Wilbur was going to detonate a bomb under Manburg during the festival and destroy it, along with everyone there.
Or at least, that was the plan.
Wilbur may have been broken, but he wasn't broken enough that the joy of the people didn't get to him. Under everything, the people of Manburg were not evil, they merely did what Schlatt had said. And even in that, their loyalty was strenuous at best, evidenced by their secret support of Wilbur, Tommy, and Pogtopia.
As he watched everyone, his former friends and allies, brothers in arms, with Dream looking over his shoulder, Wilbur decided not to push the button.
Yes, it would destroy Manburg. But it would also destroy these people, the very people that he loved so dearly, that he had fought and bled for.
A nation was one thing. Held together by weak threads of the memory of a long-past war for independence, and words on a page declaring them as allies.
But the people who belonged to it?
Every one of them friendly except for Schlatt and Quackity?
No, that was too big a price. Besides that, Tubbo was there. If he tried to run, then Schlatt would know something was up. Wilbur had decided on a plan to get him out, but he knew in his heart that Tubbo would have to sacrifice one of his lives for this, should they go through with it.
Wilbur himself, he had nothing left to live for. He was on his last life already.
But Tubbo? He was full of life, both literally and metaphorically. He was joyful, robust, cheery.
Wilbur couldn't do it. He didn't even go down to what he had dubbed the 'Final Control Room' in the end, that very room which he had covered the walls of in the words of the Declaration of Independance. That very room, whose moniker mimicked the one where Eret had betrayed them, where Wilbur planned to betray his country. To destroy it.
Instead, he pinned the choice on Tubbo.
If Tubbo were to say 'Let the festival begin', then Wilbur would immediately head for the button and press it as soon as Tubbo got clear from the stage.
But once again, things did not go as Wilbur had planned.
Tubbo went up to the podium, stepped up to the fence post that served as a microphone, and gave his speech. And at the end, those fateful words came from his mouth.
Let the festival begin. The very words that would spell the end of Manburg. Forever. The nation that had won its independence from the Greater Dream SMP, gone with one click of a button.
That one, faint sound, and it was the end of what Wilbur had built.
Or it would have been, had Tubbo gotten clear like he was supposed to.
But barely after Wilbur got off of the roof, with Dream right behind him, Tommy called them back with a low hiss of shock.
Dream clambered back up onto the roof and Wilbur came just a moment later, and then the three of them stood watching in shock as Tubbo was caged in in red concrete and cobblestone by Quackity and Schlatt.
Horror, fear, pain, disgust. All of these and more flashed through Wilbur and Tommy, and some were mirrored in Tubbo's eyes, visible even over this distance. He fought to stay calm, but it was their fear being realized, as though in slow motion.
"What- What are you doing? Schlatt?" Tubbo called, stepping forward in his prison.
JSchlatt did not respond. Instead, he turned to the other members of Manburg, slowly. One step forward, then another, each one like the heavy gavel of inevitable doom pounding down in the judge's hand.
"People of this good nation!" Schlatt called out, raising his voice and his head. Quackity stood by with a gleefully murderous expression on his face, and Tommy and Wilbur stood across from them on a rooftop, hidden but watching all the same.
It was just times like this when Dream was glad of his mask.
Because even he was slack-jawed.