#tech bad batch

[heyclickadee]

If there’s any argument for Tech dying or needing to be dead that I’m tired of—and I’m tired of all of them—it’s the idea that he must have died because he fell a long way. (Obligatory disclaimer that I’m still arguing that Tech is alive and was never actually killed off in the first place, and that that wasn’t dropped but just hasn’t played out yet before moving on):

Now, if Star Wars were a documentary? Sure. I’d buy it to some degree. I’d think that whoever was responsible for the documentary was remiss in not sending out a search party, since real life people have survived falls from upwards of 30,000 feet before, but on balance I’d think that he was likely, though not certainly, dead.

But Star Wars isn’t a documentary. It’s fiction, and genre fiction at that—a caricature of reality which abides by its own internal rules, shifting from story to story, and where both injury and likelihood of death alike are determined by narrative need rather than real world fatality. Short falls kill main characters in fiction all the time. Not always, there’s a degree of plot armor in many cases, but when they do, we see (or “see,” if it’s a written work) the immediate result. Perhaps not as graphically as it would appear in real life, perhaps with some artistic license and discretion depending on who’s watching, but we see it all the same.

Long falls, however, almost never kill any named characters in genre fiction. Not unless we immediately see the body afterwards. Even George Lucas—who, bless his heart, has some good ideas and some understanding of storytelling but has never thought a single implication all the way through and isn’t actually a very good writer—knew that. That’s why he cut Maul in half before throwing him into a pit. And that still wasn’t enough to keep him dead when Lucas changed his mind a decade or so later.

The utility of a long fall where you cut away before impact is that anything can happen in the gap the audience doesn’t get to see. In fact, the higher the fall, the more time the character falling has to do something about it. And what could they do? Well, the story of the bad batch, if we start from where it began in season seven of TCW, actually presents us with a number of different options for a character who found themselves in that position, including:

1. Use their collection of animal calls to summon some giant flying reptiles and ride them to safety (On the Wings of Keeradaks, Tech’s idea)

2. Just use the force to jump to safety and hope someone lies about them falling to their deaths dying (Aftermath, Caleb, can we talk about how “Where’s X?” and “X didn’t make it,” combo happens in exactly two places in the script for the whole show and one is Hunter lying to Cross about Caleb and the other is Hunter talking to Omega about Tech?)

3. Fall a long way in something that’s going to roll around and take most of the impact for them (Reunion, Tech’s idea again)

4. Just don’t die. Or I guess hit a bunch of things on the way down and hope their special armor protects them (War Mantle, Hunter, who doesn’t even break a rib, listen it would actually be flat out stupid for Tech to die in a fall in a situation that’s directly parallel (the terrain, Omega screaming at everyone to go back) to the one we watched Hunter walk away from. We watched it happen once; why should we believe it this time? The only difference is that we didn’t follow Tech all the way down.)

5. Hope the box they’re falling in has emergency thrusters to slow them down (Spoils of War, Omega’s idea, Tech was impressed and I’m sure remembers it, I mean seriously are we actually thinking Tarkin’s secret gondola doesn’t have some kind of safety back up in case it malfunctions with him inside? *Maybe* it doesn’t, but it very well might.)

6. Hope there’s water at the bottom after they fall through the mists (The Crossing, Omega and Tech. Funny how at least some of these involve Tech. Funny how there’s mists like in Plan 99.)

7. Have someone catch them on the way down before they hit the ground, which may be lava (Hunter catching Omega, Retrieval. You can almost count Phee catching Hunter and Hunter catching Phee in Entombed, I just don’t because they don’t fall first)

8. Grab onto something on the way down into the void (CX-2, Extraction)

9. Fall into water again (Also CX-2, Extraction)

This isn’t about actual survivability, by the way. The characters involved in most of these would have likely died if it happened in the real world, especially the ones with a water landing, but Star Wars doesn’t care about that. It will blow people up and light them on fire and decide they’re fine. Physical reality and how any of these would actually go (badly, they would go badly) is irrelevant.

The point here is about establishing audience expectations. We’ve got a situation in which a character whose body neither we nor his family ever see supposedly dying via a method the story itself—not even the conventional rules of the genre, the specific story being told—sets up as survivable. Never mind that “no body, no death” is a genre convention, never mind that “Faster” goes out of its way to set up that Tech works in milliseconds and that if anyone can find a way out of it, he can.

People watching are handed a set of survived long falls which set up the expectation that this fall could have been survivable, too, even if they’re not picking up on it. It’s just enough for people to go, hmmm, that’s weird, and not fully accept it. Which makes it more likely for people to accept that he survived instead if he should come back.

tl;dr: This is the implausible survival franchise. It’s a feature, not a bug, and any arguments about gravity or what would kill someone for real don’t matter.

[battledroidwrites]

they’re rebel pilots together now ;—;

[toastyrobos]

Tech never died. What are you talking about? He’s living on Pabu with his brothers, helping to raise Omega as it should be

[gingerpines]

they’re still together in my head :,)

[clone-trooper-cheese]

My head fr

[131-vr]

Preview Next

A lot of the drawing i do are inspired with my Brothers interactions.

[itsjayro]

These parallels 🥹

[luxris]

i know he spends hours down at the beach collecting "samples" (cool rocks)

[moonstrider9904]

Long overdue season two Tech gifset because I love those beautiful brown eyes and that exceptional mind.

[heyclickadee]

“Where’s Tech?”

“Outside. Something about aiwhas and a comm recorder—”

“What about aiwhas?”

“I…think he said they might talk.”

I sort of have a headcanon Tech’s interest in sounds, recording, and language started when he was pretty young, and that it started because he had some trouble communicating and being understood. Wanting to connect ended up naturally leading into curiosity about how everything else tried to communicate.

[ars-de-elysium]

Everybody moved on, I stayed in my ‘Cadet Tech looked just like Little Omega’ Era. 🥲 Someone please play ‘Clara Bow’ by Taylor Swift now…

[ajdhbear]

Joining Star Wars Tumblr with a banger 🫶

Hi! I am Mayo, a history student who watched her first proper Star Wars in October last year. I’m an artist who is mostly active on Twitter, but my friends have recommended spreading to Tumblr aswel. (I have no idea how this app works…)

My interests are Dathomir (specifically the Nightbrothers (specifically Maul and Feral)), Clones, droids, Ithorians and men who eat cereal. Next to canon characters, I also like to draw my own OCs. I will definitely show them on here from time to time. As a side quest I am also creating my own Dathomirian clan. 💛

My most iconic art are probably these silly looking clones. They are still a work in progress. (For my twitter followers: I have tanned their skin a bit more. I forgot I had my blue light filter on and got jumpscared earlier).

[battledroidwrites]

the last domino did not fall,

and they are so proud of him.

[replaytech]

goodmorning to my fave bad batch stills

[gingerpines]

i’m a twin. i had a brother.

[vivaislenska]

Oops this is happening 😳. Sorry that I keep posting wips (blugh and scheduled ones, no less), but HE is constantly on my brain! !!

TBB S3 Spoiler comment: Because the “shadow” took a ROYAL beating in 3x7, and if “The damage [Echo] sustained on Skako Minor most likely wiped out all of [his] preset behavioral modifications,” then maybe… just maybe X trooper training won’t stick … my tinfoil hat is vibrating 🙏🏼😬.