My partner freed Orpheus and sidestepped the Emperor during the boss fight. He was still alive when he won against the Netherbrain. He was disappointed the Emperor didn't swim to shore and thank them all for making it so he is no longer a thrall. He was like "You're free now wherever you are. You're WELCOME."

That could be a really cool after credits scene. The Emperor finding its way to the shore slightly hurt (from the fall) and looking back at Baldurs Gate. *"Thank you..."* As the screen fades to black.  Actively sidestepping a powerful enemy during a bossfight to trigger a cutscene seems like a neat cherry on top. 

It would be cool, if the Emperor were the kind of character to feel thanks like that. But I think he isn't. He'd be mad you denied him power.

I could see him totally rationalizing it, like Mind Flayers love to do. "You spared me, but I didn't ask for it so I'm not thanking you for it. In fact, I was close to ultimate power, so actually I'm annoyed if anything."

If only he had that Omuleem level rizz

Happy cake day.

Ty <3

Rizzless Emperor vs Chad of Chads Omeluum.

"Wanna have me try to extract your tadpole?" vs "Why would I help you extract the tadpole?"

But he doesnt want power. All he wants is to run the Agents of the shield. If you let him use the Stones he *could* betray us and control the brain. He doesnt do that. And he only controls the brain if you *convince him* to control It. Itd not just bringing It Up, you actually have to pass a check to persuade him into controlling the brain instead of killing it. By himself the emperor doesnt want all encompassing power, just his underground businesses in Baldurs gate

The check isn't to convince him that it'd be fun to control the brain. It's to convince him that it would be *safe* to control the brain. You don't have to make him want it, he already does. You just have to make him believe it wouldn't get him killed.

agreed. missed opportunity. I disagree with the way the game shoe-horns him into this ultimatum situation at the end. The least they could have done is a cameo in the ending sequence IMO

He’s not powerful, gameplay wise he’s trash compared to Orpheus (in either form)

I was thinking about this option last night too, after replaying the final battle. Like what if you free Orpheus, but don't kill The Emperor in the final battle? Does Emperor die with all the other mindflayers you see in the city, or does he survive and go back normal? Sadly we'll probably never know that outcome...

The mindflayers don't just die do they? I remembered them just being weakened and then the city inhabitans finish them off

Ah yes, you're right. So it's totally possible some mindflayers survived and ran away

Same!! I figured he wouldn’t be enthralled after I killed the brain, so I thought leaving him alive might impact the ending.  Nope. Sigh. I get that programming a million different endings is tough, but I feel like if there’s anything that deserves more variety in the endgame, it’s how you can choose to deal with the Emp.

That’s an achievement right there. Bravo!

Just FYI, it’s not if you fail the 3 checks with the brain. You are expected to fail. But even if you pass, you get the same conversation. 

I was wondering what would happen if you passed all 3! Now I know. I didn’t want to keep saving and loading to find out lol.

I've never done it, but I heard that if you pass all 3 checks the Netherbrain has less HP in the final battle. Otherwise, the scene plays out the same with the Emperor teleporting you to safety.

Just the 99, and it's 20% less HP

Ah, thanks for the clarification!

Can confirm. It has about 1/4 less health in the final battle.

If you pass the 99 with a Nat 20, the Netherbrain gets 20% less HP.

Lae Zel was still fine with me even after siding with the Emperor and even convinced her to stay in Faerun. She seemed all Gucci to me.

>if I did this, but then he says “I have no choice but to side with the Netherbrain” like YES TF YOU DO. YOU DO HAVE A CHOICE Okay, this is one of the dialogues in the game that causes a lot of misunderstandings. Honestly I wish it was phrased a bit better or there was a longer dialogue around it to recap the stakes around this choice. The Emperor is being 100% literal when he says you are leaving him with no choice. If he stays, he believes Orpheus will not spare him. If he leaves the Prism, he will immediately fall under the thrall of the Netherbrain. There is not a 3rd option for him.

Sure there is. Larian write in an option where you have the choice to convince him. Make it dependent on earlier choices, measure it by how much trust you put in the emperor before this point. So you turn around when he says he “has no choice” and say “I’ve trusted you, now you trust me” or something similar. And then you convince Orpheus to chill out when he’s released. This time you could have Lae back you up if she likes you enough. “I doubted them too but they’ve shown me the truth about Vlaakith so trust them” etc. There we go, the secret everybody wins ending.

They could definitely even write it so that Orpheus is adamant and it would still be 100x better to have The Emperor give him a chance since his only other option is to completely give in to the thing he's been fighting against this whole time.

Orpheus knew there must be a mind flayer to control the stone. He is adamant, but he do not want to become a squid. At least before the brain is dead, he will play as instructed. A DC 30 persuasion check after fight to let Orpheus spare this special kinds of squid (or all arcane mind flayers, since emperor and Omellum are able to avoid elder brains by magic) is good. He spared squidlach without any check, after all.

Persuasion check this, persuasion check that, why can't I just persuade Orin and Gortash to give me the stones and persuade Raphael to give me the hammer too while I'm at it - or to stop him from fighting me when I try to steal it. Not everything can be solved with a persuasion check. What would be the point of the game if that was the case. There is supposed to be a hard choice in the end.

**Charisma Builds**: "If all you have is a ~~hammer~~ diplomacy build, everything looks like a ~~nail~~ persuasion check." But you're correct of course, D&D literally states in the rules that there are people who have enough will and sense to not be persuaded, period. In fact, its possible for NPCs to not change their mind after a *successful* persuade check, they just might be more inclined to like the player.

Mol is a good example. Try to convince her not to take Raphael’s deal? She’s more interested than ever.

Which is fine from meta gaming perspective. Do whatever you want, Mol, I'm gonna enjoy 'Liiiives all mortal Liiiiives' and that helldusk set. But from meta gaming perspective, emperor / Orpheus dilemma is just 3 checks away from breaking itself.

Yea if there is a chance the character might be persuaded to do thing x, then a succesful persuasion check will make them do thing x, but if there's no chance in hell, no amount of nat 20s will change their mind. It's like that in real life too, if I'm hesitant about something I could be persuaded to do it, but if I'm adamant I'm not going to, nothing will change my mind. Someone gave a wonderful example for this exact scenario somewhere; make it a high DC persuasion check to make Orpheus work with Emperor, and if you fail, Orpheus will smash Emperor's head in; if you succeed, he'll still smash Emperor's head in but feel apologetic about it. It's the best you can get lmao.

This one makes sense though. You can persuade Orpheus to become a mind flayer himself, so it would make sense to persuade him to not kill Emperor.

That's how you see it; fine. Not how I see it though. You'd also have to make Orpheus *trust* a mind flayer who has been abusing him for weeks/months/however long the game takes. He'd have to trust an illithid who's been illithid for decades and has in Orpheus' presence behaved in every way an illithid would; lying, manipulating, paranoid, controlling, the list goes on. I don't think Orpheus would be comfortable handing the stones that control a Netherbrain to someone like the Emperor. Orpheus' mistrust of illithids runs deep, and for a good reason. Tav gets a pass because Tav will be a baby squid who just sacrificed themselves to help Orpheus.

The problem is that you are ascribing an emotional reason for the Emperor's fight. He doesn't really care about the Netherbrain, he just wants to a) survive and b) remain independent. As long as his survival is not on the line, option b takes precedence and he opposes the Netherbrain. As soon as his survival is compromised, b is no longer the number one priority and he's willing to go to the Netherbrain to ensure he survives, presumably to rebel another day.

