technoblade approached tommy at the beginning of his exile to hint about them forming an alliance. he knew that tommy was vulnerable (Specifically because he'd been pushed out by his friends), and he saw it as an opportunity to pull tommy to his side while he was still in supposed retirement. the only reason why he didn't act on it at that point was because tommy still had Hope that he could fix his situation on his own.
techno swooped in on tommy the moment it became apparent that tommy was in too much trouble to help himself. tommy Refused to work with techno Explicitly because he didn't want to hurt tubbo and he didn't want to destroy l'manberg, the literal only goals that techno had. and techno reeled him in both by Lying (insisting that they'd only do Minor Terrorism and nothing else) and by telling tommy that he'd never be able to face dream by himself. that he wasn't strong enough, that he Needed techno.
techno pulled tommy in knowing without a shadow of a doubt that their morals were different, their beliefs were different, their goals were different, and that tommy Could Not Want What He Wanted on a moral level. and yet he was not only surprised but Angry when tommy refused to do what he wanted.
in essence, techno waited until tommy was vulnerable and then formed an alliance with him with the express purpose of Altering tommy's morals. he encouraged tommy to lash out, to cause violence and destruction, to hurt people, and when he felt like tommy was sufficiently Angry he told tommy the truth. he tried to convince tommy that all of his friends wronged him, that they weren't good people, and that getting revenge on them would fix everything wrong with the server.
he recognized that tommy was vulnerable, that he was isolated, and he used it as an opportunity to sell tommy on his beliefs despite being fully aware that they're fundamentally at odds. and he felt like this was such a complete inevitability, that he was Owed tommy's beliefs after the work he'd put in for it, that it Not Working was betrayal on tommy's part that he was allowed to lash out over.
and I'm looking back at pogtopia, and it was literally exactly the same.
techno had no investment in the server, he has no investment in l'manberg. it's been over a year and he still doesn't even know the basic history of it.
but he knew that wilbur and tommy had just been thrust out of the country they'd founded, that they were Vulnerable, that they needed help. and so he offered that help, he Offered to be the muscle that they didn't have.
and when they'd said that they were going to take it back? when they'd said that l'manberg was Theirs and wilbur was going to be president again? techno ignored it, he didn't say a damn thing. because he already knew that he was going to try to convince them otherwise. he already felt Entitled to the idea that they were going to wipe manberg off the map.
technoblade joined pogtopia because their vulnerability was Convenient. because the fact that they needed him meant that they were open to being fed his beliefs.
that's why techno always blamed tommy for new l'manberg despite wilbur appointing tubbo. because wilbur had enabled the destruction that techno wanted (wilbur's suicidal paranoid death spiral was awfully convenient for techno actually), while tommy had held firm in his beliefs the entire time. tommy had tried to be Stability, he'd tried to be Hope, he tried to be the Moral Compass. he stood up to techno and he tried to get through to wilbur and in the end everyone still Believed enough to rebuild. wilbur gave the word but tommy gave the Strength.
techno hated tommy because he was the "hero" that kept everyone resistant to techno's brand of angry anarchy that insists violence and revenge as the first course of action.
tommy was the traitor for holding firm in his beliefs, and wilbur was "insane" because his resolve had crumbled (because he said out loud the things that techno only did through actions).
and you see it again, with techno inviting ranboo to stay with him after dream ousted him as a traitor in front of everyone and techno destroyed his home. with nowhere left to go and (from techno's perspective) no one left to trust ranboo was corralled into techno's inner circle to eventually join the syndicate.
and Again, techno's actions directly lead to niki losing all of her faith (encouraging wilbur to destroy l'manberg on the 16th, partnering with dream on both the 16th and on doomsday), and technoblade pulled her into the syndicate.
And Again. techno lets dream out of prison and gets the syndicate involved. tubbo's child is kidnapped and ranboo is arrested to try to control the syndicate (to prevent dream's escape) and ranboo is killed in the break out. techno then teams up with tubbo to leave sam to starve to death in the prison and techno invites tubbo to the anarchist commune.
it's a pattern of behavior that started with pogtopia and is Still Going. you can argue about whether or not techno's Intentions are good (if he's doing this because he genuinely thinks that everyone would live better lives if they just believed what he believed or if he's doing it solely to get what he wants), but the fact still remains that it's both blatantly opportunistic and that failure to bend to his beliefs is punished with violence.
and technoblade wants to say that He was taken advantage of? that it was the pogtopians that were using Him because they refused to bend when he joined with express purpose of using their vulnerability as an excuse to try to change their beliefs?
pogtopia didn't treat technoblade like a weapon, technoblade treated the pogtopians like they owed their beliefs in exchange for safety
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