What If Luffy Was Never Born In One Piece?
What would have happened to all the straw hats?
And who would have become pirate king in his stead?
I spent accidentally spent an entire day I was supposed to be working, playing through
all the possible scenarios and discovered one time line that seemed the most likely
to me.
And the results were so fascinating and tragic, that i thought: why not turn this into a video!
Everything I’ll discuss will be based on the manga and I swear, you will not be able
to guess who actually will be crowned pirate king in Luffy’s stead in the end.
So let’s start with Luffy’s childhood years.
If Dragon never got to find Luffy’s mysterious mother and make the future pirate king, quite
a few things change in the years before the main story line, but not quite as much as
you might think.
For example, Garp will still be on Dawn Island, looking after Roger’s son Ace.
Ace will still meet Sabo, as he did without Luffy anyways and both of them will train
together, fight together and share Sake cups to become brothers.
Trying to sail away, Sabo’s ship still gets sunk by the celestial Dragons and he is once
again rescued and taken in by Dragon.
Maybe in this timeline he realized that having a kid you never visit, is not a great idea.
The biggest change to the story of course, are the events that happen in chapter 1: Shanks
still arrives in Fusha village, but never gets to meet Luffy, who as a result doesn’t
eat the Gomu slash Nika fruit and thus never becomes Joy Boy.
So here we have to make our first speculation, that’s gonna have a major impact on how
this all plays out: What would have happened with this legendary fruit instead?
And at this point I’m gonna make an assumption that I believe is very likely to be true,
but not yet 100% confirmed in the story.
If you have seen more of my content, you will know, that I firmly believe that originally
Shanks was planning to give the Nika fruit to none other than Ace, before Luffy simply
gobbled it down and made himself the new chosen one.
Let me explain.
Shanks clearly knew about the importance of the Nika fruit.
The government tried to get their hands on it for centuries and once they finally did,
Shanks was there to take it away from them.
We also know that Roger found out about Joy Boy and his prophezised return on Laugh Tale.
He made sure to create the big pirate era to draw out the right person and make sure
he would return.
We know that he placed his former mate Crocus at the entrance of the grand line to wait
for the right person to come.
Crocus literally says ‘you might be the one we have been waiting for Roger’ when
he meets Luffy.
And his right hand man Rayleigh is stationed on Amazon Lily, the choke point you have to
pass in order to reach the new world.
Rayleigh knew about Luffy from Shanks and spent 2 years training Luffy to prepare him
for the second half of his journey.
When Luffy awakens his devil fruit, zunesha takes his heartbeat as the sign of Joy Boy’s
return.
So I think it’s very likely that Shanks’ task as the crew member that Roger entrusted
his straw hat to, was to find the right person to eat this fruit and guide his way to becoming
pirate king.
Now, as we know, that is Luffy.
But he ate the fruit by accident, and we also know that Roger was eager to have a son before
he died, which is Ace, a guaranteed member of the D clan, just like Luffy.
So I think, that Shanks went to Dawn Island not on a fluke, but to give this legendary
devil fruit to Ace, the son of his former captain and make him the next joy boy.
And so if Luffy was never born, I believe that exactly this would have happened.
Shanks finds Ace and gives him the Nika fruit.
He might even sacrifice his arm once again, to make sure that Ace would try to become
a great pirate too.
After that however, I think that things would stay quite similar.
Shanks makes sure to watch over Ace from afar, but lets him do his own thing.
As a result, Ace becomes a pirate, becomes captain of the spade pirates, gets defeated
by Whitebeard and joins his crew.
Very much to the displeasure of Shanks, Rayleigh and co, as Whitebeard doesn’t have any interest
in going to Laugh Tale, but also is too powerful to be convinced otherwise, although not for
a lack of trying.
So Ace becomes a strong pirate and commander under Whitebeard, only that he has Rubber
powers instead of fire powers.
But he’s quite smart as we know and figures out how to use his fruit effectively.
Which now brings us to the current timeline and the straw hats.
If Luffy was never born, and never set out to sea to gather his crew, what would have
happened to each of them?
As you’ll realize very quickly, there is a reason why Luffy is the protagonist.
Without him, things get quite dark.
We start the east blue saga by going to Alvida’s ship, where Luffy pops out of a barrel at
the beginning of the story to save Koby.
This time around however, there is nothing in this barrel.
Koby will for the rest of his life be forced to work the deck on the pirate’s ship.
