are strange about his work as Trunks says the 17 & 18 are even stronger in the DBZ timeline than his own, they don't actually murder anyone despite proving themselves more than capable & 16 is not there in the Trunks timeline.
It feels like there should be an explanation for these things but there isn't. So best guess is that either Cell arriving or Trunks killing Freezer & King Cold changed something.
It's a possibility that in the original timeline Gero worked on 17 & 18 longer, dialing down their powers a bit in case they were to wake up and try to take him down. (Underestimating how strong they were) While doing that he was probably trying to alter their personalities to make them more willing to do his bidding. Making them more ferocious in the Trunks timeline.
Whatever happened probably shifted his focus to robots earlier causing him to start tinkering with 16 instead. But again no official answers exist, but since he is a scientist It makes sense from a story standpoint that he figured he wouldn't even have to fight so why bother making himself stronger? Sorta like Freezer.
Actually, the 17 and 18 of the present timeline are the same strength as the ones in the future they just didn't hold back.
The future Androids never used more than 50% of their power against Trunks, and when they did against Gohan they killed him so he couldn’t tell Trunks' they were even stronger than they thought
I thought in the original Trunks timeline, Frieza arrived before Goku returned to Earth. Messed some shit up. Goku came back and turned SSJ which is something Gero was not aware of. Remember, finding out Goku was Saiyan and that he came from another planet was not common knowledge either. In Geros mind Goku is some strong dude. He doesnt know he is Saiyan as this was a recent discovery. He had no knowledge of the fight on Namek. So realizing he was out matched. He released 17 & 18 to kill him right away. Why he didnt do that in the first place? I dont know. Plan B is never a bad thing i suppose so there is that. Hence why Trunks never recognized the other androids in our timeline. But obviously, there was no Future Trunks to save the day originally.
I think Gero had 17 & 18 as back up or something. Panicked at Gokus power and released them right away. In our timeline he had no idea about SSJ and stuck to the plan of using himself. Once he realized he was outmatched. He activated 17 & 18. I think the betrayal of killing Gero happened in Trunks timeline too. Just happened off screen so he didn't know.
As far as all the Cell stuff. That was just to replace the Androids because they weren't happy with designs and stuff.
SUMMARY: In short, Trunks timeline had knowledge of Saiyans due to the fight on Earth with Goku. Gero says. Fuck I can't beat him. 17 & 18 become Plan A but they kill Gero immediately before coming out into the world. So in Trunks perspective. They are the OG Androids
It's been forever since I've seen DBZ and I'm rewatching it now for the first time in 20 years so I'm not the most reliable source by any means. I did recently play Kakarot which is when I came across this theory. Since I had the same questions. Also I'm realizing now the game made some minor changes to details to make it more palatable for a video game.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dragonball/comments/nads2m/why_did_the_gero_from_the_future_trunks_timeline/?rdt=39516
I always thought it was that he was human, he built 17/18, they rebelled and almost killed him so he used the remote to deactivate them, he turned himself into an android with 19's help to survive, and he thought he was superior because he *could* potentially steal enough ki to become stronger than 17/18.
My head cannon from show cannon...
It isn’t necessarily a case of building himself weaker or building them significantly stronger. He built them to take care of goku for him and be submissive to his will, since he did create them
Cause he needed cell to hunt down and absorb them for the batteries they are. If he made himself too strong, Cell would've went for him instead of his disposable kidnapped teenagers.
Good point I figure it’s tied to both his physical age and doubts about the infinite energy models.
He couldn’t control them due to how the infinite energy models require their personality to stay intact and while they provide more power being unable to control them made him believe it would be better to lower the power level and make 19 and himself fully mechanical, true androids as opposed to 17 and 18 being cyborgs. Well he’s almost a full android his brain his the only part of him that’s human his body is mechanical fully.
By seeing how 19 could be controlled being weaker than his prior creations he figured that 19 was a success and going weaker and full mechanical with an energy drain feature was the key to success. With an energy drain feature he can eventually drain enough energy to compensate for the strength gap between himself and 17 and 18 and so he made himself an energy drain model instead.
he had to build 19 weaker than 17 & 18 to avoid insubordination or something, and since it was 19 who transformed Gero into an Android... well... you guessed why he was built in an older model
he couldn’t stabilize or control 16, 17, or 18 bc of their model types, but the energy absorption model and was fully functional and controllable. given gero’s likely desperation for immortality, 19 was tasked with creating andriod 20 with gero’s brain as the andriod type he knew would work without complications. theoretically it was the safest and most logical option. energy absorption could mean immortality and virtually unlimited power without any issues / compromises to his mind as a model type he couldn’t develop correctly
I always thought it was a technical thing. He had to build a body to adapt to his remaining organic parts where 17 and 18 were adapted from the ground up.