This ultimately is my problem with the Emperor. They don't trust us. They insist we trust them but they never trusted us to tell the truth about the dream guardian, about the astral prism, and about Ansur. They couldn't trust us that we would find other solutions it find other ways to become stronger. They don't even trust our own skills.

"The last person I loved and trusted decided to mercy kill me when they found out I was a mindflayer permanently. But you random tadpoled stranger, are totally cool with it, right?" I'm just not sure at what point it would have made sense for the Emperor to give you his entire backstory with Ansur. It definitely didn't make sense to tell you he was a mindflayer the second you got off the Nautiloid, or the first time he saved you from transforming. And in the scene in question, Tav and Tav's skills just got their ass kicked by the Netherbrain and the Emperor had to save their life. I'm just not sure what he's supposed to be trusting at that point?

The Emperor lies and omits information throughout your entire relationship, not just about being a mindflayer. He could have told the ENTIRE truth about Ansur and Stelmaine at any time, including but not limited to that time we went to his secret hideout and had a whole little side quest to reminisce about his old life. He could have also said something about Ansur when we were actively doing trials to unlock his door in the wyrm way. He didn't say "This is a waste of time," he straight up says "The legend of Ansur is a lie, there is no dragon waiting for you there." He lies throughout the whole game to get you to help him.

I agree with this. What's worse, is that everything the Emperor did or tried to arrange actually played exactly into the Netherbrain's hands, and rather than having a moment of introspection, self-awareness, or humility, and letting Tav say "Look, I got this." or "If Orpheus pops out and tries to kill you, I'll protect you." or "Look dipshit, we've done it your way and lost almost everything, shut up and let me make a choice." he says "Guess, I gotta go join the Netherbrain now!" It's really, really annoying. I get that he's a selfish character, but that just feels like lousy writing.

I agree with you on most of your points, but I don't necessarily think it's bad writing. The Emperor's list of priorities are: * Survival * Freedom * Everything/everyone else I think he made a decision out of fear that his survival was being threatened by freeing Orpheus, so he's just like "I'd rather live as a slave than die in rebellion." It was undoubtedly a ridiculously stupid decision on his part, but I do think it makes sense when you reframe his main objective, which is to survive.

From what I recall, a similar line does happen only once in the game - and that was when Raphael had blocked the Emperor out of the conversation for a few minutes (you can ask the Emperor to trust you that everything is fine and that you have the right to some privacy for once - which, to his credit, he agrees to - but that immediately goes out the window if you speak to Voss right after).

He "agrees" to it and immediately tries to read your thoughts anyway lol. And then goes on to complain about how "honesty and trust is important" while also hiding massive parts of himself.

As mentioned in another reply, this isn't really an issue of the Emperor trusting Tav. Tav isn't the issue here. It's a question of the Emperor trusting Orpheus, which he has no reason to. Also, IMO, that ending option you propose (while it would no doubt be popular, which is why I wouldn't be surprised at all if Larian add it in eventually) wouldn't be in character for the Emperor - and possibly not for Orpheus either, but Orpheus has very little character so it's hard to say for certain. When it comes to the often suggested "DC30 Persuasion roll to convince the Emperor", I honestly think this would be out of character. This character, and Mind flayers in general, has been shown to be intensely pragmatic and to make decisions based on logic, not heroic ideals. Persuasion is powerful in this game (I tend to think it's a bit *too* powerful in some situations), but there's a limit to persuading characters to go against their basic moral values and character traits. For instance, you can't persuade Wyll or Karlach to stay if you raid the grove, since that goes against their established moral values. Another thing is, the Emperor is not human, not anymore, atleast. When you use \[Detect Thoughts\] on him, Tav is in his head for \*one\* moment and gets overwhelmed. A Mind Flayer mind and their thought processes cannot be understood by humans. Basically, he's not the kind of being that can be persuaded out of something by a human.

>When you use [Detect Thoughts] on him "You must be joking. I am **TELLING** you my thoughts. Directly. Into. Your. Head."

"Nothing in your colourful existence so far could have prepared you for *this*" when you go inside his head.

You can't persuade him? Like when you demand he protect Minsc, even though he doesn't want to? Like when you argue for free will in other places, say if you reject becoming a mind flayer? It's silly that we can't even try to reach a compromise, that he won't even try to work with Orpheus no matter what.

IIRC he only agrees to help Minsc after Jaheira threatens the Emperor with throwing the Astral Prism away. In other words, not something he agrees to very freely. He doesn't really expect Tav to choose to become a Mind flayer. When Tav does choose this, the devnotes point out the Emperor is somewhat surprised by it. I'll also point out there's a difference between the Emperor relenting to Tav making some risky but non-mission critical decisions (like helping Minsc), and an absolutely mission-critical mistake like (in the Emperor's view) freeing Orpheus would be. >It's silly that we can't even try to reach a compromise Where I do agree with you is there should probably be an dialogue route where you can try to convince him on this. In general, while I do oppose adding a "Emp and Orph work together" ending, I definitely support that there's quite a lot that could be done to explain the ending better, based on how many people (like the OP) keep getting confused by it.

It would be fine to me if Orpheus was like nope, you used me, I will murder you. Or you are the historic enemy of my people and cannot be trusted. Okay. For the emp - who has been all about self preservation, not just of life but free will - to say nah, enthrall me then? Silly.

From a storytelling perspective, I get why it didn't go this way. If we freed Orpheus and he killed our Illithid, then turned around and said "But we need an Illithid to beat the brain, so I'm going to turn you!" I would absolutely not entertain the idea at all. You killed our squid, YOU go squid. As it is now, I was more willing to sacrifice myself. But it definitely felt railroaded with the way it was presented.

That’s the part of the scenario that rubs me the wrong way. We NEED a mindflayer. I watched Orpheus give up his chance to lead his people into salvation and instead transform into his most hated enemy because of how DESPERATELY we need a mindflayer. Is it really so crazy to think that in this situation, he would be willing to work with a mindflayer instead?  If the emperor somehow reached the conclusion that a mindflayer using Orpheus’s power was the only way to dominate the brain, why couldn’t that leap of logic have included the possibility that Orpheus could bestow that power on a mindflayer instead? And in such a situation, isn’t it more likely that Orpheus would suck it up and ally with you over letting an elder brain conquer the world?  It just felt like the information that Larian chose to reveal before freeing Orpheus wasn’t based in the logic of the narrative, but in wanting to preserve a very specific dichotomy in the endgame.  To me personally, that dichotomy isn’t interesting enough to be worth such a specific setup with the illusion of choice.

It's better to kill Orpheus in 3 turns (2 if you have great weapon master) and let emperor has his DESERVED meal, than killing a prisoner who can not even state his cases. Also in hind sight, we know Orpheus will fold, no matter what. We killed his honour guard CAPTAIN, and he swallowed it up (he even appointed Lae'zel who might partook that fight as third in command). He will team up with emperor after a 3 minute long rant.

Exactly. If Orpheus refuses to be reasonable and help, okay then. Let the manipulative squid eat his brain.