He will never be inspired to follow his impossible looking dream of becoming a marine admiral.
As a result, neither he nor luffy make it to Morgan’s Marine base, where Zoro is being
starved by Helmeppo.
Without Luffy to rescue him, Zoro’s realizes that Helmeppo never meant to stand by his
word to release him after 30 days without food.
instead Zoro, who at this point is too weak to free himself, simply starves to death in
a horrifying and tragic manner.
The pitiful end of the future strongest swordsman in the world.
Mihawk never even learns his name.
In Orange Town, Buggy manages to reach the grand line, but is soon captured by the marines
anyways.
Nami has barely managed to outwit Buggy and escape him, even without Luffy’s help.
On Syrup village, Kuro’s 3 year plan to plunder the island is finally complete.
Despite Usopp’s warnings of pirates, no one in the village believes him.
Usopp wants to be brave and fight, but is paralyzed by fear and he runs away.
Ultimately he and all the other villagers are slaughtered by Kuro’s men, while his
dad is having a party with Shanks somewhere in the New World.
. He will never become a brave warrior of the sea.
The only way to save Usopp is by subscribing right now.
At the Baratie, things go a bit differently.
While Luffy isn’t there to save the Baratie from Don Krieg, when you think about it, Krieg
only survives Mihawk chasing after them because Mihawk’s becomes more interested in Zoro
and his challenge.
With Zoro still slowly wasting away in the afternoon sun of Morgan’s base, Mihawk simply
finishes what he has come for all the way from the grand line.
Sink the rest of Krieg’s ship.
So instead of the Baratie sinking, Mihawk eats Krieg for lunch and then has a nice dinner
with some good wine at the Baratie.
Sanji keeps working there happily as a cook for 2 more years, until a mafia boss shows
up at the restaurant.
He tells Sanji that he is going to be married, unless he wants all of the cooks on the ship
to die.
Sanji complies and is taken to Whole Cake Island.
Here he is humiliated by his family, before Big Mom’s crew murders the entire family
at the wedding and takes Germa’s technology.
Meanwhile, Nami’s village is never freed from Arlong’s rule.
His men come to confiscate all the money she has saved up so far.
Despite her despair, she can’t let her people down, so she keeps drawing more and more maps
for Arlong, locked in her tiny room inside his castle.
At this point, Luffy and his crew enter the Grandline and are starting to make a name
for themselves as Rookies.
Without Luffy however, Crocus has met Ace, but wasn’t of any real help, as he was with
Whitebeard.
Laboon keeps smashing his head against the red line until he finally succumbs to his
injuries.
Brook will never be able to keep his promise with the whale.
On Drum island, Chopper lives his life with Kureha, scared and unsure about where he belongs
in this world as a monster and outcast.
When Wapol returns to the country, he kicks him and Kureha out of the castle and both
of them have to live under his tyranny.
Ace still comes to Drum however, looking for Blackbeard, who has taken the Yami Yami no
mi and betrayed the crew.
In the meantime, Crocodile is able to overthrow Alabasta without any major issues.
He kills the king and vivi and finds the secret chamber.
Here, either Robin refuses to tell him about Pluton and is killed, or she does tell him
the truth: That Pluton is located under the country of Wano in the new world, under the
control of Kaido.
Crocodile manages to build his power from here much faster than if he had been caught
and brought to Impel Down.
He prepares a plan to take on Kaido.
Robin meanwhile Robin goes her own separate path, but is sooner or later captured by the
agents of CP9 or CP0 and brought to Impel Down as well.
The last scholar of Ohara.
She will never find out that Saul is still alive, or that the library of ohara has been
saved.
Instead she fully vanishes into the darkness of her heart and the depths of level 6 in
Impel Down.
Skypea is actually quite interesting.
Without Luffy’s interference, Enel is God for a while longer, before making his way
to the moon anyways, this time accompanied by his men.
Also Bellamy gets to keep all his teeth.
On Water seven, Franky is simply living his delinquent life as head of the Franky family.
At some point, Lucci and the other CP9 agents find out that he has the plans for Pluton.
Franky heroically burns the plans in front of Lucci’s eyes, but is executed by the
furious agent, who has turned into a giant Leopard.
Meanwhile Shanks is once again meeting with Whitebeard.
He is here to talk about Blackbeard and urges Newgate to call Ace back.
He is way too important to die.