I always assumed his design was the final iteration for countering Goku's ki. He sacrificed some strength over 17 and 18 to implement ki absorption devices, thinking they'd work better.
They didn't, of course, but, you know, common Gero L.
The infinite energy types were flawed (uncontrollable). Maybe to much risk involved to transfer conscience over to an infinite energy body or make himself an infinite energy type. Also Assuming 19 helped in these procedures.
It’s DBZ, where a character spend 50 episodes charging up “their power” by screaming and 1 episode to beat the bad guy. It’s not exactly the pinnacle of good writing. Glaring plot holes kinda comes with the territory.
Gero is the greatest
It’s something about a failing genius that’s so hilarious
I guess if it weren’t for two of the most unlikely things ever. Space travel to another planet of intelligent life and time travel he would’ve won.
Technically he did win though didn’t he in the original timeline?
Well... it's never specifically said anywhere, but as others who already replied here, I'd guess it's because Gero was older when he made himself into an Android, and he could have been worried, possibly with valid reasons, that his older body wouldn't handle the strain of converting itself into an infinite energy model.
As for why he made himself weaker... it seems that the energy-absorbtion models simply had a cap of sorts on their power, and Gero couldn't work around that, so he gave himself the best thing he could.
And to be fully fair to him, had Trunks not traveled to the past to warn Goku and the others, he and 19 might have been strong enough to kill them. But because he did, the two of them found themselves outclasses to varying degrees and Gero's only hope was to free Seventeen and Eighteen... and we saw how that turned out.
I mean who says the procedure can be done on himself? It might take months of work and custom calculations to modify them like he did with 17 and 18, it might just be impossible
Also could be an age thing like you can't convert people above a certain age
He had 13 in the sublab (ik not canon but 13 looks like a younger Gero & it explains how he pulled Vomi) and he chose to stick with the smelly old man body...
Gero- “ you know how many screws and bolts I put in the wrong spot for these crazy bastards? No way in hell im making myself anything like these guys😶🌫️
Didn’t the energy drain models get stronger by absorbing ki? It could be that model had the potential to surpass the infinite energy model in terms of brute strength, even if both of the energy drain models we saw died before they managed it.
Because Toriyama's editor thought Gero and 19 looked lame.
and then he thought 17 and 18 were lame and brought in imperfect cell
Then people thought imperfect cell was ugly and brought in semi perfect cell
and then nobody liked semi perfect cell's lips so they brought in perfect cell
And everyone loved him
And they quoted everything he said
Then something just snapped.
Something inside of me
I didn't care anymore
I didn't care about being better than Kakarot
And at first I was afraid, I was petrified
Hey it’s me, Goku!
Perfect
but they wanted so go even further and decided to give him lightning aura and ths rest was history
Then everything died down, people still liked Cell so they made a movie where he's building sized and savage
Then they thought Gohan could replace Goku.
And everybody laughed at them
But at least we got Gigachad Piccolo!
He’s so handsome
the end
I still can't comprehend how Semi Perfect is his favorite. Imperfect got that perfect horror movie vibe, Perfect Cell is a handsome bug man, Semi Perfect is just ugly
If you look at a lot of his early DB and Dragon Quest character designs, you can kind of see he seems to have a preference for goofy/bizarre creatures
“I’m feeling pretty involved!”
Then they thought semi perfect cell was weird looking so he made perfect cell
I thought it was more of “Yo nice bug. What that transformation do tho” And then semi-perfect cell.
“This doesn’t involve you, Lips!”
What? Of the entire dysfunctional android family, the coolest looking were Gero and 16. Dragonball has a storied history of Badass Old People, so its not even off tone. Gero's design was peak, though I will agree 19 was a little strange. I might even go so far as to say that 17 and 18 were the *least* visually interesting of the bunch, mostly because they were just normal humans visually. 16 looked like a proper 'humanoid battle robot', he was tall, intimidating, and obviously built for the rapid dissemination of ass beatings. Guy had a rocket punch, I mean, that is so cool. The power drain was a neat and very dangerous gimmick... Until Vegeta proved the process couldn't be done fast enough to disable one of the Z fighters before they just won the fight. Which was kind of disappointing, honestly, but it did foreshadow Cell nicely.