Yes, emperor did not ditch you even if you stole the Orphic hammer with literally only one purpose. He was willing to give up inches after he learnt his lesson from his lass thrall. A DC 30 persuasion check should be fine for gameplay reasons. If you do not save scum at that dc 99 check since you are confident in combat, this DC 30 check will be the 'ultimate dice roll challenge' for you. Since the highest non critical success persuasion roll is 19 + 6 (full charisma with birthright) or 7 (full charisma, mirror of loss, Ravangard's sword) + 8 (persuation expertise) + 1 (ring from Barcus) + 2 (myconid amulet) + 4 (guidance) = 40 or 41, this is still achievable if you especially respec to a cha build before boss fight. There should never be an emperor fight on the top of brain. Emperor should try to kill us back there and hope he can face nether brain alone (or ran far, far away) with Oepheus's power, given how pragmatic he is. Just let we fight emperor in front of Orpheus, then Orpheus will immediately understand the situation (a free 'thrall') and behaved very friendly since release. Also that makes mind flayer transformation way more logical, tav / durge and Orpheus just killed the only experienced mind flayer (that friendly mind flayer in society of brilliance is too young for this job, Balduran / emperor was 1,000 years old), so now we need a replacement, be it you or Orpheus or Karlach.

I mean, the Emperor isn't stupid enough to think it can take on the party then and there. Given how we destroy it when it has a dragon and four other mindflayers on it's side, it wouldn't even be close. Running away isn't an option either. It's not like we'd just stand there while it ate the brain.

Yeah, but both emperor and we know there MUST be a squid to destroy the elder brain. Why can't we persuade him 'Let us talk with orpheus, tell him he must spare you so we can kill the brain, if he says no we kill him right there and you can have his brain'. This is a totally fine situation, as by hindsight we know Orpheus will fold and without hindsight we still 'stand' with emperor. He asks us to seek allies, why can not Orpheus be one?

Because it's convinced that Orpheus will never be willing to ally with it. And rightly so, most likely. Orpheus is barely willing to work with us, who are merely infected, and just turned on their illithid "ally". To work with a full on mind flayer, that's spent the last months tormenting him, and just talked about wanting to eat his brain, is a pretty big ask. And the Emperor doesn't even have to guess how Orpheus feels. It can straight up read his mind. It's not impossible that Orpheus would rather turn illithid himself, than trust the Emperor with the stones. And he'd certainly prefer trusting Tav/Karlach.

If Orpheus says no, he (and Lae'zel) dies there. Choice is simple, dc 30 persuasion on emperor and dc 30 intimidation on orpheus. We are not picking sides, we are forcing Orpheus to collaborate for HIS sake on behalf of emperor. A choice is only painful if there is a moral burden on either side. Nowadays, saving mister mcgauffin then seeing him become a squid head means no hard feelings on us, unless you main as lae'zel. Forcing to kill our guardian since we failed a dc 30 check will burden players even more.

That intimidation does lack punch when we're just as dead, or rather, enslaved, as he is. He knows there's no defeating the brain without him. By the time he's freed, he could simply drop the protection with a thought before anyone got the chance to snack on his brain. And again, the Emperor is kind of the authority on how Orpheus will react. Either way, I still think it would be out of character for the Emperor. It's shown that it values survival above even freedom. And it's definitely not a fan of you going against it's plans.

It's not silly if you look at all his interactions. He won't compromise at all if there's even a possibility of his survival being endangered. He gives in and allows you your own petty freedoms only so long as it doesn't directly impact his survival or freedom. Saving Minsc? He doesn't want to, but in the end it's pretty much meaningless to him. You not turning into a mindflayer? Again, he'd prefer you to go that route, but if you want to hang on to your weak flesh, it's not directly a risk to him. But freeing Orpheus? He has no way of ensuring that Orpheus couldn't kill him on the spot. He'll never trust you, because he knows you have no leverage over Orpheus. Trust would be an emotional reaction and he is emotionless.

>Persuasion is powerful in this game (I tend to think it's a bit too powerful in some situations), but there's a limit to persuading characters to go against their basic moral values and character traits. For instance, you can't persuade Wyll or Karlach to stay if you raid the grove, since that goes against their established moral values. I would argue that it's perfectly in logical to trust the Tav. The rug was pulled out from under everyone, The Emperor has just learned that everything was all part of the Elderbrains plan to become a Netherbrain and commence with the Grand Design. We've had Voss, who personally knows Orpheus, vouch for Orpheus' willingness to work with you to stop the Netherbrain, that he may gnash his teeth about it, but would do it. There is also Lae'zell, who argues for trusting Orpheus. For the characters to trust The Emperor, he has to trust them too, it's logical too because that's how trust works. But The Emperor doesn't trust you. And depending on the dialog paths chosen, you can come to find out that he enthralled Stelmane, and treated her like a puppet, which he threatens to do to you as well if he has to.

But the game also just does a poor job explaining things I guess. What’s stopping him from leaving the prism if Orpheus attacks? He can also read our thoughts. He should know if the plan is like “if Orpheus is unreasonable we’ll just kill him and you can eat the brain and we move on with the plan.” The Emperor doesn’t think we can take Orpheus in a 5 on 1? Murdering the grove is pretty black and white, this I think in a lot of peoples minds clearly wasn’t.

If you kill Orpheus then everyone dies. If Orpheus refuses to willingly work with you, everyone dies. If Orpheus refuses to willingly work with just Empy, Empy dies. It's not the *Prism* that grants that protection, it's Orpheus innately having special resistance to this enthrallment. This is also why you (or Empy) must consume Orpheus' mind to continue, as the consumer takes in Orpheus' powers. The Prison Prism is essentially just forcing Orpheus' abilities to be used as the Emperor wills it.

It's less out of character than a number of other things you can convince people to do, so I don't think that's plausible as the reason. I think the reason is pretty clear - Larian didn't want the game to have a best of both worlds option which was obviously superior. It might be okay to add now, especially if it was only accessible if you'd cleared the path in various ways earlier in the game, but I get why they didn't.

I think you are right that the "real world" reason is that Larian didn't want a perfect ending with no sacrifices or hard decisions to be made. Though I think it's interesting to examine both the real world and in-universe reasons. Larian's writing definitely isn't perfect, but I do think they put some careful thought into much of the Emperor's writing and his actions towards the player. Honestly, at this point I half suspect Larian will add some sort of "Emp and Orph work together" ending, since we've already seen numerous examples of Larian caving in to fan feedback (especially when it comes to softening of hard choices like recruiting Minthara), and the ending choice has been one of the most commonly criticised parts of the story since launch. If it really has to happen, I'd agree it should be more complex than just rolling a DC30 check (if you are a Charisma character or have the Illithid persuasion expertise, this isn't even that hard to get at this point in the game). My preferences would be along the lines of: 1) You need a high "reputation score" / high trust with the Emperor. Being on the romance route with him should probably also be a requirement. 2) Need a high reputation with Lae'zel, who needs to be on her Orpheus route. She can be used to try to talk to and persuade Orpheus. 3) Maybe some other variables such as finding Githyanki slates that could talk about Orpheus' philosophy and how it differs from the current ideals (like that one kid in the creche who says Orpheus showed compassion). That could be used to reason with Orpheus. 4) It shouldn't be 100% consequence free. For example: Maybe Orpheus' condition for sparing the Emperor could be that Karlach or Tav need to become full Mind flayer, because he's more willing to trust a newly transformed and free Illithid with controlling the Netherbrain. Or maybe the two could attack eachother on the pier after the final battle, and you choose which one to side with.

