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eriexplosion · 2 months

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Tech Lives: An Ungodly Long Essay

(AKA: Turns out that my Tech Lives compilation post comment was actually a threat.)

There have been hundreds if not thousands of posts since Plan 99 aired wondering if Tech might have made it after his fall - it's probably been brought up more than any other hanging plot point, even after season 2 scooped up Omega and left us on a massive cliffhanger. Now that season 3 has started, though, Omega and Crosshair are home (for now) but we have received an almost aggressive lack of Tech info. So, I've gathered up some of the stronger Evidence for why Tech might be fashionably late but still on his way back from The Void!

THE LEAD UP

So to start, let's go back to what came before the whole Incident. This will focus mostly on season 2, seeing as that was definitely Tech's season to shine, but with bits about plotlines in season 1. Which brings us to our first bit, that's not really evidence so much as some gentle push-back on a common argument.

Doomed By Character Development?

We've all seen this particular situation before - a character is slated for a tragic death, so just before it happens the writers gives them a little extra relevance to the plot to make sure the audience really feels it when the time comes. The Clone Wars was especially good at this, giving characters like Fives an arc of his own that ended in his tragic death. Season 7 gave us a better look at Jesse, first in the Bad Batch's intro arc and then again through the Siege of Mandalore, all to bring us to the chip activation that led to his ultimate death.

When season 2 started off with one of the two intro episodes spotlighting Tech and our first breather episode of the season also spotlighting him, people started to get worried. So is it fair to say that his spotlight in season 2 was setting him up for a permadeath?

Looking at it, I don't think so, for multiple reasons. For one, Tech didn't just get a spotlight episode, his development dominated a good chunk of the whole damned season, often taking priority over the other characters that wouldn't be dropped into the mists. While giving a little bit of character development to a doomed character can be a good move, giving ALL your development to a doomed character ends up feeling like a good portion of your season was actively pointless.

The Bad Batch is not an open ended show. It seems to have been planned for the three seasons it got, and they would have gone into it knowing they had a set amount of time to work with. Dedicating so much time to developing Tech in preparation for a character death takes away all of their opportunity to develop, well, anything else.

But, along with the amount of time that was dedicated to Tech as a character through season 2, they also didn't develop him in the ways that most often get used for a doomed character. Namely...

That Sure Is A Lot Of Open Plot Lines

And not one of them got tied up. Currently, Tech has two open plot lines to himself, both started in season 2, as well as a key place in the overall show narrative arc. As the overall show narrative arc takes precedence, we'll start with that.

The Bad Batch sets up a few different narrative arcs very early. One is if clones can be more than soldiers - this is the central thing that we see them struggling against from the start, they've been created to be soldiers and don't know much else about how to function in the world. Theoretically this arc can be fulfilled with one or two of them still dying as soldiers, as long as a few of them make it to find a new life for themselves.

The arc that can't be fulfilled without everyone though is the ongoing thread of reuniting the batch. Much of the show is geared towards making the viewer want this specific end result, as soon as they talk about Crosshair, Omega says they'll just have to get him back and complete their family. The end of season 1 teases us with this only to pull it away at the last moment, then season 2 teases us with it again only to yet again pull it away, this time seemingly permanently.

Ending one of your key narrative threads you've been using to draw audiences in only 2/3rds of the way into the show and without ever resolving it... well it would be a choice. If Tech is gone for good then the last time we saw everyone together would be the end of season 1. Rewatches would lack impact because something that was made to seem so vital ended up going nowhere, and the series finale would never quite reach the height that hearing the full batch theme kick in over the team fighting droids together did. It absolutely destroys the central narrative to leave him gone without ever having reunited the family.

And then there's his personal plots.

Let's start with the obvious one. Tech got a whole potential love interest this season and they absolutely did not resolve a damn thing about it.

Again, this takes a trope that we all know - the young army man that's going to go home and finally marry his girl, who has his whole life ahead of him, but dies tragically in his final mission - and seemingly intentionally subverts the beats. Because what makes the trope work is that the plot line is resolved as soon as that young man decides how he's going to move forward. He can't die uncertain of if he's going to marry his girl, he has to make a decision, and the longer we spend on the relationship to his girl the stronger the decision has to be to consider the narrative line resolved and free him up for some tragedy.

Tech/Phee is a tentative little 'will they or won't they' romance. They're flirting, they're feeling each other out, they're seeing if they're compatible. To tie up this narrative line we would have to find out if they are or not, get a yes or a no on the question. Will they or won't they? We simply don't know because the writers didn't put a resolution in.

We do get the traditional pre-mission scene with them, which would normally be when we get the first kiss or perhaps the promise of a date, either of which would have had me digging Tech's grave for him to fall into from the second it happened. Or even a 'we can't do this right now, but maybe some day it will be the right time' which would have been a kind of lukewarm resolution but would have at least represented a decision.

Instead we get a scene that almost aggressively refuses to resolve anything. They have an awkward interaction, but not one that says they won't get together, no promises are made for the future, no decision point is reached, and the plot line is still dangling wide open when Tech falls to his supposed death. If we truly leave it off here, well, what was the Tech/Phee subplot for? Why did we spend precious time on it when it could have been spent on something else, if it was meant to make Tech's death hit harder why did it not go further?

A second subplot with Tech is that he certainly made the most progress on seeing options outside of the Empire - it starts early on in Ruins of War when he meets Romar and gets his eyes opened to the idea of cultures that existed unconnected to the war. Serenno existed before the war and before the separatists, and Romar introduces Tech to that idea of an ongoing culture. He gets a taste of racing in front of a cheering crowd, leans further into his teaching of Omega and gets new insights from her regarding their lives as soldiers, his relationship with Phee picks up right when he finds out that she is interested in the preservation of cultures. It's a quiet little subplot, but Tech was seeing the full scope of what the galaxy contained beyond being a soldier in a war.

But, like the Tech/Phee, it never resolves. He never decides to settle down, he never chooses to stop being a soldier or even openly discusses the idea of what life will look like after. Rescuing Crosshair isn't positioned as a final mission that they have to complete in order to give up their lives as soldiers. Without that decision point being reached, the plot stays open, we never find out what he Would Have Done so we don't get a sense of the future that he would lose by dying, which is what the purpose of these types of plots is for a planned permadeath.