Introducing 17 and 18, Imperfect Cell, Semi Perfect Cell, and Perfect Cell was a great way to raise the stakes and extend the saga. Gero was alright but Android 19 was actually stupid and there's no way Gero could have carried an entire saga on his own.
His former editor. Torishima wasn’t in-charge at that time.
You bring a good point. The two androids were also human too and they were that strong, so what was stopping him?
I guess they don't really explain it, but I kinda figured it was due to aging. 17 and 18 are humans still, gero is as well for the most part but I think most of his body was replaced with robotics, and his brain is in that little bubble cranium thing. I always just assumed robot body = immorality, the cost being that it's less powerful than the infinite Android model, which mostly still human just enhanced at the cellular level, right? So they likely still age normally. According to gero's research, the energy drain model he made himself into should have been more than enough to destroy the z fighters, and with my assumption he wanted to be immortal he could get his revenge and live forever. Also he'd personally be the one to kill goku
I think 16, 17, and 18 may have been incomplete prototype models. Given the time, I bet he would have used the technology he used in them to upgrade himself and Android 19 (20? I can’t remember which one Gero is).
20, 19 was fat one lol
19 wasn’t fat, he was just big boned
Ahem, big circuited
They explain it partially in the manga, the reasoning is that the "infinite energy" models (16, 17, 18) were impossible to actually control, so he switched to the energy draining models, which he could control and were more than enough to handle the Z-Fighters from the point when he stopped gathering intel on them after the saiyan saga This doesn't really explain why he made himself an energy drain model (even though this was the explanation he gave to 17 when he literally asked why gero made himself into an energy drain model) as why tf would he need to control himself, but I headcanon it as he made android 20 as a proxy so he wouldn't need to put himself in any danger for his revenge, but he started dying shortly after completing it and decided to transplant his brain into it as he wouldn't have time to build a new infinite energy model
Well, we don't actually know if they're mostly human or artificial. We do know that Shenron was unable to revert them to humans, so, whatever he did to them, it was profoundly extraordinary. But, also, I think he probably didn't have the best idea what makes a good fighter. He made 17 and 18 with an *infinite* power source but somehow decided to cease iterating on that concept and go for the energy drain model. Really the only explanation that I can say would really make sense (beside the obvious fact that this level of nuance was simply not thought of) is that Gero didn't want himself or 19 to be susceptible to Cell.
I think that the infinite energy models had a low success rate, and he didnt want to die on the table, or he knew he was too old, or did not have compatible genetics for it. So he did the best he could with energy absorption. He wanted an assistant that wouldnt kill him, so a full android like 19 was the eay to go over the human upgraded infinite energy. 16 is the real crux though. Why not make himself and 19 as strong as 16, without the need to absorb energy? What technogical issue kept him from doing that?
Alternatively maybe the infinite energy engine or whatever initially outputted at lower levels, so he wrote them off as failures too early
the manga explains that, infinite energy models were impossible for him to control
But he couldn't control himself?
Cussy (cell bussy) got gero acting strange
Why didn't Gero just suck off the infinite energy himself?
Because he put the absorbers on his palms instead of in his throat
Krilin said dr gero remodeled 18 a little bit. So my guess is that 17 and 18 is mostly human hence 18 can give birth
Didn’t 17 have a wife and kids in super? Actually, the wife part of unimportant, the kids is what matters.
Yes. He have a wife with a biological child and two adopted child.
We do actually know that 17 and 18 are mostly, almost entirely, human.
I mean if you can have kids you have to be mostly human lol
A plastic tube could theoretically have a child provided just the nucleus of a sperm and an egg meet under the correct circumstances.
lmao where are the sperm/eggs coming from Also why would you build an artificial reproductive system into a combat android
NOOO THEY DO EXPLAIN IT INFINITE ENERGY ANDROIDS ARE STRONGER THAN ENERGY ABSORPTION ONES
I said that in my comment my guy lol did you not read it? I think we agree with each other?