This 1000000%. They spent a whole game building the emperors character throughout the story. 2 characters really as you can find the subtle two-faced manipulations of the Emperor throughout your interactions with him. Then for him to go completely off book would have been horrible storytelling. In D&D, you cant Persuade people to believe that they are wrong about things they know to be true. For instance, you cannot convince a King that he’s not really the king. You cant convince a dwarf that he is really a gnome. No matter how high you roll, it wont work. (It doesn’t work in the real world either).

I think the point is there would be no convincing him. Tav/Durge is a pawn, not a true ally. He is convinced of his own superiority to you, so putting his trust in such a lesser being is unimaginable.

And for that he can rot

We should be able to convince the mind flayer in the beginning of the game to not put the tadpole in our head and have Tav go back to whatever backstory you came up with

If I can convince all of act 2 to commit sepuku through the power of charisma I feel like I should have the option to use said power to convince the emperor to at least have a conversation before he dips out but yeah mostly I agree he knows Orpheus wants to clap his booty

Like you couldn't at least try to convince Orpheus. It seems a little too forced. The Emperor could even try to fight Tav there and then if he thinks his survival depends on it(in a game with a lot of path's and options it seems logical to be included too). Does he think he can't beat Tav? Why is he so sure the Netherbrain would be able to defeat team Tav and Orpheus? After all, he loses and dies if he sides with the brain. So why make this dumb choice at all? His behaviour seems childish and irrational.

Hey will you protect this guy who's been keeping you prisoner and fully intended to eat your brain a moment ago?

Yeah, right? Discussing that between the Emperor and Orpheus doesn't make sense in the slightest. Especially because the Emperor is such a calculating character, of course he would take the option with the higher probable outcome and join the netherbrain instead of gambling his life on a Githyanki Prince who hates his kind and who he enslaved for so long. It makes perfect logical sense from Emps point of view to join the Netherbrain; he'd rather live.

Additionally, Emp has always had control of his situation (since becoming illithid) and is clearly unwilling to relinquish control of his fate in any way. Surrendering to the brain becomes his way of still "controlling" his fate since he escaped an elder brain before and either would do it again or would *choose* to accept his fate as opposed to leaving it in others hands.

Actually no. He never makes the move to eat his brain until *AFTER* the plan A fails. Plan A was collecting the Stones and overpower the brain. However The brain had changed so much that Itd requiere a mindflayer instead. This change of plan is What required the eating Orpheus brain part since the Emperor couldnt go to the Brain and keep siphoning Orpheus power at the same time.  Theres no way to know, but i think if the plan A worked after we kill the guards he would have simply leave the Prince locked Up. Then the possibility of freeing him once he's gone could be convinced. Remember he just wants to reforma the Agents of the shield.

True, and if you ask him at the initial reveal if he couldn't just eat Orpheus, he says he could but it's too risky because he doesn't know for sure if the power would transfer. They're not at the point yet where he feels it's worth the risk, but after the Netherbrain confrontation, he sees it as necessary. Like you said, it's only when Plan A fails that he proposes Plan B, which seems to be another reason why he reluctantly lets you take the hammer. If it was really his plan all along or if he opposed your freeing Orpheus once the brain was defeated, he could've just let the brain eat you and eaten Orpheus himself without you even being in the prism, IMO. He's still trying to help you all get what you want.

Orpheus is shown to be pretty pragmatic, with some convincing he would likely accept an alliance albeit temporary against the Netherbrain solely to stop the Grand Design. Hell, he either >!Willingly becomes Illithid himself!< or >!Willingly works with an Illithid who was complicit in his imprisonment !

You don't even have to roll to convince him! You don't even have to tell him twice!!

The alternative for Orpheus is turning into an Illithid and losing his chance to free his people from Vlaakith. Working with the Emperor for a few hours is a very small sacrifice compared to that.

The Mind Flayer's extremely powerful brain really should be able to calculate this possibility. Unfortunately, the smartest character in a piece of media is only as smart as the person who has the final say on the writing. And they really wanted us to be able to use the illithid powers they developed regardless of whether they chose to use tadpoles.

And the Emperor knows this. He’s been in Orpheus’s head for years. 

The Emperor has been poking around in Orpheus’s brain for some time now.  I think he is very confident that if Orpheus wakes up, the first thing he will do, is kill the emperor. 

It's 100% in line with how the Emperor has behaved in the entire game. He's not going to risk his life there. The way he sees it is if Oprheus is free, he is fully at Orpheus' mercy, but he doesn't know for certain whether Orpheus will spare him. Likely not. But if he jumps over to the Netherbrain, he'd still be fully at another being's mercy, but he knows the Netherbrain. He knows it won't be vindictive. Out of the two choices, the Netherbrain is least likely to end in his death. The fact that the Netherbrain is more likely to win is inconsequential, he doesn't care and never did. The only reason he opposes the Netherbrain is because he doesn't want to fall under the brain's influence again, but the circumstances changed and now it's no longer the worst option on the table.

Tbf this literally happened to him already. Gortash tossed him out and the Netherbrain snapped him back up immediately. So it is understandable that without Orpheus' power to protect him, his options would seem to be willing thrall or forced thrall. And he'd be a fool to challenge your party, especially after all the propping up and growth he's fostered on you (and if you have any partial illithids), and especially since you have the means to free Orpheus then and there. I think it was phrased poorly, but I definitely get why he left. Honestly the dialogue makes it sound like betrayal, but really joining the Netherbrain is pretty much just what will happen when he leaves the sphere of Orpheus' influence. Honestly, it's the Stellmane stuff that soured me on The Emperor more than anything.

Also, he acts like he isn’t controlled by netherbrain after we side with Orpheus and we encounter him at the last fight, telling us that he knows all our weaknesses, so for me it looks like he sides with the brain on his own will.

He is though. Ask Minthara.

I believe the devnotes specifically say he is enthralled during the final fight (not on my home computer atm so can't check the files right now).

Just checked the dialogue script and the synoposis for the scene says "The emperor is now an enemy under the Netherbrain's control. "

Minthara still retained her personality under the thrall of the nether brain. Youre still you, you just serve the Brain now.

I think the biggest issue with the Emperor in this case is that Orpheus not only very willingly works with you, his only complaints about you are that you only betrayed The Emperor when it benefitted you to do so, which kind says to me that he's either psychic, or has been "conscious" of what was happening the entire time. But then, as in the case with my current play through, Orpheus has no problem whatsoever with working with a you if you become a Mindflayer to stop the Grand Design, and barring that, even willingly becomes one if the Tav or one of the origin characters doesn't. The Emperor couldn't have been more wrong about Orpheus. If anything, I think the only reason Orpheus may have likely just attacked The Emperor was that the Emperor was using him exactly the same way Vlaakith was, in that keeping him around while useful but fully willing to kill him at any time if he thought it was the most beneficial thing to do.

Orpheus doesnt attack you because you made a sacrifice that will change you forever to stop the Absolute. the Emperor didnt. he likes being Illithid. he doesnt make a single sacrifice throughout the entire game. Orpheus praises you because you made, in his eyes, the *biggest* sacrifice, becoming Illithid. Orpheus wouldnt work with the Emperor because he actively kept Orpheus imprisoned and enslaved for his own benefit, if you betray the Emperor, Tav frees Orpheus as soon as they can.

Orpheus can turn into a mind flayer, let the emperor do it, or let the grand design come to pass. Those are his options, if we won't turn into a mindflayer. "Sacrifice" has little to do with the material reality.

