Older Tech. Full Image Below.

Older Tech. Full image below.

Part of the reason I thought there was no way Tech wasn’t coming back was because of how little his “death” impacted the plot of the show. The writers really decided they had to get rid of someone for “stakes” and then forgot about him. I kept thinking, “But they saw the last season of Rebels, right? Surely they know how to make a perma-death mean something.” And when there was no grief, barely name mentions, and no real plot motivation, I was convinced that was because he was coming back, since SURELY they wouldn’t treat the death of a main character as if he was just someone who showed up for one episode.

And then I realized I was wrong. They treated him worse than that. And that hurt.

I have seen the opinion floated several times that Tech's sacrifice ultimately turned out to basically be meaningless since the mission failed, they didn't save Crosshair or find Tantiss, and Omega was captured. To each their own opinion, of course, but I STRONGLY disagree with this take.

Okay, so, (surprise surprise) I'm a HUGE fan of Tech (literally since the moment he first graced our screens, it was favorite-at-first-sight). I wanted so badly for him to have survived. I didn't want him to be CX2 at first, but then the parallels just kept cropping up, but then it turns out he wasn't. I have now accepted that he really isn't coming back, but still wish the writers had allowed for more cathartic/healing moments by purposefully honoring Tech rather than doubling/tripling down all season long on the wrenching pain of the Tech-sized hole in the family.

But I cannot share the view that Tech's sacrifice was pointless.

Tech died on a mission he had pushed for in order to have the chance to save his brother.

Tech knew the mission was risky - OF COURSE he knew - but he wanted to take the chance, he didn't want to leave Crosshair behind when it turned out that Crosshair's choice to stay with the Empire had landed him into trouble.

Tech went to fix the rail car because he couldn't let his family remain sitting ducks for the Empire to shoot down.

Tech severed the connection and sacrificed himself to give his family a fighting chance.

The mission could either end in failure to rescue Crosshair, or inevitably end in the entire family dying. Tech chose the former option.

Tech sacrificed himself so his family could live - and regardless of the trials and hardships they faced afterwards, that sacrifice WAS meaningful. (Shoutout to my girl Omega for taking an awful situation - being captured - and seizing the opportunity to fulfill Tech's final goal of saving Crosshair.)

Their life on Pabu would not have been possible without Tech's sacrifice. Crosshair's freedom and life would not have been possible without Tech's sacrifice.

So, devastatingly painful as Tech's death is, it is only because of him that his family lived. And that is more than enough to make his sacrifice meaningful.

Now if only the show could have acknowledged this a little more clearly...

Also I despise Saw Gerrera even more than I despise Cid.

THIS. All of this.

The part about mourning Mayday getting more screen time than mourning Tech? Fuck.

Yesterday everyone was posting their feelings on TBB. I'm glad I waited, because there's a lot swirling around. Cut for negativity again.

I was introduced to The Bad Batch in August 2022 and fell instantly in love. The characters, the story, the complex family dynamics, they all spoke to me. I wasn't even a Star Wars fan but I went through and devoured The Clone Wars, Rebels, The Mandalorian, all of it. I threw myself into this world and adored every second of it. I must have rewatched season one over five times before season two even came out.

When season two premiered I loved it. Every Tuesday night I stayed up until the episode drop and devoured it immediately. I looked ahead at the schedule and took days off work for the double episodes, for the big Crosshair episodes - he was my favorite early on and season two only made that grow. But season two also really brought Tech into my radar even more. I had always liked him, but here he was shining. The Crossing really solidified it, as an autistic person. I'd never heard someone describe the difference in processing so succinctly before, so clearly, and it spoke to me like very little had. Here was a character that was like me. Here was a character that I needed when I was an undiagnosed child, someone that would have made me feel like I had at least some way of describing my differences.

Then, well. He died. It was an affecting scene, but it felt out of nowhere, it felt unfinished. Tech didn't even get the climax of the episode. He just fell into the clouds, the Batch grieved for a few minutes, and then the plot steamrolled right along.

I didn't believe it, not after the mad scientist presented his goggles and claimed not to salvage anything else. It seemed like such an obvious fake out. The longer I sat with it the less satisfying it felt. It felt so brushed over, so pointless, all for a mission that they accomplished nothing on. Then came the social media circus. Again and again his fall was shoved in our faces on Twitter, demanding we stream it. TikToks were made that were so out of touch they felt like parodies, the wound ripped open again and again, and I thought surely there had to be a purpose to it.

So I waited for season 3 as interviews were done that seemed to almost intentionally avoid calling him dead. As tweets were made promising we'd be so fulfilled if we could only see who was onscreen in the mid-season! (A tweet that immediately garnered dozens of people hoping it referred to Tech, all without a single comment to try and quell the speculation.) It felt already like we were being toyed with, but I thought it had to be for a reason or a purpose. More weirdly vague discussions went up about his Sacrifice, his Fall, his Anything But Death, even as everyone insists that it was so meaningful, the way he died on a mission that accomplished nothing. Jokes were made around Valentines Day.