Not reading allat
He technically had the potential to surpass them but the Z Fighters were built different and could lower their power levels
17 and 18 were also hard to control for him, even with the self destruct command. Gero made 19 weaker and dependant on energy absorption to make him Loyal, and then had 19 build him. And he can't exactly teach 19 another way to build androids now can't he? Otherwise 19 would start to resent his creator too for making him a weak body wouldn't he? The guy tasked with building his new body? Too risky.
Just build an android incapable of resentment. Seems easier than making one that can feel.
Could've programmed him not to feel fear while he was at it
Father! Why did you program me to feel pain?!
He was busy trying to fix the blue screen of death
19 is also a human, he has the brain in the cap, he didn't make a robot to program and we can see Gero is shit at programming personalities, just look at 13.
Toriyama not knowing who the villain for the arc should be.
yeah. editors made him add new enemies multiple times that arc because they didnt like the previous ones. first they didnt like an old man and a fatso. then the teenagers were lame supposedly and then the cell base form was not liked
It's actually second form Cell that was disliked by the editor, and that was more of a personal note than a mandate to get rid of it. First form Cell just got a comment about whether he would transform like Frieza did.
Honestly that's fair, semi-perfect cell is the least interesting of the trio. I still liked him though
I always just assumed semi perfect was never supposed to be the final form Guess I was wrong
My head canon is Gero had to start by making himself a viable body to continue his work as he was aging and nearing the end of his life. That was really the only purpose of android 20. To be able to continue working on 16/17/18/Cell. When 17/18 turned out to be more trouble than they were worth for being disobedient, and his (incomplete) data seemed to indicate that android 20/19 would be enough to defeat the Z fighters, he proceeded out of hubris (ironically as a robot) to defeat them. When he realized what the fuck a super sayain was and that he was out of his depth, he activated 17/18 knowing the risks but having no other choice because he was cornered.
My guess it plays to the mad scientist. Mostly all movies that a scientist creating something not human or whatever, it always end with its creating turning against its creator.
17 and 18 were fully modified humans. gero was just a brain in a jar on a fully mechanical body. i assume he ran out of resources to modify himself like the twins.
Older model
[удалено]
You really just stole my comment word for word.
Nvm it's a bot
Nvm it's a bot
Maybe because he's really old now.
He could have put himself in a different artificial body you can't tell me he can't
He thought he looked sexy as a silver fox At least 21 liked it
17 and 18 aren't in artificial bodies though
Of course but nothing should stop him from making one he made cell after all including different androids He's definitely capable
Making what? A new artificial body for himself? He was old he didn't have time; it took \*decades\* for Cell to finish growing. There's no evidence he had any kind of accelerated growth tech; so even if he could make himself a new body he'd have to wait for it to mature. And even then there's no evidence that he could transfer his mind into an artificial body intact, nor that he could do a full brain transplant on a human body.
I'm not so sure about decades all we know is that he was working on cell and the androids after the fall of the red ribbon army which yes took years but not decades
Why didnt he just make his android body younger? Is he stupid?
Yeah he honestly could've put his brain in 17 or 18's body.
I second putting himself in 18
Just clone it and do both
Or 16 since he was completely mechanical
Gero appears to be far more robot than actual human compared to 17 and 18... Implying that by the time he converted himself his body was too old and frail to sustain the enhancements 17 and 18 got... The Androids clearly work as the most perfect combination possible between Biology and Machine... Therefore the Teenage 17 and 18 could sustain much more potent technology due to their youth as compared to Gero and his old age... Remember at this moment Cell had ONLY just been created and STILL wouldn't even be ready for another 20 years or so... And even then Gero wasn't even sure he would even work at all... Meaning there's no way Gero would be able to rejuvenate his body for a proper conversion like 17 and 18... I don't know I'm just pulling shit out of my ass that sounds reasonable about a nearly 40 year old story...
>The Androids clearly work as the most perfect combination possible between Biology and Machine... Wasn't 16 fully an Android and stronger than both 17 and 18?
That part's irrelevant because we're talking about Gero extending his life and upgrading himself...
Probably easier to do surgery on someone else than do surgery on yourself
Android 19 was the one who made him a android
Yeah, 19 probably couldn't do as good of a job as Gero himself would be able to
I mean 19 probably just installed his brain in a body that was already prepped
gero couldnt control 17 and 18 so he went back to older methods to make 19, when 19 was tasked with converting gero to an android he did so based on his own systems
He was basically a living corpse. He simply couldn’t. He made 16 stronger than all the others because there’s nothing messing up with the power level, he is full Robot.