The Kaminoans don't create without purpose and writers working on a three season timeline don't typically write without it either. So if we spent the time on Tech/Phee but Tech is dead before it ever went anywhere, if we spent time on Tech's relationship with being something other than a soldier but he never really pursues it, what is the payoff?

Too Much of a Survivor To Die?

There's also the matter of how they chose to build Tech's character this season. Namely they beefed that man's skills up incredibly high making it intensely unbelievable that he's dead without seeing some sort of concrete proof. Things we know about Tech as of the end of season 2 include:

Incredible pain tolerance - Tech fractures his femur in Ruins of War and seems shockingly unbothered by it. The femur is frequently listed as one of the most painful bones to break. This is not a broken toe the man is hobbling around on, he fractured the strongest bone in the body and kept going through the woods. He physically fought and killed a man with that busted femur.

Lightning fast mental processing - this is of course on display nowhere so much as Faster where he's put up against droids and wins by taking calculated risks that no one else is willing to try.

A cool head in stressful circumstances - this one is hilarious because he outright says it, but Tech does demonstrate time and time again that when it comes down to it, he's able to keep calm no matter the circumstances.

Essentially, we spend the entirety of season 2 setting up why Tech is the perfect person to drop out of the sky and have him survive. He has the ability to keep calm and come up with a plan in seconds and he has the grit to keep moving even if he's grievously injured once he hits the ground. When you set a character up like this, you can still kill them, but you have to work harder to do it convincingly. Leaving Tech not at the moment of death but with probably at least a minute to act in and then not showing us the body is the exact opposite.

We have a moment in The Crossing showing us Tech's precise aim, and it comes up again to brutal effect when he shoots out the connection on the rail car. If moments through the season were used to set up that particular instant of the finale, then we can't discount the numerous scenes demonstrating his survival skills as being irrelevant to his chances.

Plus, looking back at Ruins of War - one of the big moments in the episode is towards the end, where Romar tells Tech, "I'm a survivor. Remember?" The camera then lingers on Tech for a long moment. It's not the kind of action that demonstrates his capabilities as above, but it works to associate the words with Tech in the viewers mind. Romar is a survivor, and Tech is a survivor too. And when you intend to kill someone off, it's kind of an odd choice to spend that whole season setting them up as a survivor.

THE FALL

Which brings us to the scene itself. Plan 99, implied to be one of the last ditch plans that they have. It's absolutely a heartbreaking scene, and one that can be tough to analyze when it's so well done, because it's rough to watch repeatedly. But, it's worth doing, because the scene itself is FULL of questions, some structural others more based in the visual presentation.

What is Plan 99?

Well, that's just it, we don't actually know.

We know what it's implied to be, a self sacrifice plan where one of the batch gives their life for the others to get away. But in show it's never actually defined, leaving the full meaning of Plan 99 up to interpretation. It could be as simple as what it's implied to be, but that brings up questions like 'why not provide any lead up or foreshadowing for it?' and 'does killing yourself actually count as a plan?'

Removing the assumptions from it gives us room to speculate. Is the plan actually that they leave him behind, dead or alive? Hunter ordered them to do so without a plan number in season 1, but he is the sergeant, so plan 99 could easily be something that bypasses his authority - if a batcher calls a plan 99, you go and you don't question his decision. It's certainly closer to a plan if there's something they are supposed to be doing from their end rather than just an announcement of intent.

It's not strictly evidence one way or another, but it is something of note when Tech's entire sacrifice is based around a plan that we're not privy to the details of. TBB has hidden its twists in ambiguity before, so it would not be the first time that it let us assume something only to pull the rug out later. But ambiguity is not the only thing that makes this scene stand out in the raising questions department.

Pacing Goes Out The Window

Generally speaking, a self sacrifice is the climax of an episode. Think Kanan, Hardcase, Gregor, Hevy, etc - Even a minor character sacrificing their life tends to make up the most climactic portion of any given episode, let alone one of the characters from the title squad. It gets to be the big central moment, the big rush of music and feeling, the pinnacle of the viewers attention.

Tech's sacrifice is not. It happens around 5 minutes into the episode, is rapidly moved past with barely a moment to think, and then the actual climax is Omega's capture on Ord Mantell. They even repeat the music when Omega is captured, except much stronger this time, making it clear that this is the emotional crux of the episode, this is the scene that is supposed to stick with you.

The opportunity to make it the climax of an episode was certainly there. The storyline could have been adjusted to put Tech's fall at the end of The Summit, allowing more time in Plan 99 for processing his loss and making it feel final. The pacing choice is one that doesn't allow the viewer to process the loss, only giving us maybe a couple minutes of time with actual emotional reactions before we're barreling off to the next plot point. Why was Tech's death de-emphasized within the episode if it is indeed our last moment with this central character?

Tarkin, Eriadu, & Saw Gerrera

A lot goes into the set-up for Plan 99. We have Tarkin's base on Eriadu as the setting they're working within, going up against Tarkin for the first time since early season 1. This is the big leagues, and something that's come up in multiple interviews is that when going into the den of one of the franchise's big bads we have to have consequences, something to demonstrate that Tarkin is not to be trifled with.

Sounds reasonable enough. Except Tarkin doesn't actually do anything in either of these episodes. The thing that actually threw them off was Saw's planning mixing in with their own.

All Tarkin does upon finding out that the batch is stuck on the rail is order an air strike and ignore that this would kill many of his own men. This is certainly evil, but it's standard Imperial evil. Rampart would have given that order. Hemlock would have given that order. The guy in Tipping Point that we know for 5 minutes before he fried himself would have given that order.

So if the point of this finale was to demonstrate Tarkin's power, then bringing Saw in both complicates the plot and devalues what they're claiming they are trying to show. So is the point to get them to Tantiss? No, because they fail in that. They don't plant the tracker, they're no closer to finding Crosshair than they were before.

