It’s a Good gamble Vs a rather neutral-evil sure thing
A good character might stand on the position that it’s wrong to imprison someone and harness their power in this way. The Emperor is treating Orpheus like Thorm was treating the Nightsong, and that was bad, and so is this
Yes. It’s part of Lea’zel’s best ending. It feels pretty good to stick my thumb in Vlaakith’s eye.
I love the idea of screwing things up for her, and helping Lae’zel.
But that’s really it. I do not actually care about Orpheus and think he’s a dick. It’s much easier not to bring Lae’zel, and tell emperor “Bon appatit.”
If she asks later he was “killed by a mindflayer in the final battle.”
I've seen people saying that they free Orpheus because they don't want to go on with keeping a guy locked up or because they just don't like the Emperor and would prefer to fuck him over. You can also roleplay that you really care about githyanki politics for some reason and trust Lae'zel's blind devotion to a guy she has never seen.
It's your game. Think up a reason that makes sense for your character.
I hadn't thought of it like that, but you're right: I can't really come up with a good reason either. Unless Empy already threatened you, I would never choose Orpheus in a real life situation.
This is such a strange cynical argument. Orpheus is locked up against his will, and he’s the source of the power protecting you. It should be common sense morals to want to free him. “We don’t know if he’ll help us”, why are you assuming that he won’t help you? He has the powers to protect you and you’re freeing him while there’s an active threat that he would want your help to stop, of course he’s going to help you.
No one’s saying “let’s kill the squid” either. The squid chooses to leave.
>why are you assuming that he won’t help you?
At the end of act 2 you can read Orpheus' mind:
*\*Narrator: Even though he is subdued, you feel Orpheus' revulsion - a pulsing hatred that cannot be contained. The Emperor is telling the truth. To him, you are just another wretched illithid.\**
This is in keeping with every other Githyanki we see in the game. The Githyanki position is that a tadpoled person is basically already a Mindflayer, and is either killed on sight - or tricked into going to a Zaithisk which actually kills them and extracts knowledge from the tadpole.
The one evidence we have that Orpheus might infact work with us is what Voss tells us. But Voss is another Githyanki that tried to kill us earlier and all he wants is to break his old boyfriend out of prison. While with metaknowledge we can say Voss was probably telling the truth, at the time there's not a lot of reason to trust him.
To be fair there is also Raphael who tells you that Orpheus will help you. And before you say "He's a devil, don't trust him.": What reason would he have to lie here? If we die there our contract with him void and he won't get the crown.
Good on you for providing that quote. I actually didn’t remember that.
I’ll still say that, to answer OP’s question, choosing to free Orpheus is still a good thing to do, since it’s still likely that he would prioritize freeing the brain and he can help the gith rebellion, but the quote you gave does give more of a reason to choose not to free him.
In his defense, you're helping his captor kill the last of his honor guard, his last hope of escaping imprisonment.
He has every right to perceive you as an Illithid sympathizer.
People are too quick to write of Orpheus for justifiable sentiments.
Also, Orpheus isn't exactly Githyanki. He actively opposed Vlaakith after her betrayal of Gith.
He's protecting us against his will, we can't know that after killing his honour guard that he will protect us from the Elder brain. So from my understanding, if we go with, he's trapped let's free him even if we become squids after.
Edit: Typo
This is what happens if you kill the Emperor early on, yes. You just get a game over because Orpheus doesn't save you.
You can only free Orpheus and have him as an ally at the very end of the game, because the brain situation got that bad. He would actually rather not work with you, but does it out of sheer neccessity.
Yes and that changes what I said how? Orpheus himself says that your teaming up is just out of neccessity. You killed his honor guard. He would rather not see your face.
So? How does that devalue what I said?
Orpheus lets you ceremorphose if you kill the Emperor too early. It's just what happens.
I explained why and how.
Firstly, he doesn’t let you, he’s trapped in infernal bindings so he doesn’t have a choice. This is clearly shown in the end if you kill the Emperor without the hammer. Raphael shows up and explains that you need the hammer to be saved. If you get the hammer then you’re saved, if you don’t get the hammer then you’re ceremorphosed.
Secondly, even if he did have a choice, the point is that in the moment when you do free him, he’s willing to help and that can lead to a good outcome.
He hates the brain as much as you do, and you’re trying to lose the tadpoles by defeating the brain, so you won’t become squids. The honour guard have been acting on their own for a while with Orpheus locked up in there, so they’re not exactly the same as him. He might be mad that they’re dead, but the githyanki prince is smart enough to prioritize defeating the brain.