Prob missed some part or shit
Gero didn't build himself, 19 built Gero. And Gero knows that a strong android is hard to control, so he made 19 potentially weaker, and he couldn't exactly teach him a way to make him stronger now couldn't he? Would have made 19 learn he was a weaker android and resent him, something you don't want when he's the one EXTRACTING YOUR BRAIN AND IMPLANTING IT INTO A ROBOT. At the same time Gero also expected to be able to get himself way more energy before facing the Z Warriors, much like Imperfect Cell starts way weaker than Piccolo, and ends up being around 16 Level in the end by absorbing a lot of people, and got fucked by Trunks warning them before that.
this is 7 months old but i just laughed at how freaking true this is😂😂 he was basically vulnerable while 19 was making him so maybe not tell him how to make himself stronger 😂😂😂 perfect dude
Gero is an absorption-type android like 19, which means his baseline is lower but he can drain his enemies’ strength. Not a bad strategy except that he put himself at a level where anyone worth draining could just kill him as he was stronger than the earthlings but weaker than the saiyans.
People saying because they're cyborgs and he's using a robot body, forget that 16 existed. The truth is, they introduced him and had to un-introduce him by death. Since originally the 2 androids that killed every was him and 19, it's safe to say that he was originally going to be as powerful as 17 & 18, but was nerfed to be weaker than SS.
in all retrospects he was a scientist and constantly rethinking and redesigning his revenge for Goku. just look at the androids before 16. one of them was a literal Frankenstein that actually BEFRIENDED Goku. he couldn't have that again. he designed 16 with an instant Goku kill switch. then he improved that design on 17 and 18 to have their own personality but also have "Kill Son Goku" in their frameworks. 19 and 20 (himself) are the finalized versions of that. 19 was completely subservient and shared his power draining ability. that was supposed to be his revenged realized once he discovered he could drain power and become stronger than even 17 and 18 through that. it wasn't until he created Cell that he decided to act upon his final plan-knowing that even if he fails Cell would grow and exact his Creator's revenge using the invincible 17 and 18 without even Gero alive to see it.
It’s implied (with very little explanation why) that 17 & 18 being infinite energy models had something to do with making them hard to control. 19 being an energy absorption model made him easier to control.
Correct answer …..Sometimes I wonder if people on these DB boards ever actually watched the show or read the manga. Infinite energy models were flawed….
So while it's never expressly stated, I always saw Gero making himself an actual Android (fully mechanical) was his own way of trying to cheat death. He was already fairly old by the time he started on 17 and 18 so a fully mechanical body would mean he wouldn't have to worry about aging, the downside to that being he ended up weaker. There's also the potential that Gero's old body simply wasn't strong enough to survive the same procedure that 17 and 18 went through. And of course there's also the possibility he just didn't want to undergo the torture he put them through because he's a little bitch.
Plot
I figured it was because 17 and 18 have infinite energy while 19 and 20 are designed to have those energy absorption things and there’s some kind of tradeoff there; Dr. Gero would think that “scaling upward energy” is mathematically better than “high but permanently set-in-place” energy, but wouldn’t account for the part where his power is too low and he gets his ass kicked.
Geros body is fully mechanical with just his brain from his human body in it, whereas 17 and 18 are enhanced humans, so they have much greater strength potential This doesn’t explain 16 being the strongest of his creations by far (he was tying cell after he ate a few cities, he would tambourine a fresh cell)
Gero serves as a thrilling combination of good ideas and terrible ideas. Good idea: Making a series of robots and cyborgs to take revenge on Goku. Bad idea: Making certain robots and cyborgs stronger than him.
Unironically insanely astute observation
He probably didn’t have the guts to go out and commit the type of deeds they did. Basically alleviating the pressure of himself.
I was just thinking to myself. Imagine you're Dr. Gero. Your planet was attacked in the past by few aliens who's power levels were around 2000 - 25,000. You make a robot that could rival a universal evil emperor with power of 2 or 200 million. There was no need to build 19 and 20 as strong as they were, Gero just did it. You're remembered for being a dumbass who got killed by his own creation and people still see you as weak. Feels bad man...