By all accounts the point of the whole endeavor is in fact just to drop Tech off a sky rail for reasons unknown and injure Omega to force them to go back to Ord Mantell. These two things could have happened anywhere in any way of course, so why choose Eriadu and why choose to complicate the plot by introducing Saw rather than letting Tarkin handle the job?

They're questions we don't have answers to yet, but they're very hard to get answers to if Tech is dead and completely out of the picture. Having a dead body on Eriadu is fairly useless to the plot, having a living Tech on Eriadu though? That has potential to move them huge leaps forward in a very short amount of time once we bring him back in. Especially given his conversation with Saw prior to everything going downhill - Tech was in favor of gathering intel from the facility rather than destroying it.

And what about Saw, anyway? If he was genuinely there to cause problems and fly away, again, that's a plot wrinkle that isn't needed and took time away from everything else. If he's there because they needed someone to pick Tech up though? There's potential there.

Did Tech's Sacrifice Mean Anything?

In universe, Tech's sacrifice means everything, of course. It's a decision made in the moment to risk everything to save his family. It's a noble deed and one he does without hesitation. But pulling away from that narrow scope of an in universe perspective, what did we accomplish narratively with his fall?

Well... not much actually! They got over the bump in the road that they encountered all of five seconds ago and promptly crashed headfirst into another, different bump in the road. Tech's dramatic sacrifice didn't allow them to escape unharmed, it didn't allow them to find Crosshair, it just allowed them to move a few steps forward, after which Omega is almost killed and then captured, which is a fairly weak reason to sacrifice a whole major character.

But not every character death is exclusively about narrative, sometimes it's about the character arc itself. So does this close out anything for Tech's character development? Again, not really. Tech has always been completely loyal to the squad and would have risked anything for his family. He never had a choice not to fall, it was either just him or the whole team, and he is an endlessly logical actor. The action would have played out the same had it happened in the series premier or the season 1 finale, or any other time in the show. If anything it's a backtrack on his character by putting him solidly back into the soldier box that the show is trying to let the clones grow out of.

Maybe it's not about Tech's character though, maybe it's about everyone else's! Does his death change anyone's trajectory? Again... no, not really. We'll get into season 3's lack of mentioning Tech later, but in the immediate aftermath of his fall, no one's course or actions is majorly changed because of his loss. Hunter wants to go back to Pabu where it's safe, the same thing he wanted to do before they ever left for this mission. Omega puts herself in danger to save her brothers, which has been one of her defining traits since season one. Wrecker is following Hunter's lead, same as he always did. (We get very little of what Echo hopes to do, but the opening of season 3 reveals that they went back to work with Rex, exactly like they were doing before.)

So narratively nothing required him to die, the character's arc isn't completed, and the other characters aren't motivated to change. If Tech dies here, it's the picture of a shock value death. It doesn't complete or inform his character, it doesn't need to narratively happen in order to put Omega on the path to being captured, and thematically it exists just to give the viewer an unnecessary gut-punch when just the failure to rescue Crosshair and the loss of Omega would have been enough.

Framing is Everything

In a death scene there's nothing more powerful than our final shot of a character. The very last we'll ever see of them, the image that will linger in our minds when we think of that character from then on. This is especially important in animation where everything has to go through several iterations before deciding on what that final look will be. You want it to be impactful, you want the audience to have one final connection to the character before they're gone for good.

So why does Tech die with his helmet on?

If there's one thing TBB is good at, it's their expression work, and a death scene is a perfect place to show off their full range, which is why most deaths meant to have a heavy impact occur with faces unobscured. Crosshair loses his helmet and takes Mayday's off so we can see both of their faces as Mayday dies, Slip, Cade, even Clone X and Wilco, all die helmetless. Looking into older series you have Kanan dying without his mask, Fives, Hardcase, Waxer all dying helmetless with one last good look at their faces and expressions.

And while Tech's helmet gives us a good look at his eyes, the rest of his face goes unseen, and Wrecker's face as he watches this happen is completely obscured. We're denied a look at a lot of their expressions as the decision is made and Plan 99 is executed, rendering it less personal than it otherwise could have been. Tech could have lost his helmet in the blast that knocked him from the rail, Wrecker could have had his helmet knocked off at some point to give us a good look at his expression. TBB isn't known for pulling its punches, so why leave our final look at Tech's face back in The Summit and not here?

Then there's the framing choices. We get some absolutely amazing shots of Tech during the fall, from taking the shot to falling backwards towards the cloudy cover - but here's where some interesting choices are made. Rather than letting our last shot of him be a face up shot that keeps eye contact with the camera as he falls, they make the choice to have him flip over, and we hold the shot as the rail car goes down after him, partially obscuring him.

Which means instead of our last glimpse of Tech being something like this.

We end up with something closer to this.

Which, while we all love those Tech crotch shots is somewhat less impactful emotionally. These frames go through multiple departments and get multiple eyes on them before going through final animation, and no one thought that leaving him face up and unobscured until he disappears into the fog would stick more firmly in the viewer's memory?

The Flip Might be Intentional

And I don't just mean out of universe, as every detail of animation is often intentional, but in universe as well. If you look closely at Tech as he falls, he seems to roll his shoulders back in order to begin flipping over. It was a specific enough detail to send me searching for a reason and I found it in instructions on how to survive a long fall - the first thing that you're supposed to do? Get into the arch position like a skydiver to slow and control your fall.

The flip was important enough to not only include but to include the small detail of Tech intentionally flipping himself over into said position. It's not a confirmation but it's an interesting detail, and one that has very few other reasons to exist.

THE AFTERMATH

Image chosen because even thinking he's alive I didn't want to pull from Omega reacting to the fall on Ord Mantell. Looking at her makes me Sad. So the fall has happened, the rail car has rushed forward and crashed, and Omega fades in and out of consciousness until finally waking up on Ord Mantell to the bad news.

"What if he's hurt?"

Omega is our POV character for the show. We may sometimes see things she doesn't, but emotionally she remains the center of the narrative, the character that the target audience will see themselves in. Her ultimate thoughts on a situation are the closest we have to a clear indicator of our intended takeaway.