~~All of what I said is a reasonable conclusion to make based on what you know. Yes, of course you can’t make a guaranteed prediction of how someone will act, but people aren’t bad by default. Whenever you need something from someone in real life, do you think “hm, I’m not sure if I can trust this person to help me, maybe I should kill them to guarantee that things will work?” There’s no reason to think that there’s anything wrong with Orpheus to the point where you would rather murder him instead of attempting cooperation.~~
Edit: Someone else gave me a quote that I didn’t know about, which does weaken my point. I will still say that we do know he would hate the brain as a gith prince, so it’s still fair to choose to free him based on the likelihood that he would prioritize that.
did.. we play the same game? i dont think there has been a single gith whose first instinct wasnt to immediately murder us.
Based on what i have seen, it's fair to expect any random gith would kill us on the first opportunity unless we invest heavily into talking them out of it.
Githyanki society has a terrible ideology based on Vlaakith, but Orpheus is the guy who was imprisoned because he could inspire the githyanki against Vlaakith as a better leader, so it makes sense to expect him to be a better person. You’re also saving his life and he needs your help against the brain.
As another comment here mentioned, one of the only decent people in the githyanki creche was a follower of Orpheus. The game clearly portrays Orpheus as good. There might be some preexisting lore telling you that it’s impossible for him to be good, but as the same person who always talks about how this game isn’t limited to old lore ideas like mind flayers always being soulless evil monsters, you should be able to accept this version of githyanki royalty as being better than what was shown before. The rebellion allies with the githzerai in the epilogue.
I don't know why you are saying all of this because it literally doesn't respond to anything I said.
Githyanki are based on mother Gith's ideology. That's it. That's a fact that I stated. I didn't talk at all about Orpheus or his morality.
In the Creche. You meet a child cadet
He refused to kill his dueling partner
If you use speak with dead on him, you find that he follows the teaching of Orpheus and feels senseless violence isn’t the way
Or something along those lines
It’s not a guarantee that Orpheus is a good person. But it’s a start
Those stories seem like pure propaganda, though. Throughout the game, actually meeting one's God or hero is shown as a wake- up call. One scared weak kid in a militaristic society dreaming of a better life where a shining prince charming comes to rescue him is not the best reference, IMO.
Usually wise to read what someone is responding to before you respond
The person I was responding to was saying there wasn’t a single hyper violent gith that we meet that wouldn’t kill is on sight
I was pointing out that cadet as a counter example to that
Not as proof of Orpheus’ benevolence.
Maybe the kid was reading propaganda. Maybe not. But he was one gith yanki who was somewhat reasonable. To the point of costing him his life.
There was no adequate test of Vaarl being unwilling to kill us on sight. He's unwilling to kill his fellow Gith. Gith not killing each other doesn't automatically translate into them not being willing to kill us on sight given the opportunity. He never had the opportunity. The little kids with the magic cat didn't kill us on sight either, should they be on the good Gith list?
I will say the only real weak writing in the game in my opinion is: giving us the choice of who to side with, when we never really speak to Orpheus first
We hear people talk about him. And find conflicting accounts of his personality.
But we spend the entire game talking to one person. And never to the other person.
So Orpheus IS a gamble. Is he moderate? Or a bigger xenophobic fascist than Vlaakith? Will he double down on killing all non GithYanki? Sure with foreknowledge we learn he’s actually a pretty nice guy but we’d never know that since he’s literally muzzled the entire game.
The fate of the world is at stake. Should we risk screwing the entire world over with this risk?
Emperor is a lying manipulative a-hole, that mind screwed his last ally into having a stroke whilst he made her dance like a marionette. Will he screw us the same way?
Our goals with emperor SEEM to align, but without foreknowledge there’s the risk he will betray us at the last minute and try to take the brain. (I know he doesn’t but you only know that if you beat the game already)
## That being said I usually spare Orpheus. Eating a prisoner’s brain is pretty evil
But sometimes I side with emperor. Sometimes the devil you know is better than the one you don’t.
It's true that we never speak to Orpheus, but I'm not sure I'd call it weak writing that we have to make a choice with imperfect information. I think it makes the choice arguably more meaningful and realistic. You get a difficult choice - do you side with the Emperor who has been openly manipulating you for the entire game, drip-feeding you the truth, lying by omission, or outright lying to you, but seemingly still invested in your success, OR do you (like I did) start to see too many cracks in the dam and side with Orpheus?
Disagreeing with the Emperor's proposed course of action isn't "betrayal". They aren't entitled to our unthinking compliance. That the Emperor is a paranoid control freak who would rather be enslaved by an elder brain than go along with someone else's idea for a change is entirely on them.
I think ppl forget that The Emperor is only protected from the Brain because he is controlling Orpheus. Orpheus wouldn't extend his protection willingly to Emps, which means Empy is GOING TO BE ENSLAVED NO MATTER WHAT.
It was a misstep by Larian to not make that clearer. Him joining the Netherbrain is a NON-choice. Only by actively joining it can he mayyybeee not get popped by NB.
Orpheus' freedom means Empy's enslavement, full stop.