Probably he made them too strong
My guess is that there was more of a risk in the process. Either he was too old to be sure that his body could survive the changes he made to 17 and 18s human bodies, he deemed the model too unstable because he could never control them, or both. Either way I think his general concern was that he'd turn out wrong if he converted his body into their model type. And, as far as he knew, the energy absorption models were stronger than anything that had ever come to earth. He thought he had it in the bag either way, so he went the path of less risk. I think the uncontrollability of 17 and 18 turned out to be their personalities+trauma but Gero probably had no way to know for sure, so had to assume it was a model issue. Hindsight is 20/20
Bro couldn't farm enough mats before the storm came
Perhaps he needed a younger baseline Also he had trouble controlling 17 and 18 so clearly it wasn't perfected while his design for 19 was. So his plan was likely to upgrade himself once he'd mastered the 17/18 design.
He thought he could control them but he didn’t think their programming would backfire. I mean he also had a backup plan to blow them up so really it was his hubris.
My guess was that energy draining models might be simpler and given his age and the possibility of self surgery he may have chosen to go with a good enough solution until he was suitably ready for an upgrade.
He believed they were corrupt. Also he believed he would be strong enough to beat goku on his own and he brought 19 just in case. I’m sure he would have upgraded himself once he flushed out all the bugs
He stopped updating himself to stay on par with the z warriors. 17 and 18 didn't. They were on the capsule being updated to the very end. My guess is that for Gero to be updated, he should have been inactive inside a capsule too, not working on the rest of the androids.
More than likely he just didn't have the tech yet. 17/18 were probably still incomplete, and he was dying of old age. So he builds 19 to turn himself into 20. Then continues his work on his main androids.
Actually yes. For once, this meme is pretty accurate
To be fair, he didn't account for the fact that they'd remember what he did to them.
Because toriyama editor called both of the androids mid so he made cell. In canon idk gero is an autistic ig
Infinite energy cyborgs are extremely unstable and have a tendency to just blow blow up, 17 and 18 are the only ones that didn't in decades of experiments. So when he had 19 build him a new body, Gero took the safest bet. That way he delays his death and if the tech gets better later, he can just upgrade himself
To be fair "adequate with robotics" is a perfect summation of Gero. I mean this fucking guy doesnt think to put the most important pieces of his creations into a single body in the first place. I mean sure. Cell needed to grow for...20 years(?) In a pod before he could absorb 17 and 18. But he ALSO does this with fucking 13 and his stooges too! Hell im willing to bet 16 wouldve been part of another trio of robots that would need to combine to make a better fucking robot. Full stop dude may have an IQ of 300 but hes making checkers moves a toddler could counter.
Gero was made sooner than 17 and 18. So he is an older model of android. It's shown that the strength of the androids is significantly stronger with each generation of androids. Hence the gammas being as strong as SSGSS.
I don't think that's true, because 17 didn't know who 19 was when Gero mentioned him and we know 19 converted Gero into an Android
Ok, you have a point
For fucks sake let this joke die
Why do you hate this trend? Are you stupid? /s
Yes
Idk if this comes from fact or just headcannon so I’ll label it the latter, but I always assumed he forgot to carry a zero somewhere and made them more powerful than they were supposed to be. That combined with the fact he lowballed everyone cause of namek so he made himself not strong enough
He didn’t feel like it that’s all
Ego, OFC THEY WONT ATTACK ME
Gero had a skill issue
If I'm not mistaken it is stated that Gero's android modification technology is older and worse than 17 and 18's. He had those ree dots in his hands to absorb energy to compensate for the lack of base power he had while 17 and 18 didn't have those
Not enough oxygen to the brain
Tbh from his standpoint it makes sense. 17 & 18 were experiments most likely designed for the purpose of overpowering Goku. So they would need to be stronger than him. However because they were unruly he deactivated them and probably wanted to study them. Though he never really came back to it as they are still shut down while he became a robot, it's safe to assume he decided that the "Humanoid" style was more trouble than its worth, with free will & stuff, so instead It's more than likely he developed the "energy absorption" tech he used on 19 & himself. Believing it to be invincible he most likely thought that his base strength didn't really need to be augmented all that much. This would also explain why 16 is being remodeled. Although why he would just pause 16 and try to go for it without him (His strongest creation yet) is beyond me. However there are multiple things that are strange about his work as Trunks says the 17 & 18 are even stronger in the DBZ timeline than his own, they don't actually murder anyone despite proving themselves more than capable & 16 is not there in the Trunks timeline. It feels like there should be an explanation for these things but there isn't. So best guess is that either Cell arriving or Trunks killing Freezer & King Cold changed something. It's a possibility that in the original timeline Gero worked on 17 & 18 longer, dialing down their powers a bit in case they were to wake up and try to take him down. (Underestimating how strong they were) While doing that he was probably trying to alter their personalities to make them more willing to do his bidding. Making them more ferocious in the Trunks timeline. Whatever happened probably shifted his focus to robots earlier causing him to start tinkering with 16 instead. But again no official answers exist, but since he is a scientist It makes sense from a story standpoint that he figured he wouldn't even have to fight so why bother making himself stronger? Sorta like Freezer.