So it's interesting that the first thing we hear out of her, having heard that Tech 'didn't make it,' is a firm denial. He can't be gone, he might be hurt, he needs them and they need to go back for him. And, despite Hunter continuing to talk with her about it for a bit, we never actually hear Omega explicitly take it back or verbally acknowledge Tech as dead. The closest we get is 'lost' which she also uses for Echo in The Crossing.

Now, here's where the interpretation between the adult and child audience will likely differ. From an adult perspective, this is a reasonable reaction for a child her age. It comes off as very natural that she doesn't want to accept it and that she doesn't have time to really process that it's true before the scene moves on. It makes sense from an in universe perspective.

However, the main audience is still children who actually are Omega's age and who are being presented with her as their window into this world. And their takeaway, seeing that same scene, is likely to be that Omega is correct. They don't know that Tech's dead, just because an adult says it doesn't make it true and just because Hemlock says it DEFINITELY doesn't mean it's true, they have to go back and check.

If they wanted the main audience to think that Tech is dead for sure, they could have had Omega be the one to say that he's gone, with Hunter simply confirming it for her. Alternatively, Omega accepting it when Hunter tells her would also function in the same way - ultimately, as the POV character, if Omega doesn't accept it there's a strong possibility much of the audience won't accept it either, especially without other evidence.

No Body?

And, as we all know, we simply don't have other concrete evidence. Not only are the batch given no time to look for Tech's body or any confirmation that he died, but we get a whole scene with Hemlock and the goggles where he also confirms verbally that he doesn't have a body either. There's very little reason to have him say this outside of putting a bug in the viewer's ear that he might not be gone for good.

Not only do we have that verbal confirmation, but we have multiple places where a body could have been included or implied without adding much to the runtime.

Easiest place would probably be when Omega passes out - there's a trooper's corpse right there in front of her, and it would have been very easy to make that identifiable as Tech. Have one of the boys check his pulse like Crosshair did with Mayday and then be forced to leave after confirming he's dead. Would it require a little bit of fudging the details of how he landed so close to them, sure, but it would have been narratively streamlined and easy.

Have Hemlock bring his helmet rather than his goggles (and damage it in a way clearly incompatible with survival) or confirm that he did find a body but has no use for the goggles.

Put the body in Hemlock's lab when Omega is brought there at the end of the episode. Have a sheet covering him even if you want and just one of his hands hanging out, especially the one with the distinctive light on the back of it. Give us her reaction to that.

These are just the ones that don't involve adding scenes or making major changes - instead, in a franchise known for bringing back everyone and their grandmother especially if there's no body, they chose to leave it extremely vague.

Reused Score

The soundtrack for Tech's sacrifice is fantastic, I don't think anyone can argue that. In fact it's so good that it's used occasionally used as a reason for why he's dead for real. If it's a fakeout, why go so hard on the music?

It almost sounds like a reasonable argument, except that the music isn't even unique to Tech's fall. We get the same motif later in the episode with Omega's capture, and it actually comes in even harder and more impactful there than it did with Tech falling.

Reusing bits of the music has two results. It lessens the impact of hearing it with Tech if it is in fact his Death music, because it makes it clear that he is not the central feeling of the episode but rather, Omega's capture is. As mentioned before, deaths are usually the climax of their own episodes partially to avoid them being upstaged by any other plot points, but here Omega's capture is fully prioritized over the loss of one of our central characters.

The second result is that it changes the meaning of the music. It's no longer meant specifically to underscore a tragic death, but rather a more general one of loss and separation. And if it's simply about that separation, then it no longer requires Tech to be dead to have that same impact. They're apart from each other, and that's painful enough.

SEASON 3 SO FAR

Which of course finally brings us to season 3! We're five episodes in as of the posting of this, so a full 1/3rd of the season down, which gives us a good idea of how they're handling the whole grief aspect of this scenario.

They Aren't!

That's right, we simply have not directly acknowledged or dealt with the whole 'watching your squadmate fall to a presumed horrible death' thing even once in five episodes. Tech has been mentioned by name twice, we've seen his goggles once, and Wrecker makes one sideways reference to him having not made it back.

In universe, there is a several month timeskip and it seems to be implied that the majority of the grief milestones happened in that gap. For example, we don't see Crosshair finding out from Omega, we don't see Omega grieving her brother, we don't see Phee finding out (more on her in a bit) despite her fledgling romance. Months of grieving and processing skipped over and what comes out the other side is single line mentions that go by in seconds.

This is especially apparent after episode 5, where we got something to compare it to. Crosshair has a long, painful moment of grieving with Mayday's helmet when they return to Barton IV. It's deep, personal, and intimate and we take a minute with him gathering up the helmets of Mayday and his men to set them up on the crates the same way that Mayday had honored them.

Mayday is a one episode character that was important to only a single character, Crosshair - Tech is a core member of the team present through two full seasons and shown as close to every member of the squad. Yet the single scene grieving Mayday is longer and more emotionally gripping than every short mention of Tech so far in season 3.

Narrative Grief

Seeing characters grieve their loved ones onscreen is about more than just the characters themselves. It's also part of the viewer experience - through the characters' grief, we're able to process our own grief at the loss. It makes it feel real, it makes it feel personal, and the amount of grieving needs to be proportionate to the character's importance in the story.

This is especially true in a show written for children like The Bad Batch. Kids don't typically have the same experience with death as adults, and a well written main character death within a children's show will need more time and energy spent towards making the loss feel real. We see this with deaths like Kanan's; it wasn't Jedi Night that told the viewer that Kanan was really, truly dead, it was Dume, where the characters mourned him and dealt with the aftermath.

Currently, with Tech, we do see holes in the team that make us miss Tech but they remain completely unaddressed by the characters. We see Tech's goggles, but Hunter isn't looking at them, he's looking at Lula. Omega mentions Tech having taught her all the plans, but without any real sadness on her or Crosshair's part. The closest we get to actually bringing it up are Wrecker saying 'not everyone came back' and Echo mentioning the datapad would be difficult without Tech, and both of those are only seconds long before moving on. They don't serve as any kind of catharsis for the viewer, relying more on gut punch impact and keeping the wound open rather than allowing it to heal. The difference between the treatment of Tech's death and Mayday's just makes it more stark.