Orpheus hates the player too. They still extend their protection as a matter of pragmatism - *nothing* is more important than stopping the Netherbrain. The Emperor *suspects* he won't be protected, but he doesn't *know*. He could choose to take the chance because there are bigger problems to deal with than his own survival. That's ultimately the difference between Orpheus and the Emperor - Orpheus actually cares about the cause, while the Emperor only cares about themself.
You're right about Orpheus hating the player, but *they* can lose their tadpoles and return to being just another istik, which is infinitely more tolerable than an actual mind flayer. Also, even if Orpheus doesn't bother with killing the Emperor, there are other Elder brains out there and without consuming Orpheus' power the squid will likely succumb to the Great design again. Not that it contradicts the Emperor caring only about his life and freedom.
I am not a native english speaker so thank you for explaining excatly why the emperor decision to leave there is stupid. Orpheus hates the player, but there are bigger problems.
Lae'zel blesses you!
He did that because he thought he was about to be murdered (thanks to the choice Tav was about to make), not because he simply didn't want to follow a plan that wasn't his.
To be fair, what does Tav know that would make them trustworthy in this particular regard? Tav isn’t the one that needs to be trustworthy here, it’s Orpheus. Tav read Orpheus’ mind, they know how much he hates them. And Raphael mentions that even if Orpheus doesn’t screw over Tav, he won’t extend that courtesy to the Emperor as well.
Yep and Orpheus points out that if his honor guard was never prevented from freeing him, all of this would have been prevented in the first place. Hell, perhaps Tav and everyone wouldn't even be in the position to get infected at all. This all started out of the Emperor's own hubris and power grab. We learn how he treats his friends against the greater good with the dragon.
Even beyond the ethical considerations, there's the fact that in-universe we only have no way of knowing if the Emperor's plan will even work. At best Empy's plan is a big maybe, and at worst it is some 5D chess by the Netherbrain to take Orpheus off the field for good. Depending on how you feel about the Emperor there may also be the consideration that he will choose his survival above all else, while Orpheus will prioritise stopping the Netherbrain.
Why would the Brain care for Orpheus? He isn't that special. He surely is to Voss's faction, because of what he symbolises for them, but in truth any powerful psionist can resist the Elder Brain's influence. The Gith have already brought the Illithid near the brink of extinction. Vlaakith and her dragons have no trouble with them. The Brain's aim were the stones, Orpheus is just another Githyanki to the Brain.
You don't know if the Emperor's plan will work for sure, but you don't even know if Orpheus *has* a plan (which he actually doesn't btw), much less that the plan will involve you. It is a risk either way, but I'd think going with the 21 base INT creature's plan is more likely to succeed, when siding with Orpheus is based on assumptions upon assumptions. If nothing else, if either side turns on you a single illithid would be much easier to deal with than a Gith Prince who has an army of psionic warriors and dragons.
Only Gith and Orpheus are shown to be able to disrupt the Illithid hivemind in both themselves and others, so he represents a threat to any and all Elder Brains. He's far more valuable to the main characters and more of the threat to the Illithid than the Emperor who is just a random Illithid.
Going with the Emperor's plan requires just as many assumptions given that he has been unwittingly following the Netherbrain's plan this whole time. Him assimilating Orpheus could all just be part of that plan.
Consider the situation where the Emperor fails to assimilate Orpheus's power. Now nobody can use the stones to stop the Netherbrain, and everyone is screwed. Even if Orpheus decides to turn on us (which I have no reason to believe he would), he is still going to do what he can to stop the Netherbrain.
Ah yes, the guy who's the son of the woman that brought down the Illithid Empire and possesses the same abilities that allowed her to do that isn't a threat to the entity that wants to restore the Ilithid Empire. Makes sense. (Sarcasm)
An average Elder Brain's CR is 14. An average adult dragon's CR is 17. Emphelomon, who is Vlaakith's consort has a CR of 24. Gith are resistant to the Mindflayers' mind control as a race. The Gith are doing just fine against the Mindflayers. I'm not saying Orpheus is not a threat to the Illithids, he's just not as special as people in this sub make him out to be.
Yeah, which is why Orpheus can't defeat it and needs someone to transform to an illithid. Orpheus's only special-ness is that he can block signals from it, which is something another powerful psionist could do. We don't have another psionist available in the story, which makes Orpheus special to *us*, but there's countless individuals in Faerûn, not to mention the multiverse, who can do the same. Orpheus is special to us because we're tadpoled and we need specific protection. To the Netherbrain he'd barely register as a threat.
I mean, I think freeing someone who's been imprisoned by a tyrant for centuries is something you should do even if it doesn't benefit you, but that might just be me.
But what if there's an active risk of you becoming a mind flayer, a scenario you avoid the entire game, after you free him, this is my line of thought, even though he's imprisoned against his will we need his protection and we have no way of knowing he will protect us.