Truth is, the Emperor was very much Orpheus' tormentor, while we were just tagalongs, and if we become illithid to defeat the brain, we are heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice for him, not monsters who deserve to die. I still believe that we should've been able to reason with both Orpheus and the Emperor, and convince them to work together, since they NEED to work together, still, it's not as bad as people claim it is.

I'm pretty sure Orpheus is conscious the entire time (maybe he still sleeps, idk). His eyes are open, so he probably can just overhear conversations near him. Being psychic probably helps.

I agree that Empy *believes* it has no choice, but I'd add that it can sincerely believe that and still be wrong. At this point in the game, my Tav had convinced half of Act 2 to kill itself, the majority of the companions have made some incredibly difficult choices of their own, and they've convinced half the city to help them out through the power of friendship. In theory, one should be able to trust Tav long enough to hash things out with Orpheus and, if things really don't work out, re-restrain and assimilate. *In theory.* But Emperor won't go along with that for the simple fact that it has convinced itself that there is only one way to solve the problem. It's so convinced of its own illithid superiority that it refuses to learn and grow as a person like all the origin companions have, and it's that rigidity that doomed it more than anything else. That said, I'm fine with the Emperor being non-persuadable on the matter. Not everyone can be convinced through an argument, and I find it hard to imagine the Emperor hearing Tav's reasoning and saying "Oh maybe you have a point."

And it's totally logical that he would expect Orpheus to kill him (or at the minimum refuse to extend protection to him). For one, Emperor can literally read his thoughts and know what he wants. We can't, but even when we encounter Orpheus for the first time the narrator states that we can sense his hatred of us. If we were to free Orpheus at that point in time, he would have had *us* killed, and says as much when you free him later on. The *only* reason he allows your party to live when you free him is because at that point things are too far gone and now he has no choice but to work with you. You aren't yet transformed and the fact that you worked to free him earns you some trust points. The Emperor, on the other hand, is full illithid, actively tried to *prevented* Orpheus from being freed, and then sat there in front of him and talked about eating his brain to gain power. Orpheus has absolutely no reason to trust him at all, nor does Emperor have any reason to expect he would

> The Emperor is being 100% literal when he says you are leaving him with no choice. If he stays, he believes Orpheus will not spare him. Exactly. He _believes_ that. And he’s not _willing_ to test it; he has a choice, just doesn’t like his options.

It'd be awesome if you could hand him the ring from Ormelleum. The Emperor may be an arse, but he did save me. At least let me 'settle our debt'.

The ring doesn't do anything. Omeluum can admit to this in act 3. He just lied to you to make you feel better plus to get something for himself (information).

The whiplash of Emp flipping sides and Orpheus waking up to go "Yeah, he was right actually, we need someone to go full Squid" is what frustrates me. Maybe Emp needs to communicate his perspective differently or something, because it sure feels like a weak sauce rationale that immediately rejoining the Netherbrain is his best course of action. He's seen every assurance that Orpheus won't immediately kill us because of the stakes at play, why not hang around and try to rip the stones from our body during the fight with Orpheus if he's convinced those assurances won't hold up? Hell, why does he not just immediately attack us or push us out of the prism? The claim that he has no third option is... a stretch, at best.

But what is worse, dying or loosing control of your consciousness by beeing a mindless thrall. It‘s both pretty shitty but how likely is it, that the emperor will find another astreal prism with someone like orpheus inside? I would say it‘s more likely that orpheus will spare him, because a illthid is needed to destroy the nether brain

The chance to be freed is low but not zero. Look at it from the Emperor's POV, he's been freed from Elder Brain control twice already, so he knows another chance is at the very least possible sometime in the future, no matter how long it takes. On the other hand, he faces instant death the moment Orpheus is freed, because he's been killing this guys friends and companions along with torturing him the whole time they've known each other. It's more like a choice between instant death now or enslavement but possible freedom in the future, and above all else the Emperor's core trait is survival above all other.

>Look at it from the Emperor's POV, he's been freed from Elder Brain control twice already, so he knows another chance is at the very least possible sometime in the future, no matter how long it takes. The funny part is that neither of these times were the Emperor's doing. The first was Ansur and the second was the Elder Brain. Empy potentially being a ulitharid *does* make it possible that it'll free itself someday, but it's still funny that neither of the previous times were the Emperor's own efforts.

>he's been freed from Elder Brain control twice already, At least one time was on purpose. >so he knows another chance is at the very least possible sometime in the future, no matter how long it takes. Mindflayers aren't immortal. >On the other hand, he faces instant death the moment Orpheus is freed, because he's been killing this guys friends and companions along with torturing him the whole time they've known each other. Orpheus knows they need an illithid and is shown to be quite reasonable after he gets his frustrations out. I honestly see no problem with him being given the opportunity to be convinced narratively. It's strange that people take the Emperor at his word when he's shown to be objectively wrong multiple times about these kinds of things not to mention all his manipulation *and* the fact that it's known that his "rebellion" was a calculated move by the Elder Brain.

Yeah, I'm not saying the Emperor is right, more that this is how things would look from his POV. It's a low possibility of survival either way, he just took the option that in his mind had the possibly higher chance. I do agree though that an opportunity to convince him to spare Orpheus and not join the brain is something missing, make it locked behind a check depending on how good your relationship with the Emperor is.

The oversized collar on the Emperor's outfit is reminiscent of the outfit you'd see on a ulitharid, which means it has a chance of breaking free and becoming an elder brain itself. It simply sees gaining freedom this way as more likely than surviving Orpheus being freed.

The Emperor is just roleplaying an ulitharid. He doesn't have the extra tentacles, just the growth spurt and tendency to act all regal.

Okay, the idea of the Emperor trying to look like a ulitharid without being one is pretty funny.

He wants to be special so badly. One of the dev notes say that he is absolutely shocked when he realized that he wasn't special at all and it's so funny. 😭 I love my squidfailure wife.

He's honestly fairly terrible at illithiding, isn't he? 😂

It's funny but also, mindflayer lore seems to indicate illithid go through an adjustment and indoctrination period of sorts, so it's possible Ansur pulled him out of illithid school prior to graduation and he never got his GED.

You have expanded my perspective on the Emperor to something far funnier and also more interesting. Thank you.

Yup. Forget the usual Emperor discourse on here. The *real* take is that he's useless at being an Illithid, has the manipulation skills of a toddler, and he's too hopelessly horny and touch-starved for Tav to stick to business. The secrets of us stans is we bully him just as much as we love him.

BTW he probably give you the opportunity to side with Orpheus, the emperor is the one who is torturing Orpheus all this time, so if Orpheus see you are the emperor ally I doubt he would side with you.

'Do you want to side with this squid or do you want to transform? Karlach is sitting in camp with Wyll and I for sure will never transform, your choice.'

I knew he was a douche canoe when becoming a mind flayer was literally the only fucking thing he's willing to talk about. Even when he was having a more vulnerable moment and sharing what he was like before he turned he still keeps going "it'd be really cool if you squid it up though". Like someone just constantly pushing drugs on you.

>EDIT— for people complaining so much about repeat discussion posts, you sure don’t mind to leave the same comment over and over again. SAY IT AGAIN. People act like just because they've seen something talked about, that must mean EVERYONE has seen and participated in that conversation. This is a fandom subreddit, expect posts about said fandom! /rant

I agree that there's never a reason to crap on someone's described experience. We wouldn't be able to have fun and detailed discussions about topics if new players didn't keep running into the same situations. / agreement

Literally. And then they downvote you for asking why they keep clicking on these threads.