How Do You Like Yearning?

Interestingly, though, it strongly resembles the writing team's handling of another situation: Crosshair's departure from the team in season 1 vs Echo's in season 2. The show even drew a lot of flack for the lack of discussion on Crosshair's betrayal, as outside of a couple conversations the matter often went unremarked on. Echo leaving, on the other hand, got a whole episode dedicated to processing the loss immediately after it happened.

So what was the difference? Crosshair's departure is part of a long term plot point. We're supposed to want him back, we're supposed to want the team to talk about him, anything that would ease the tension. The writers on the other hand want that tension to remain until it's time to actually resolve the plot. So we get those slow drips in between bigger encounters, we get opportunities for Crosshair to come home that he doesn't take, and we don't get the catharsis of the team actually talking about any of it. We're left to want and imagine it, using the yearning to keep it on people's minds more than anything.

If Crosshair had been discussed on screen long enough for the characters to actually come to terms with his absence, though, that would have made the plot feel more settled and resolved early on. It might be conversations we want to see, but it doesn't keep the viewer on edge and craving a resolution. Best case scenario we're just not as desperate for Crosshair to come home - worst case scenario we accept that he won't be returning and find the fact that he eventually does to be unrealistic.

Echo on the other hand gets their absence processed immediately, because their absence from the team is not meant to be a huge plot point. It's something the team has to deal with, yes, and the viewer wants to see them again just like Omega does, but Echo returning isn't meant to be a maybe, and it's not supposed to keep the viewer wondering and worrying. It's a when, not an if.

Similarly to Crosshair, Tech has never felt like a resolved plot point. We don't get confirmation on his death, we don't get any long term grieving, and we get drip fed acknowledgements that pry the wound back open. If we actually see the team discuss and come to terms with their grief and loss, the plot point closes, the wound closes and we begin to fully accept a team without Tech in it, which makes it harder to reinsert him into the storyline if he is in fact alive.

If he's truly gone for good, what is the point of denying closure to the audience? We know that they are capable of writing an intense mourning moment that feels completely in character for otherwise emotionally repressed men such as Crosshair, so why not give us that with the team mourning for Tech? A memorial, an intimate moment with the goggles, a short scene of Crosshair finding out about the loss, or anything at all really? Once again it's something that makes sense if he's alive and we're simply not being shown yet, but makes very little sense to not capitalize on if he's dead.

What's to Come

We have ten episodes of season 3 to go, and a lot to cover. Reviews have indicated that Tech is not explicitly brought up in the first eight, so the earliest we could possibly have a survival reveal is in episode 9. Will it actually happen? Maybe, maybe not. Though interestingly episode 9, The Harbinger, is almost exactly one year after Plan 99, just like The Return aired almost one year after The Outpost. Could mean nothing, but they do enjoy their anniversary dates.

One thing we do know for sure is coming up is Phee's inclusion - she's seen in the official trailer, as well as briefly in a recent twitter spot. This is interesting as Phee is, of course, Tech's teased love interest, and her connection to Tech has been emphasized multiple times, including on her Databank entry and the official 'what you need to know about season 3' guide. When she comes onto the scene, it's very likely that more information about Tech will too.

MARKETING, INTERVIEWS, & SOCIAL MEDIA

I wanted to keep this mostly focused on what can be seen within the show itself, but it's impossible to talk about whether or not Tech is alive without pointing to the absolutely bizarre messaging from the cast and crew, as well as the marketing choices surrounding his sacrifice. (Example: the Instagram Mourning Filter they layered over him in the official trailer, as seen above) I won't get quite as detailed here as in the above, but it does have to be mentioned.

Constant Focus

In between the end of season 2 and the posting of the season 3 trailer in late January, there were several posts on various official Star Wars media. The majority of them were about Tech and Plan 99. In fact, I don't think I ever saw anything mentioning the giant 'Omega's been captured' cliffhanger, just Tech. Over and over again.

Once a character is dead, marketing generally stops caring about them. They're forward focused after all, they want you coming back for what's to come not lingering on what won't be relevant again. So why the constant focus on Tech?

And it wasn't just the social media either - a huge portion of the trailers and reels included old footage of him too. For the most part this was from Plan 99 and bringing up his fall again to rip open those old wounds, but in one case they included action footage from The Summit. This was an interesting case, because the majority of people watching wouldn't have recognized it immediately. Fittingly, the entire comment section was full of nothing but 'Was that Tech?' style comments, which they would have known was going to be the case to start with.

So why are we so focused on a man that's supposedly dead? If he's genuinely never going to show up again why keep putting him in? Everything? While not even bringing him up all that often in the show? If he's dead, this is a truly bizarre marketing decision.

Never Say Die

In interviews or in official material. For several months the word 'dead' was never used for Tech anywhere, not in interviews, not in official material, nowhere. It took until January 23rd for all of the databank entries to be updated, and among all of the main cast he's only referred to as 'killed' once, and it's on Hunter's page not even his own. Then, the Friday before the premier, an interview came out referring to him as dead - on the part of the interviewer, not the creators themselves.

Everything else seems to use a variety of euphemisms. His sacrifice, his absence, his loss, he 'plummeted out of sight', he 'fell from a tram car', he did absolutely anything it's possible to do except outright die apparently.

It's an odd choice when there's known controversy over if he's dead or not. The standard operating protocol of course, in a planned comeback, is to refer to them as dead anyway and allow fandom to fuel its own speculation, but with a fandom as devastated as TBB's was, it's quite possible that the odd behavior had to be introduced just to keep speculation going. The only interviews that sound remotely final came out right before the episodes started coming out - if they had done that from the beginning, the chances of people outright refusing to come back to the show likely would have been higher.

Much like the marketing, this is not necessarily proof of anything - but in combination with the multiple odd things in the show itself, it's certainly suspicious. Speaking of suspicious...