He Fell For You, get it?

The first official use of killed went up on the databank right after the trailer, on Hunter's page of all places. The first time the interviews used dead was the Friday before the premier. It all felt too late, theories had already grown for months by that point.

Season 3 finally came and I waited up for every episode drop just like I did for season 2, hoping for him to come back or at least for him to be properly grieved, since we had barely a couple of minutes in Plan 99 before it was swept away for the next plot point. Surely Tech's impact deserved an episode of focus, if he were really gone.

The previously on plays his last words twice. But then we skip months into the future. We don't see Crosshair find out the news - even though Tech died on a mission to retrieve him. We don't watch Omega grieve. She barely seems to notice she's missing a brother. We got a brief allusion in episode two. It took three episodes to even mention his name in passing. Five episodes in everyone got their chance to look sad about him, but only for a few seconds and only when his skills were relevant. Compared to the gorgeous callback to Mayday in the same episode, it felt shallow. He had to have been more important than this didn't he?

Episodes 6 & 7 felt like maybe there was a reason. We see a new masked assassin that gets extra focus, who got put through a series of Tech-adjacent situations, whose beef with Crosshair was just a little too personal, who survived longer than all the rest but stayed masked. Rex talks about losing brothers, but Hunter says nothing about the brother they lost. I hoped it all meant something, that this was the reason that he felt so much like he was thrown away, so that he could come back in.

More one off mentions that only really come up when it's about how useful Tech would have been. More poking at the wound that still felt open and raw because we'd never gotten any closure. The closest we get is a single scene in episode eleven, so late in the season and so brief that I thought that couldn't possibly be it.

CX-2 comes back, and he talks like Tech. He's still not unmasked. I really need him to be something because otherwise what was it all for?

The most emotion comes in Juggernaut, from Phee. Its a highlight because it actually feels like it was about him, like he mattered as a person. It's episode twelve and we finally talk about him like a person. We never saw her get the news either.

Episodes thirteen and fourteen pass without any mentions at all. We're running out of time. Episode 15 hits and we get one raw one from Crosshair that Clone Force 99 died with Tech. It's the first time they directly say he's dead in so many words. It's the season finale. CX-2 is a nobody it turns out, and he dies faceless. Everyone gets a happy ending and after over a year of wondering if we'd ever get closure, it turns out Tech's just dead. But look how happy everyone else is!

Everyone gets to grow old. Except the autistic one of course. He's just dead and it hardly feels like it mattered at all. Did you know Wrecker and Hunter don't use his name once in season three? Omega and Echo mention him once each. Crosshair twice, only once with any emotion behind it. Phee tops the charts at three mentions, two by name and one by nickname. We see his goggles four times. I kept count.

There was never a bigger plan, this was just all he was worth. We spent two seasons on Crosshair's absence. We spent a whole episode dealing with it when Echo decided to go with Rex. Tech dies though and all his life amounted to was a handful of mentions when his skills would have been useful, some shots of his broken goggles, and endless cooing out of the text over how meaningful his sacrifice was. Too meaningful to take back, of course, even as Ventress is brought back from her own sacrifice.

I had really, really thought that this time autistic life would be worth more than autistic death. That a character that felt so carefully handled couldn't have just been thrown away for shock value, barely to even be mentioned again, his memory used to string us along to keep us watching. If you added up every mention and shot through season 3 it might actually clock in at less time than was spent on Mayday's send off.

I'm an adult. I'll survive, though the sting of seeing yet another character like me used as a stepping stone for everyone else's happy ending will take a while to fade. But I think about the child I used to be who needed a character like Tech. And I think about how it would have felt to actually get that only to watch him die a handful of episodes later as a side note to his family's story, barely even mentioned again. How badly it would have hurt, how deep it would have scarred.

I'm not that child anymore. But there are a lot of autistic kids out there that are the same as I used to be, and they're learning for the first time that people like us don't get happy endings. Instead they die so that everyone around them can rise up, and they might even get mentioned a few times. But don't worry. Everyone will tell you how meaningful and special it is and how delusional you were to ever hope for anything else.

The Bad Batch still means a lot to me. I think it always will. I love the characters. I love the family, and all the potential they had. But the sting of not belonging in this happy ending is there, and it's deep. It's been a long time since I trusted a show. It'll be a long time before I risk trusting another. And I hope that the autistic kids trying to learn how to close their hearts off behind new walls are doing okay.

🌟her🌟

You know what would have ended me? Hunter’s last words to Omega being, “Tech would have been so proud.”

It wouldn’t have fully made up for everything else, but I’ve made myself cry just thinking about it.

Instead, Hunter never says his name the entire season.

k so in that starwars.com interview they LITERALLY admit they killed him off for stakes and consequences so.

I def don't feel even a little bit bad about calling this bad writing. it's bury your austistics. Straight. Up.

What do you mean my goodbye fanart of the show shouldn't be another round of "who the fuck keeps tearing my blacks!?" This time I even included Wrecker! He was long overdue.