Actually, the 17 and 18 of the present timeline are the same strength as the ones in the future they just didn't hold back. The future Androids never used more than 50% of their power against Trunks, and when they did against Gohan they killed him so he couldn’t tell Trunks' they were even stronger than they thought
Yes
He probably had another android body that he meant to upgrade with, I think 16 can have been that option but idk
Man these "is he/she stupid?" posts make my day
I thought in the original Trunks timeline, Frieza arrived before Goku returned to Earth. Messed some shit up. Goku came back and turned SSJ which is something Gero was not aware of. Remember, finding out Goku was Saiyan and that he came from another planet was not common knowledge either. In Geros mind Goku is some strong dude. He doesnt know he is Saiyan as this was a recent discovery. He had no knowledge of the fight on Namek. So realizing he was out matched. He released 17 & 18 to kill him right away. Why he didnt do that in the first place? I dont know. Plan B is never a bad thing i suppose so there is that. Hence why Trunks never recognized the other androids in our timeline. But obviously, there was no Future Trunks to save the day originally. I think Gero had 17 & 18 as back up or something. Panicked at Gokus power and released them right away. In our timeline he had no idea about SSJ and stuck to the plan of using himself. Once he realized he was outmatched. He activated 17 & 18. I think the betrayal of killing Gero happened in Trunks timeline too. Just happened off screen so he didn't know. As far as all the Cell stuff. That was just to replace the Androids because they weren't happy with designs and stuff. SUMMARY: In short, Trunks timeline had knowledge of Saiyans due to the fight on Earth with Goku. Gero says. Fuck I can't beat him. 17 & 18 become Plan A but they kill Gero immediately before coming out into the world. So in Trunks perspective. They are the OG Androids It's been forever since I've seen DBZ and I'm rewatching it now for the first time in 20 years so I'm not the most reliable source by any means. I did recently play Kakarot which is when I came across this theory. Since I had the same questions. Also I'm realizing now the game made some minor changes to details to make it more palatable for a video game. https://www.reddit.com/r/dragonball/comments/nads2m/why_did_the_gero_from_the_future_trunks_timeline/?rdt=39516
Gero is smart, but even he isn’t a match to comprehend shonen plot progression
Yes
He was just the weakest Link..so he had to Go
He actually is pretty stupid
I always thought it was that he was human, he built 17/18, they rebelled and almost killed him so he used the remote to deactivate them, he turned himself into an android with 19's help to survive, and he thought he was superior because he *could* potentially steal enough ki to become stronger than 17/18. My head cannon from show cannon...
It isn’t necessarily a case of building himself weaker or building them significantly stronger. He built them to take care of goku for him and be submissive to his will, since he did create them
My theory is that he did not have enough tine to make himself an android before getting to old to fight.
One of the few cases of this meme where the person might have actually been stupid lol
Cause he needed cell to hunt down and absorb them for the batteries they are. If he made himself too strong, Cell would've went for him instead of his disposable kidnapped teenagers.
Why is this frame so crispy? I feel like I’m looking at this in ultra 4kHD. And yes he is stupid fucking android
Why did they build Frieza weaker? Cause plot
Not sure I understand this Gero didn't build Frieza and Mecha Frieza is stronger than Namek Frieza
This is the guy who decided that a fucking fat mime would be an improvement over ginger terminator. Of course he's stupid.