What an Odd Thing to Say

The cast and crew themselves have not been skimping on making strange comments when it comes to the Tech situation.

There is of course the well known Joel Aron (lighting director for the series) tweet that came out the day of the Celebrations panel (AKA when the Tech trauma was at an all time high) and in direct reply to a fan that was having a hard time with Tech's death. It's hard to take it as anything but a reference to Tech given the timing, and it was certainly taken as being about Tech in the quote tweets. If it's not about Tech, why tease the fandom with it? And the specification for it being a mid s3 episode as well...

Also from the day of Celebrations, and from the panel itself, we have Michelle Ang saying in front of God and everybody, that Tech "doesn't come back... in this episode, at least." At the time there was a possibility she didn't know and was just leaving it open, but with that only being ten months ago and the extremely long timeframe of animation, it's almost certain that she would have been done with all primary recording by that point. If you know he's not coming back, how do you accidentally imply that he is with no one correcting it?

Dee Bradley Baker, when asked for a farewell message from Tech at a con, came out with "the life of a soldier is fulfilled by fulfilling his mission and supporting his brothers. And this was the end of mine. And that's a good thing." Which was a perfectly serviceable goodbye right up until he said that the end of Tech's (life? soldier's life? mission?) was a good thing.

During an instagram interview we have Deana Kiner, one of the composers, in response to the interviewer talking about the final episode containing a major loss, saying, "It's kind of a loss... It's complicated." The claim on twitter was that this was about Omega, because everyone knows that when someone mentions the major loss in Plan 99 they're definitely talking about Omega.

So is Tech alive? Is Tech dead? We still don't know. But while one or two of the above might be a coincidence, having all of them at once coalesce around this single character death is a lot to chew over. The Bad Batch team has shown willingness to address grief and loss prior, as well as a willingness to show us death onscreen and front and center. So why, with such an important character, sidestep it all in order to keep it vague? Why keep it from sounding final for so long, if the intent the entire time was for him to be dead for good?

We won't know until he either shows back up or the show ends. If Tech's alive, all of the above starts to make sense. If he's dead... well a lot of things will just never quite add up. I feel that this team has shown enough willingness to follow up on their trailing plotlines that they've earned my trust. Fingers crossed for a satisfying resolution for all of us, and for our boy Tech, whatever that resolution may be.

#the bad batch #tbb #tbb tech #the bad batch spoilers #tbb spoilers #the bad batch speculation #this thing is some 7500 words i might have an obsession problem

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moodymisty · 1 year

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heyyooo! love your work! big fan! wondering if i might be able to request Crosshair with a breeding kink pretty please? this man lives in my head rent free and the brain rot is fkn real

< You are here | Part 2 >

Author's note: Ohhh, a challenge. I like. >:3 I will admit I didn't like Crosshair much at first, but he's been chipping away at me for ages and now I have the brain rot too so sameeeeeee

Relationships: Crosshair/Fem!Reader

Warnings: NSFW, What I would consider subtle breeding kink, mentions of pregnancy but not actual pregnancy, Unprotected sex, Creampies, Crosshair being a pouty little shit, Pre-Echo(sry bby), one mention of smoking though it can be taken as a metaphor not literally, Little bit of angst,

Hunter balls his hands into fists so tight his fingers shake, before threading them through his hand and pulling at the root. Boots clanging against the metal floor of the ship he walks into the cockpit, seeing Tech and Wrecker both already looking up at him.

"He is being impossible." Hunter flops in the co-pilot seat, groaning almost harsh enough to sound like a growl. Wrecker throws out a nonchalant hand, shrugging and shaking his head.

"He's been all grumpy for weeks now, not like we did anything to him..." Wrecker crosses his arms and glances in the direction of the back of the Marauder, where Crosshair is currently hidden.

Swiveling his pilot's seat so he faces Hunter, Tech continues threading a screw into his currently ongoing repair job while he talks.

"I can think of perhaps one or two theories that have the most merit as to why Crosshair is behaving this way." While normally Hunter is used to Crosshair's attitude largely defying any sort of figuring out, he still cracks an eye open to watch Tech explain himself.

"Either he's become irritated at the extended length of all of our current missions," That's a no-brainer, and the reason why all of them are on edge. Tech glances in the same place Wrecker had looked, before continuing.

"Or, he is upset because he's been away from her for such a significant amount of time."

That catches Hunter's attention, leaning up away from the back of the seat.

They've all known for a while that Crosshair had met someone, and had simply been playing it off so he could say so himself. He leaves for hours at a time and refuses to say where, along with Hunter being able to smell the irrefutable scent of a woman on him. But as expected he's kept it all a secret, acting as if him disappearing isn't unusual.

Part of Hunter was maybe a little bit insulted that he's not divulging something that significant, especially given that it doesn't seem to be just a one night stand.

But since his attitude and patience had marginally improved the Batch had elected to just take the win; Though it seems the inevitable downside was now this. They hadn't expected to get rerouted three different times so far, extending their current deployment by double what had been estimated.

He gets missing someone, but he just wishes Crosshair wouldn't be such an ass about it. He keeps biting at anyone who so much as glances at him, entire body tight and angry.

Hunter can’t help but sigh in relief knowing that they’re on track back to Coruscant, and they can get off the Marauder and stretch out away from each other for a bit. Even on the best of days, it’s not a good mix to be in such close quarters for so long.

"Lets just get to Coruscant ASAP; I'm going to go insane being stuck up in here with him for much longer."

The storage crate Crosshair is sitting on wiggles slightly, but held mostly in place by it's straps to the ground. Tech had secured this load this time after they routed to a republic base for resupplying, since they'd run out of their original stock of necessities.

But even as far back as he can possibly get it's not far enough away from his brothers, as he can still hearing them talking from all the way in the cockpit. His knuckles crack as he uses one hand to grip the fingers on his opposite, hunched over as his elbows dig into his thighs.

"Or he is upset because he's been away from her for such a significant amount of time."

Damn right he's fucking upset.