In the florian triangle, Brook spends the next year alone in the dark without his shadow.
Moria grows his Zombie army and finds a suitable shadow for Oars.
He takes thriller bark to the new world and attacks Wano once again, convinced he can
win.
However, even with Oar’s reanimated Corpse, he can’t stand up to the might of the beast
pirates.
While he is able to enter the country and lay siege to the flower capital, once Orochi
calls for help, Kaido and the all stars swoop in and ultimately defeat his army in less
than 10 minutes.
Brook’s shadow is released.
He goes on to become a rock start.
Meanwhile, Onimaru buries Ryuma’s corpse back at his grave and lies Shisui on top.
The tragedy on Sabaody Archapelago never happens.
A bunch of rookies, known as the worst generation meet here and then move on to the new world.
Camie isn’t saved by Rayleigh and is sold to Carlos.
Rayleigh is seeing Whitebeard to urge him that Ace as the next Joy Boy, has to become
pirate king.
Whitebeard reveals, that he was planning to make Ace his successor all along.
That Roger had told him the truth about the D Clan and his son, and that he simply had
wanted to make sure Ace is ready.
But it’s too late.
Ace confronts Blackbeard and is captured and taken to Impel Down.
Jinbei and Ivankov never escape the prison until much later, when Morley comes for them.
Jinbei becomes a revolutionary.
And so, even without Luffy, the war at Marineford still happens.
Blackbeard tries to sneak into Impel Down to get the level 6 prisoners for his crew.
But without Luffy’s uprising and Shiriyu being released to stop them, Magellan wipes
out the entire crew.
This time there is no antidote.
Blackbeard had made one gamble too much and lost to fate.
The most likely candidate for pirate king has died without anyone even realizing it.
Meanwhile, at Marineford, the war is about to begin, but this time things are very different.
Rayleigh and most of the remaining Roger pirates have come to fight side by side with Whitebeard
to free Joy Boy, the one hope to change the world, that they have been working towards
so carefully for 20 years.
Shanks and his crew also join the war right from the start.
It’s all or nothing.
At first, the two Yonko crews seem to have the upper hand, easily breaching the first
few lines of defenses.
Mihawk has refused to come and fight against his friend.
However suddenly the sky blackens as a gigantic azure dragon appears over the navy headquartes
and a fleet of ships appears on the horizon.
Because Shanks never went to stop him, Kaido has decided to join the war and make it the
biggest battle the world has ever seen.
He wants to draw out joy boy.
And now we have 3 parties fighting the war.
Sengoku orders Ace to be executed right now.
Shanks uses his Haki to temporarily knock out almost every single person on the battlefield,
except the other 2 Yonko, Rayleigh, the admirals and sengoku and garp.
Kaido asks Shanks if he could be Joy boy, to which Shanks yells that it’s Ace not
him.
Kaido is shocked by this, but it’s too late.
Akainu has returned to the execution platform and Ace dies the same way he did last time,
this time not able to give his life for his little brother.
The entire battlefield falls into an eerie silence.
Then suddenly Ace begins to melt, as a drum starts to play.
Ace, just like Luffy has died and thus awakened his legendary devil fruit.
Joy Boy has returned.
With an awakened ace, who already is quite a lot older and stronger than Luffy was at
this point, the tide of the battle quickly turns.
Kaido has decided to join their side for now.
He had been waiting for Joy Boy’s return his entire life.
However as the marines and Shichibukai are about to be defeated, a dark shadow falls
on the island.
Something is above the clouds.
Then a bright light, like the sun.
And Marineford island never existed.
Imu and the Gorosei have decided to sacrifice their strongest fighters in order to take
out 3 Yonkos and Joy Boy in one foul swoop.
In the aftermath of the war, the last standing Yonko is now Big Mom, who collects Shank’s
and Kaido’s Road Poneglyphs and takes over Wano ann Elbaf.
With Orochi by her side, 2 years later, she learns the location of Zou from Kanjuro and
takes the last poneglyph as well.
Using Pudding’s abilities she is able to decipher the hidden location of Laugh Tale
and is crowned QUeen of the pirates.
However, as she reads Joy Boy’s words, she realizes that she can’t change the world
without the Nika Fruit.
When you think about it, it’s really crazy how important Wano is even in a world without
Luffy.
And there are just so many things we just learned in this one arc.
If you want a one hour plus breakdown of Wano and why it was so controversial, you can watch
that right here.