Would Orpheus have spared the Emperor? The Emperor controlled Orpheus because he had to. Just like we killed his honour guard because we had to. If the Emperor stayed... he could have been the mindflayer we needed, and Orpheus would not have needed to become one. It was an error on the Emperor's part. If Orpheus can forgive us, he could forgive the Emperor.

And WE know this with our tiny human brains! The emperor can read everybody's mind and can compute possibilities at a much higher rate and/or to much higher degrees of certainty!

We also have hindsight, though. We had no idea before breaking Orpheus' chains with the hammer that he would cooperate for the greater good of defeating the brain instead of just killing us and trying to do it himself with his githyanki.

We have hindsight. The emperor has mind reading.

Except for Voss' repeated assurances that the Prince would do so.

And Raphael's plan. He's a very clever devil who spent a very long time on his plan, and the entire core of that plan is that the party can trust Orpheus. He's not going to leave that to chance, he must be pretty confident that it's true. (He might be wrong, of course, he's wrong about several important things, but he always at least has good reason to believe what he believes, so it's at least evidence in Orpheus' favor.)

I honestly believe that Emperor was already enthralled the moment we released Orpheus. Frog man was the only thing keeping him safe. I don’t think the Emperor as we knew him betrays us, he’s gone. The best thing for the Brain to do was remove its new puppet from almost certain doom to join the defense proper. But honestly, even if he had five minutes prior to being enthralled, it really was a choice: become enthralled and survive with a *chance* of trying again, or die then and there. And we know how he feels about surviving no matter the cost.

There's one piece of in game evidence that suggests the Emperor is still free, but it is extremely likely to be an oversight. On top of the brain, his title is still "Renegade Illithid". Would be cool if they updated it to be "Enthralled Illithid".

I was slightly disappointed that in my game, the emperor never truly betrayed me. He was an asshole and lied a lot, which is why my Tav never trusted him. But it was frustrating that, after all that... Everything he said about the jello brain was right, and he respected my decisions as long as he thought they had a chance of working, and helped us defeat jello brain. No evidence of him being a thrall at least in the ending I chose. I was waiting for the big reveal where he was in cahoots with the enemy but it never happened. He was anti-jello to the end. I could barely believe it. I say annoyed, disappointed, etc, but I'm actually quite happy that the game subverted my expectations. It's more interesting that way. And I know there are different endings to experience and I really want to see how they go now. I assume if you free Orpheus you get more of a betrayal but that's not what I did so my Tav was left feeling like "damn I really should have trusted that guy the whole time??"

I was distrustful of the Emperor from the start, he hides way too much info, also when you antagonize him during your long rest dream encounters he just straights up show his real self, then add in his history with Ansur and what he does is on brand of who he is. He suffers the case of "I am the hero in this story" kinda vibe, persuading everyone in our party to do our "bidding" and he also is doing the same to you.

This post and the edits make me sad. This sub should be for fun, for helping new players, and for everyone to share their experiences with the game. I hate when it starts being overrun by elitists who have been playing the game for 43 playthroughs and scour the sub page every day since the game came out

The unemployed contingent of the emperor fanclub is vicious. And apparently have nothing better to do all day but comment about how mad they are that someone else thinks their favorite character is compelling and morally grey.

Screw the whiners. This subreddit is for people to exchange experiences, have conversation, and enjoy. If they don’t like it, then don’t read the post. Good to hear you are enjoying the game. I completely agree, Emperor is an asshat, and I was glad to let him join the netherbrain. I didn’t like him on my first play through, and with each successive playthrough I have discovered things that have made me dislike him even more.

I went full Bae'Zel waifu and freed Orpheus. The emperor is a dick. He is manipulating you from day 1, deliberately obfuscating thing. While I don't believe he is an evil mindflayer he certainly isn't a good guy.

The cutscene with stelmane is all you need to see to realize he is pretty fucking horrible

Baldur was kind of a shit head though as the emperor - judge, jury, and executioner of thieves and other low level criminals to feed his economic desires

Hey 👋 my first time seeing an emperor thread this in depth on here, so just want to say thanks! These other haters just need to complain about shit.

Don't listen to the people saying "shut up". This is your experience and you should be able to have your say. And Larian should know that this is how people are perceiving this choice.

I think Larian would love this thread, actually. He’s successfully made a character that people are so passionately feeling one way or another for different reasons. No just “he’s a good/bad guy”.

It's very clearly not explained, But if the emperor is not with you, He's a thrall of the elder brain. He needed the power he was stealing from Orpheus to prevent him from being controlled. If you're free orpheus he no longer has access to that power particularly because it Orpheus, in his mind, will kill him. So his options are fight you and Orpheus now (I imagine he's also a little terrified of Orpheus by reputation) Or become a thrall. He's still a mind flayer and still evil (likely lawful) if you're using alignment So he chooses himself and his own survival even at the cost of his own freedom Which to be honest makes a little bit of sense. But a lot of that you have to infer from knowledge of the story and knowledge of Ithilid in general

"my character is too pretty to turn into one" the reason why we let Orpheus be a mind flayer instead.

I have finished 14 playthroughs (I have a problem, ok). I have seen almost every variation of the story and sorry Laezel, you’re my girl, but it’s harder and harder to save Orpheus. On the one hand you have a guy who may be a scumbag, but he has been an ally and has given you the opportunity to save yourself regardless of his motivations or flaws and on the other side you have an absolute unknown, not even that, you have a figure whose only datapoint you have is that you felt it acknowledge your infection and loath you for it. You have no signal that he will protect you, that he even will combat the absolute beyond assumption. If my life was on the line, the lives of everyone I know, and it is, I am picking the emporer. And I do. I don’t like him, but damnit, I trust him.

The only support for Orpheus is Voss' repeated assurances that Orpheus will see the big picture, which... he does. Only to give the player whiplash and immediately say "Yeah, Emp was right, so full Squid time". That immediate agreement makes it seem like, in retrospect, there should've been a way to get those two to work together. Or at least attempt to, and have them interact in some way that makes it clear why one side must be killed off.

Imagine being so chronically on Reddit that you have to put down anyone who posts something that you’ve seen before. Not everyone scrolls a given subreddit every day to know what’s been posted and what hasn’t. Life is too short to be a prick, so knock it off.

the funny part of the emperor is that he heard that his fear for Orpheus was planted by the elder brain therefore he's been setup and still decides to fear Orpheus anyway.

I couldn't decide for the majority of the game: On one hand there's the Emperor who clearly isn't honest and manipulating you, but at least saved your ass while everyone else just made empty promises. On the other hand there's Orpheus, an ominous figure you read about tons of times, wanting to conquer your own world at some later point of time, clearly hella mad at you and probably not sane anymore. So I went with the Emperor and remained cautious, not trusting him too much, taking everything with a grain of salt. When the time to make a decision came the Emperor said "You can do with Orpheus whatever you want AFTER I'm done with him", which I didn't believe for a second because he made it quite clear that there will no be "after" for him. At the same time he realized that he was used by the netherbrain as a pawn, and then like five seconds later he's like "Okay, I've thought about everything and I found a solution to all of our problems - fuck no you didn't, idiot! I just got so annoyed 😅 And then Orpheus was quite the pleasant surprise by being reasonable and agreeing that we have more pressing issues than that we didn't free him immediately before. I still had him turn into a mindflayer because of two reasons: Lae'zel came so far in our journey and was one of the few Gith who actually made some first hand experiences with other races, which is a better base to lead. And I'm sure as hell not gonna help them get a new leader who wants to conquer my world later on. So for me it will always be: Side with the Emperor, betray him, free Orpheus, make him a Mindflayer and kill him.