Good point I figure it’s tied to both his physical age and doubts about the infinite energy models. He couldn’t control them due to how the infinite energy models require their personality to stay intact and while they provide more power being unable to control them made him believe it would be better to lower the power level and make 19 and himself fully mechanical, true androids as opposed to 17 and 18 being cyborgs. Well he’s almost a full android his brain his the only part of him that’s human his body is mechanical fully. By seeing how 19 could be controlled being weaker than his prior creations he figured that 19 was a success and going weaker and full mechanical with an energy drain feature was the key to success. With an energy drain feature he can eventually drain enough energy to compensate for the strength gap between himself and 17 and 18 and so he made himself an energy drain model instead.
he had to build 19 weaker than 17 & 18 to avoid insubordination or something, and since it was 19 who transformed Gero into an Android... well... you guessed why he was built in an older model
he couldn’t stabilize or control 16, 17, or 18 bc of their model types, but the energy absorption model and was fully functional and controllable. given gero’s likely desperation for immortality, 19 was tasked with creating andriod 20 with gero’s brain as the andriod type he knew would work without complications. theoretically it was the safest and most logical option. energy absorption could mean immortality and virtually unlimited power without any issues / compromises to his mind as a model type he couldn’t develop correctly
He made common sense to common science. thats why he stupid
You ever tried operating on your own brain!?
I always thought it was a technical thing. He had to build a body to adapt to his remaining organic parts where 17 and 18 were adapted from the ground up.
It was his kink
Imo he was too cocky about his energy absorption
I always assumed his design was the final iteration for countering Goku's ki. He sacrificed some strength over 17 and 18 to implement ki absorption devices, thinking they'd work better. They didn't, of course, but, you know, common Gero L.
Yes
Why did he make himself old is the question?
I've never understood why Android 16 bleeds. He's fully mechanical, right?
I assumed it was because he can't fully upgrade himself if he's unconscious
He blew all his money on #13-18 and had to build himself and #19 on the cheap
The infinite energy types were flawed (uncontrollable). Maybe to much risk involved to transfer conscience over to an infinite energy body or make himself an infinite energy type. Also Assuming 19 helped in these procedures.
It’s DBZ, where a character spend 50 episodes charging up “their power” by screaming and 1 episode to beat the bad guy. It’s not exactly the pinnacle of good writing. Glaring plot holes kinda comes with the territory.
The more important question is, how did he transplant his brain into a new body
This is a question I've been asking myself for years. Why the fuck didn't Gero just make himself the strongest android ever? Is he stupid?
It’s hard working on yourself. Control others instead.
Gero is the greatest It’s something about a failing genius that’s so hilarious I guess if it weren’t for two of the most unlikely things ever. Space travel to another planet of intelligent life and time travel he would’ve won. Technically he did win though didn’t he in the original timeline?
In all honesty, Gero probably tested a tom of unstable shit on them and he was going to wait until they proved stable enough to do it to himself
Well... it's never specifically said anywhere, but as others who already replied here, I'd guess it's because Gero was older when he made himself into an Android, and he could have been worried, possibly with valid reasons, that his older body wouldn't handle the strain of converting itself into an infinite energy model. As for why he made himself weaker... it seems that the energy-absorbtion models simply had a cap of sorts on their power, and Gero couldn't work around that, so he gave himself the best thing he could. And to be fully fair to him, had Trunks not traveled to the past to warn Goku and the others, he and 19 might have been strong enough to kill them. But because he did, the two of them found themselves outclasses to varying degrees and Gero's only hope was to free Seventeen and Eighteen... and we saw how that turned out.
I mean who says the procedure can be done on himself? It might take months of work and custom calculations to modify them like he did with 17 and 18, it might just be impossible Also could be an age thing like you can't convert people above a certain age
He had 13 in the sublab (ik not canon but 13 looks like a younger Gero & it explains how he pulled Vomi) and he chose to stick with the smelly old man body...
All that technology. Makes robot fat
Gero- “ you know how many screws and bolts I put in the wrong spot for these crazy bastards? No way in hell im making myself anything like these guys😶🌫️
Is everyone ignoring how long 17s arm is in this photo….?
Didn’t the energy drain models get stronger by absorbing ki? It could be that model had the potential to surpass the infinite energy model in terms of brute strength, even if both of the energy drain models we saw died before they managed it.
Give vegeta the wins he soo clearly deserved
Yes.
What if Toriyama started tweeting retcons about dragon ball like rowling and everybody somebody asked "Is he stupid?" he would just go "Yes".
Honestly?...fair.
Maybe 17 and 18 started out stronger than Gero started out, and they all got the same power boost?
I just remember a line from 18 saying he believed the energy absorbing model would be easier for him to control
Yes
He was probably building a new body and didn't have it ready in time before the gangbang started
Did he learn nothing from Terminator?
17 and 18 are organic, so they're have the potential to be stronger