He finally finds himself someone that he likes, that he wants to be around, and he has to be stuck up in the Marauder for literal months. The last time they'd gotten rerouted he'd swore up a storm, knowing it would be at least another few standard weeks till they were back on Coruscant. Wrecker had gotten the brunt of it, and he feels a little sour stomached knowing that he shouldn’t have thrown that stuff at him. Wrecker didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just his desire to have some semblance of a life biting him in the ass. Clones don’t get to enjoy things, they get to shoot or get shot.

But he’s so fucking desperate that he swears he can see you right in front of him, with that stupid smile and wearing the used bodyglove he'd given you and let you cut up into something pretty. You’d put thumb holes in the sleeves and cut the bottom off, turning into a cute little shirt you could wear whenever. You’d even left the republic symbol on the arm alone, so it’s still obvious that it’s military.

‘It reminds me of you,’ He remembers you saying, and it felt like you’d shot him in the gut.

But instead of being with you he’s here; Stuck in a stuffy ship the same air recirculating over and over.

He wants to fuck you. Bad.

So damn bad that even you right now, the mere thought of you leaning forward to grab something off a table enough so that your shirt raises just a tiny bit up your back, has him biting his cheek almost enough to bleed.

No matter how many times he beats his head in trying to forget you exist for even just a moment, or waits until he’s alone enough to lock the refresher door and try and yank himself until he feels the need die down just enough that he can think about anything else, it doesn't work.

None of it does; His mind just keeps circling back to you. The way you smile at him, the way you talk to him, the way his hands look against your skin.

He should hate you for doing this to him. He should hate himself for letting this be done to him.

You're a good girl experimenting with a bit of the bad; To feel someone who isn't afraid to get rough. To taste the smoke on his lips and reach for him the moment he tries to pull away. He’s supposed to make you cry, make you want him.

You should be the one acting sick with love and yearning; Not him.

He's head over heels like someone in love for the first because he is; Other than one or two one night stands you're the first to make him feel this way. He's been having dreams even, mind coming up with scenarios each one more ludicrous than the last. But gods had they made him hard; Enough so that when he jolted up from his bunk he'd almost slammed his head into the ceiling, heart racing in his chest. He had to change the bottom half of his blacks afterward as well, as silently as possible.

Everything about this just makes him furious.

The moment they arrive in Coruscant space he’s standing up and waiting, his foot tapping the ground as he grips the wall for support. He’s not going to bother sitting down, it would be a waste of time. Tech will jostle them around as they land the same amount either way.

Hunter can probably hear him back here, though Crosshair doesn’t care either way. Whatever the rest of them think doesn’t matter to him at the moment, even less so than usual.

With a bunched fist he hits the panel to drop the gangplank the moment the Marauder's engines are off, not even letting them get cold before he disappears.

It's the dead of night when your eyes suddenly crack open, having to adjust to the such low amount of light in the room.

You don't know quite why you're suddenly awake, and after rubbing your eyes you lean up a bit, looking around the room. When there isn't anything out of the ordinary, you almost move to put your head against the pillow again to go back to sleep, until you hear it.

It's the soft sound of metal sliding on metal, and so you wrench your body from bed, grabbing the blaster from your nightstand and racing out into the living room to see if the door is open.

The main one isn't, though the one that leads to your patio is, with a figure standing in it just inside on your floor.

For a moment your heart completely stops, until you recognize the shape of the helmet they're wearing.

"Crosshair!?"

Your hands lower, seeing his familiar lithe silhouette in front of the patio. "Did you, break in?" He pulls the sliding glass door shut as you brush a hand along your hair and set the blaster on your counter.

"Yeah, and?"

He says while pulling off his helmet, before throwing it in the direction of your couch. It bounces twice before rolling to a stop. "It's the fifth story!" He seems to completely ignore your comment, and instead walks closer to you, an unreadable expression on his face. It’s so dark in here, the only like is from the patio windows and the one little light you leave on in the kitchen.

You're in your nightclothes of course, bare feet against the floor as you'd raced right from your bedroom after hearing him pick the lock. You hope no one saw him on the way up, but it’s unlikely Crosshair would’ve allowed that to happen.

Walking closer you can hear his boots hit your floor, and he comes into your personal space you let him; His hands laying on the tops of your hips and pulling you close. The edge of the countertop hits the small of your back as he traps you against it, seeing his eyes brush over your face.

He’s not saying anything, so you fill the silence yourself.

"I missed you." He makes a soft noise.

"Really?" His tone of voice is amused, and skeptical. The plates of his armor are rough against your palms, as they brush over his chestplate. You can feel each little scrape and dent, every moment where he might’ve gotten hurt had it not been there to protect him.

"Am I not allowed to miss you?" He removes one hand from your hip to take the toothpick from his mouth and flicks it in the direction of your trash, it bonking off the wall and falling in.

After he does so, he leans down enough that his lips are just barely hovering over your own, and you can just barely see the outline of his features in the dark. They feel so soft, brushing against you as he speaks.

"You're too sweet on me, sugar."

Maybe so, but you can't help it.

"But I don't think you missed just me, right?" One of his hands leaves your hips to cradle the back of your neck, tilting your head upwards. He's not wrong, you know you’ve missed the things he does to you just as much as himself. They keep you awake at night, more often than not. You don’t answer him, but your lips gently part as you look at him. His eyes are hooded, looking at you and only you.

"So what; You want me to love on you, or fuck you."

Crosshair knows what he wants, and he knows by the way you've grown pliant under his grasp that you want it too.

He moves closer to you until you have no option to sit up on the table you'd had your back to, him stepping in the space between your legs. His lips are rough against yours as he tugs up the fabric of your nightdress, so much so that one might wonder if he'd ripped it. It doesn't matter.

His gloved hand is slipping down the front of your underwear so fast that you don't even have time to question it, instantly pressing against your clit. He chuckles at the way your hips press towards him, already pleading for more. Always greedy. You’re so senstive and begging and he’s barely even touched you. It’s been too long.

"Nothing else worked, hmm?"

His fingers slide along your cunt, them just barely shining from the light pouring through your windows. He only pulls his hand away to bite the tip of his glove and pull it off, so you he can fuck you with his bare fingers. While he does, he's one handedly undoing his armor, letting it fall and kicking it away.