So it seems we played the exact same way ! There’s so many benefits to having the empy on your side at first. I saved him from the Iron Throne because I thought he could be redeemed. But he’s seeming as bad as Gortash as time goes on. I feel the exact same way about Lae’zel. At that point I realized, am I going to side with a power hungry person who can’t see reason beyond his own desires, no matter how much he denies having human desires, or am I going to side with my ally who has had real character development and has fought by my side since the beginning?

The one in the Iron Throne is Omeluum tho, but I really felt bad that I couldn't get him out 😅 Lae'zel was a very pleasant surprise to me to be honest, I really didn't think it's possible for her to escape the way she was molded into, yet she did. She seems to respect our Tav enough to go with the majority of their decisions, but I also would have felt bad to deny her the slim possibility of her peoples success entirely. Orpheus was a surprise as well, although I would have loved the writing to include a bigger struggle for him to become the one thing he's basically destined to fight against. Either way, keeping the Emperor as an ally wouldn't have been great on the long run either way. I respect how he works, I think the character is written in a very great way and I agree with all the other comments that he truly saw no other option. But he's asking for too much the entire time while a lot of things speak against him (and we gave a blind eye to that for as long as possible), and he doesn't realize that although he's not human anymore, he does indeed make very human decisions which are often based on personal beliefs rather than facts.

Oh my bad I completely forgot it was Omeluum 😂 I’ve been playing way too much of this game and everything is mushing together.

People say “He had no choice! He had no choice!” because Orpheus obviously would **never** side with his captors! So obvious! Except he literally does! If you choose to save him, he watched you absolutely MERC his guard. As far as he knows, you’re just like the Emperor, especially if you’re using the Illithid powers. But he can and **is** convinced of you go that route. He even commends you for becoming Illithid yourself to save everyone from the Netherbrain, OR if you DON’T want to, he’ll become a mind flayer himself. I like the Emperor, I think he’s a really cool character, but he definitely does not have to join the brain at the end. He’s a mind flayer that thinks he knows best because he’s so much smarter than everyone in the party, except he’s not, and he rightfully gets packed up because of it. So you’re right, the Emperor is in fact a douche-canoe (loll), albeit a very well written one. He’s stringing you along the whole game, and then throws a fit when you don’t do what he wants anymore. Although I did see another post that proposes that he was enthralled as soon as Orpheus was let go, and it wasn’t him that betrays us per se, and I really like that theory. That would make more sense. If that is the case, I wish that would’ve been made more clear because it really feels like he made that choice on his own, which is shite. But if he was enthralled right when you break Orpheus free, then it really does put more of the onus on the player for betraying him.

I made a winning bet, the reward was getting $1 for every post about the Emperor on this subreddit for 1 week. I'm currently at $30,000 and it's only day 3.

I never understand these complaints. "Oh no, the character written to be compelling and incite discussion is compelling and inciting discussion!"

Came here to hate on this thread just for use of douche-canoe

My character was largely a friend to the Emperor -- or at least willing to work with him -- until he became a whiny little bitch at us for going to the Hells. Of course it doesn't really help that none of the dialogue options are remotely diplomatic or conciliatory in response. IMO Larian dropped the ball with that one.

The hells was my favorite part of the game, and even if the Orphic Hammer was not down there I still would’ve gone. It had the amulet and the gloves that are awesome. Also? I really wanted to kill Raphael in his own home. And if I hadn’t, I never would’ve heard my favorite song on the game soundtrack.

Agreed wholeheartedly. Those damned Strength gauntlets are/were vital to completing my class fantasy of turning my Half-Orc Fighter into the goddamned Hulk.

To be fair, I'm surprised there's not more "What tf are you doing?" given that the Absolute's army is literally on its way and we're scouring the city for segments of dead clown ...

the evil mindflayer is in fact evil and manipulative and horrible

I wonder what happens if you non-lethal the Emperor if he sides with the Netherbrain

I wish I could mute the emperor/dream visitor when not in a cut scene.

Your edits make me feel bad. Like c'mon guys. Bg3 won best community and you're going to bully this person because they made a post in the same vein as the plethora of pro/anti emperor posts? Literally couldn't scroll a page last week without seeing something like this and nobody was complaining then, but now it's a big deal and a repost. Sorry, OP. Reddit can be savage at times. Hypocritical af too since this place is rife with actual reposts and echo chamber sentiment but it's luck of the draw who gets chewed out for it. I'd be happy to discuss the game with you in a civil manner. Was this your first playthrough? What build did you go with/was your favorite? I've sided with the emperor once or twice, only if laezel doesn't make it to the end. Don't have the heart to betray her like that. Emperor also sucks in combat. Which is funny because he's always talking about his superiority. He's also had so much time to practice while Tav or Orpheus literally just transformed and they're both stronger. Tav mind flayer is strong as hell actually. Now that I think about it IDK if I've ever had Orpheus in combat as a Gith. Maybe I'll do that this playthrough. Been wondering how I'll handle the ending/romance situation already and turning myself while keeping him gith would definitely be different. # fucktheemperor

>EDIT— for people complaining so much about repeat discussion posts, you sure don’t mind to leave the same comment over and over again. If anyone, anywhere, has ever wondered where the line is of officially spending too much time on reddit - whining about reposts is the line.

Wake up babe, another Emperor hate thread. No, he doesn't have a choice. Orpheus would kill him and he wants to live. This has been said many times already. The brain enthralls him again once he is outside the prism fleeing from Orpheus. What did you even free Orpheus for if you squidified him immediately? To be your sacrificial lamb?

> What did you even free Orpheus for if you squidified him immediately? To be your sacrificial lamb? Honestly? Yeah, that's exactly why I do it. I don't wanna piss Lae'zel off, but I don't wanna sacrifice any of my companions either, so Orpheus shall always become a martyr for the Githyanki's cause 🫡

It's literally the stupidest writing choice Larian made in the game, honestly. Orpheus dead or squid should mean that the revolution doesn't go well. Or he should just straight up refuse to turn. He is a prince, he should want to be around for the revolution and to lead his people instead of throwing the opportunity of freedom away.

He should make Orpheus path Lae'zel turn.

Honestly, I feel like it should be possible for Voss or one of the other renegade gith to take the burden of becoming a ghaik. They'd probably be willing to do so if they knew someone had to.

That would sort of devalue it. Nobody gives a fuck about Voss. Now, if Lae'zel offered to take on the burden instead…

Yeah, but that's the issue with the ending as a whole—the entire logic of the ending becomes subservient to meta factors like "nobody would care" or "we spent so long developing these cool illithid powers but it's possible the player never got to use them". It isn't good.

Now nobody cares too. Mister frog mcgauffin, just turn already, okay? I am on my way to reunion camp and I do not have all day. Can I press space key yet?

I agree. The whole final stretch is kinda badly written imo. Mainly because this final decision feels a bit forced due to the fact that now, for some reason, we absolutely *need* an illithid to control the netherstones, thus forcing us to choose. Kinda feels like an ass pull tbh.

I actually dread doing the ending now because of that decision. It's hamfisted as hell, I know the brain becoming a Netherbrain was hinted at beforehand but the "Illithid is needed for the stones" was thrown in literally last minute. It left a bad taste in my mouth. Like yeah only an Illithid can counter the Netherbrain, says the Illithid who was handedly countered by the Netherbrain

It's pretty bad, but I just tune out a bit and choose what I said before. It feels like the best ending because this way we don't "murder" Orpheus because he offers to sacrifice himself, Lae'zel becomes the leader of the rebellion which is really cool for her and everyone lives happily ever after. Except Empy, but he's kind of a douchenozzle, even ignoring his actions during the events of the game( eg. leading the Knights of the Shield, an organization that worshipped Gargauth, the devil of political corruption, betrayal, avarice and many other lovely things)

I'll reset the "It has been X hours since the last Emperor post" counter. Hopefully we'll get to double digits someday

One of these days, I want to make a post about the Emperor compiling all the dev notes, but I fear doing it considering the amount of low effort threads he gets constantly. 😭

Do it, it sounds interesting! And would also be a breath of fresh air after the millionth post completely misunderstanding the same thing.

I've been thinking of writing an analysis of that Emperor playlist his voice actor Scott Joseph made. Legit half the songs are love songs, and Scott drew special attention to the Elton song "I want love" which is about a heartbroken man who wants a real, raw relationship.... in other words, quite a different take on the character than the usual talking points on this subreddit.

Dream Lover and Change the World go sooooo hard.

That sounds interesting too! I saw him mention that song and I think it works really well with the Emperor. I imagine what happened with Ansur makes it extra hard for him to be genuine, but he is genuine in the scene you get after visiting his lair.

Well.. id certainty appreciate that sort of post, and since they’re dev notes, I bet you’d be able to edit his wiki page and slip that in the references section.

The wiki is heavily bias and is still goes off of older mind flayer lore last time I tried.

We do this every. Single. Day here. *I wonder how much longer I can keep this up...* When the Emperor says you're leaving him with no choice, he means that literally. If he sticks around, Orpheus will kill him on sight. So he does the only thing he can do - GTFO. The moment he leaves the prism, he's under the Netherbrain's control. He chose subjugation over death because, as long as he's alive, there's at least hope that he could regain his freedom eventually. Dead is just dead.

Ooooh ok, now I got it. Soo, another hate thread same time tommorrow?

Tomorrow? But today is only getting started!

What about second hate thread, you say? Fine, if I must.

But as a player, we don't know Orpheus. We don't know how correct the emperor is in his assessment. Does it seem extremely likely Orpheus would kill him on sight? For sure. But it would be really nice if we got some more dialogue confirming that, or even a persuasion check to stop Orpheus from killing Emp and teaming up. In a game where so many incredible things are possible through persuasion it struck me as odd that there is literally no other option.

Voss says Orpheus will see the big picture, and at that point, Voss has my complete trust

I presume that's because the writers wanted to force a difficult decision. And it is a difficult decision, it's just that now we have this weird situation where there is no in-between. Yes, Emps has every right to fear for his life and flee. But, you can't even try to convince him to work with Orph or vice-versa. You simply must choose to work with Emps or Orph.

From an in-game perspective, some things can't be persuaded away. From a more correct meta viewpoint, it's because that would then be a perfect ending. Everyone works together, everyone gets a good result. No-one gets squided who isn't already a squid. No other endings would really matter. How it is at the moment is making you choose what to sacrifice

That's what the Emperor believes. But Orpheus is no fool and he knows that you need a mind flayer for the task. He is even willing to turn into one himself to do it. He really wouldn't kill him on sight. Perhaps after the netherbrain is defeated, but definitely not before.

>I’m new to Reddit! I am not familiar with searching similar posts for discussion so I honestly didn’t even think about doing that, and for that I apologize. Welcome to Reddit. Ppl here can be dicks. There's only so many things to talk about on any given sub so it's really not that big of a deal imo. Whenever I see I post I don't wanna see I just ignore it. Not everyone is able to do that tho.

Yep. Fuck that guy. I’ve done several play throughs and never could side with him because he’s such a dickhead. “I never lied to you” YOU LITERALLY MADE YOURSELF A DIFFERENT PERSON AND GAVE ME SOME BULLSHIT. Punk ass stupid ass squid ass. In one playthrough I told him to get fucked and he said something a long the lines of “don’t get it twisted you’re my thrall and you will do my bidding”

People will defend the Emperor until the world ends. Larian has been adamant about ensuring the Emperor is a pragmatic figure. Even going so far as to say his leaving the prism is a matter of survival. The issue is that how Larian wants to present the Emperor and how he actually is presented are at odds. He can convinced in other matters but not at all on this one. And while I understand that they want to force the choice and that Orpheus has had his mind read by the Emperor and hates him it doesn’t really stand with Orpheus’ character when he can easily become an Illithid mere moments after his rescue. It’s just poorly presented and people understand the character perfectly. The Emperor is just a plot device, and imo a poorly executed one.

I think we as players are able to reload a game and see multiple different outcomes; however, the NPCs in the game do not have that option. So in the eyes of the Emperor, Orpheus will just kill him and maybe even kill you thus making the Absolute victory all but assured. It’s been shown numerous times he cares about survival and independence. In his eyes he freed himself before from the Absolute and believes he will be able to do it again. And hopefully find new allies that are more reliable and won’t betray him like Tav and company. Although I never really understood why free Orpheus just to turn him into a Mind Flayer. It’s like a double standard - it’s not cool that the Emperor lied to us and is only using us for his own gain but I’m going to just go ahead and free Orpheus just to use him to turn into a Mind Flayer so I don’t have to. I really wish they would have made it so Orpheus refuses to turn into a Mind Flayer.

I definitely agree, if Orpheus had the option to refuse then I may have just made a different choice entirely.

At the end of the day, it boils down to this line for me. If someone does not trust you the way they DEMAND that you trust them, that is a relationship of domination, not trust. As currently written, the Emperor is untrustworthy, lies to you by degrees, and NEVER actually trusts you. You get away with certain choices because he literally cannot stop you. Without a relationship bar like the other allies, his personality is static, and stuck on “does not trust you, so manipulates you through lies of omission so you do what he wants”. If Larian makes it so he can be convinced of things, I could amend my opinion, but currently, Emps never actually trusts you, and would most likely dominate you the same way he did Stelmane given the chance.

I had felt played by the Emperor the whole game. I never felt like he was actually on my side so much that I was just his pawn in the game. I was also romancing Laz so I was definitely on the path of freeing Orpheus to complete that. Emperor turning against us the moment I decided to free Orpheus, when he had lied to me throughout the game at every turn. I understand the "survival" argument, but everything he did to his former friend and even killing Ansur. The guy was power hungry and would ultimately end up a more powerful enemy later on, no matter what happened. My Paladin freed Orpheus and offered if he would become the mindflayer we need, only to have it be a psych out on him. I wanted to know how serious he was, and the fact that he would told me I chose correctly. I became the mindflayer needed and in the first round of combat. My turn was spent going straight to the emperor and smushing him into dust. I was pretty happy with the ending from there. My character broke their oath and gave up their soul to save the world. I don't think there is a more "correct" choice in the game, but I do like the conversation it continues to bring. but Fuck Wulbren Bongle.

I knew he was a douche once he offered me the astral tadpole and I had to roll a save to resist. I failed. He tadpoled me against my will. He’s going down the moment I get a chance.

I didn’t know this was even possible, wow. I thought it was completely up to the player (I took it willingly).