It feels good to take it off, and it feels even better for you to feel the softer slopes of his body, instead of the harsh edges of his armor. You slide off your underwear and throw them away, just in time for him to press his hand against you again.

His fingers curl inside of your cunt, making noises that almost embarrass you as his jaw presses against your cheek.

"Don't tell me you've been this wet the whole time i've been gone?"

He keeps trying his usual 'nonchalant and disconnected' schtick, with the snarky quips and knowing looks.

But each time his lips press against yours it's with so much desperation, feeling the way he grinds against you through his bodyglove as your legs wrap around his hips. He leans back to pull off his chestplate, and before it stops rocking on the floor he’s already back against your body.

He knows exactly how to touch you, fingers curling inside of you perfect while his thumb presses against your clit. You're writhing under his touch, desperately close after so long being unable to feel fully satisfied. The memory of his touch stopped being enough after awhile, and you’d suffered without it.

“Sometimes,” You sigh, feeling how tight your gut is. “I missed you.” You did, in multiple ways.

"I wanted you here; Especially w-" You suddenly stop speaking, too nervous to say it out loud to him. Maybe this isn’t the time to say what was on the tip of your tongue.

But Crosshair is too keen, and slows before looking down at you.

"Hmm?" He notices the way you suddenly look away from him, and only when he almost completely stops touching you do you barely mutter the words.

"I, thought I was pregnant. Right after you left."

You can still feel his fingers curled inside of you, stretching you. It hadn’t made him run, like you’d thought it might.

Crosshair doesn't know how to feel over the fact that those words fail to startle him, or that they send a jolt right down to his groin.

"It was just me imagining things in the end but," His hand moves and the way his thumb brushes over your clit makes you stop talking, gasping as your thighs tense.

"The good girl wanted a clone to knock her up?" Your face squishes. You hate when he calls you that. It sounds demeaning; Both to you and himself.

"Just- Dammit Cross,"

You say, cutting off anything else he might say. You hate when he makes you fluster under him like this, instead settling to just kiss him instead. Your hands fumble on his bodyglove before he pulls them away, freeing his cock himself. His hands grab your hips harshly and pulls you to the edge of the countertop, enough so that he can line himself up with your entrance and slowly press inside. He feels your nails through the fabric of his blacks, gasping as he slowly buries himself to the hilt.

You know Cross can be gentle, almost surprisingly so, but clearly what you'd said to him affected him to some degree; So much so that his hands grip your hips and leave dents, teeth catching your bottom lip.

He's rough, fucking you like he has one goal in mind.

Your arms are wrapped around his neck almost like a hug, keeping him close while he drives up into you. His hands and grabbing at your hips, keeping you as close to the edge of the counter as he can, without you falling off.

"C-Cross..." Fuck, he missed this. He missed the feel of you hot and wet and tight around him, and being able to fill you up like this until you're begging for him. More of him. He missed the feeling off your warmth on his skin; He's always ran colder, and secretly enjoys when your arms are around him and he can siphon your warmth.

Your legs tighten around his hips, keeping him as close as possible as his hips thrust up towards you. His cock barely pulls out halfway each time, staying so deep inside of you he keeps grinding against your most senstive spots.

"Let, Kriff- Let me cum in you.”

You don’t think you’ve ever heard him ask for something like that before; bordering on the edge of pleading. He says it through gritted teeth, hating that he let something like that slip. You grant him a mercy by whispering to him ‘yes, yes,’ against his shoulder.

The sounds of skin on skin fill the room as he thrusts his cock into you as deep as he can, brushing against every sensitive nerve within reach. You feel so hot and soft around him, your nails digging into him through his blacks as you clasp onto him. You would’ve let him even if he hadn’t have asked, but you can’t help the jolt that goes straight to your pussy at the way he wants to so badly.

He's so close you can feel him, the way he's uneven and swearing, and you grip him so tight he'd have to tear your arms off his body to pull out of you.

You suddenly feel him cum inside of you, as he hisses through his teeth in pleasure. His cock twitches inside of you, hips grinding against you as if trying to get impossibly deeper. He lingers until he’s finished, and when he finally does pull his cock from you, it's almost instantly replaced with his fingers. Pressing against your clit and circling, trying to help you chase the high you're so infuriatingly close to. He’s not just going to leave you hanging.

He can feel his cum against his fingers, mixing with your wetness as he drives his fingers deeper inside of you. Your thighs quake around him and he feels your hands grasping for anything to hold onto to keep you steady, mewling so sweetly for him.

"Come on doll," He mutters softly against your skin, teeth scraping against the soft skin just below your ear.

"Almost, almost- I,"

It's only seconds later than you finally do cum, body straightening up as your arms wrap around him, thighs trying to close tight. But they can't with him in the way, so they only wrap around him as he feels your pussy tense and flutter around nothing. He leaves his fingers against you for a bit, much more slow and gentle as he listens to your panting in his ear.

When he does finally pull away from you he glances at the way his cum slowly leaks from you, before glancing up and seeing your hooded, tired eyes as you lean back on your hands.

He'll never get tired of how this scene looks.

"Admiring your handiwork?" You dare to quip, feeling the way he gently smacks the side of your thigh to show his displeasure about it. It only makes you grin. Even if your heart is racing, you’re not tired quite yet. You can’t afford to be, you don’t know how much his time you’re going to have.

When you move to slide off the counter he lifts a hand a bit just in case, though you get down with no trouble. Your knees might be a little wobbily, but not unusable. The fabric of your nightclothes slides down, covering your messy thighs just enough.

"I wouldn't mind more, if you have any left."

The look Crosshair gives you is absolutely vicious, and just as quickly as the words leave you’re mouth he’s coming towards you. He's following, and quickly gaining, before he claps and arm on your shoulder and pushes you with in that direction with intent.

"Don't make promises that little body of yours can't keep up with."

#Crosshair just fits too well with my goodgirl/badboy cliché obsession i am so sorry #crosshair x reader #tbb x reader #the bad batch crosshair x reader #Crosshair/Reader #mywriting #reader insert #reader

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