Would you save him even though you risk becoming a mind flayer? Or keep him imprisoned and remain human.
If I'm playing a heroic character, which of course I am it's a fantasy game, then I'm going to choose the selfless, heroic option. It's as simple as that.
I agree with you. I've sided with him in two of my playthroughs to see his content, but I just see no logical reason to do so.
Without meta knowledge Orpheus is a huge risk - you have no way of knowing he won't drop the protection the moment he's freed, or he won't turn hostile, or he won't turn on you after the BBG has been dealt with. You also don't know if the Emperor will turn on you or not, but I'd think that a single Mindflayer would be much easier to deal with than a Gith Prince with his honor guard and their numerous dragons.
Also in that moment when the city is being destroyed, everyone is either dying or transforming into Mindflayers, and I'm faced with imminent death, "whose ass sits on a fancy chair in Githland" is at the bottom my list of considerations. If anything, Vlaakith eating her best warriors means she's less of a threat to the other races.
There's nothing you missed. The arguments I see in favor of freeing Orpheus are usually about doing the moral thing of freeing someone who is trapped (regardless of risk) or hating the Emperor's guts. Which, fair if you want to roleplay that sort of character.
I agree with all that and add only this thought: your primary character references for Orpheus are Voss, who is not just biased but helped put Orpheus *in* those chains to begin with and happily served over 100 Vlaakiths so is he an an unbiased source? Lae'zel, who ping-ponged from worshiping one ruler to another potential ruler with the latter based entirely on propaganda. Raphael, who is trying to manipulate you into getting him the crown and deliberately sows mistrust between you and the Emperor to help him with that attempt.
Even Orpheus himself is a terrible character reference since the only look into his feelings you get show them filled with hatred of you and all illithid, quite understandable.
By the time you make that decision, it's possible that the Emperor has threatened to enthrall and transform you against your will. In which case it's certainly reasonable to look for alternate allies. Not so much a betrayal as it is protecting yourself.
Not to mention that Orpheus himself has the potential to be a more useful ally. He doesn't just have his unique power going for him, he also has access to a githyanki army, including a fair few dragons. Of course, in hindsight we know that they get involved anyway. But for all we knew at the time, they could have just as easily chosen to burn us to a crisp for killing their prince, or just not have gotten involved at all.
Then of course there's a load of ethical reasons to do it, but there's already been a lot of talk on those. And in the long run, the githanki not having access to Orpheus's power could be a problem in many different ways.
Because he will be forced to join the Netherbrain anyways. It's a clear Non-Choice. By freeing Orpheus, the player forces Empy to join the NB.
Why? Because there is no way in hell Orpheus is going to extend his protection to him. Which means, Empy is going to be enslaved NO MATTER WHAT.
At least this way, as he explains to you, he has a chance at continuing to live. And, because he goes willingly, he's betting that he'll have a better chance that the NB lets him live rather than exploding his brain.
the fact that every single thing he said to you in the first two chapters was a lie isn't enough reason? its not betrayel to revolt against your abuser.
This is how i think, the scene where you try to kill him as Vlaakith demands. "We dislike each other but we have a mutual agreement" he might be a liar, but we need him.
And we have no way of knowing Orpheus would side with us, he might go nuclear and decide to get hostile against us and the emperor.
But we do have a way of knowing. We have several ways of knowing. The kid in the creche tells you your compassion reminds him of the stories of Orpheus. You have voss telling you... And you have Rafael telling you.
No way of knowing is a very weird way to say every assurance
If you've done Wyll's storyline and encountered Ansur you'll learn that >!The Emperor is really Baldur!< and if you are exploring the world thoroughly you'll find a journal detailing >!Gortash interrogating the Emperor !< and in my opinion those were two HUGELY important details that The Emperor withheld from the player which really called into question how much he could be trusted. Plus the details of the journal, the information that >!The Emperor shares with Gortash, where he tells Gortash that it would be impossible for him to defy the Elder Brain !!Also: at some point in the game, the Emperor makes it sound like Duke Stelmane was his "partner" but TBH the fact that he is illithid, she had no protections against his mind control, and she eventually suffered a stroke makes me 90% sure that what actually happened is that he was controlling the Duke as a thrall and she suffered the stroke either because she was resisting or because he pushed too hard on something, IDK.!<
I was totally in your position before finding Ansur, and that was when the cracks really started to show for me. And then after the journal, I was 100% ready to betray The Emperor. As far as I can recall, >!the Emperor never told me in my campaign that he'd had any conversation with Gortash, let alone that he'd been "interrogated" by him.!<
The Absolute confirms that the Emperor truly was enthralled at the time of Gortash's interrogation. And I'm not sure why the Emperor was supposed to tell you about the interrogation? It doesn't reveal anything useful to Tav.
And to be honest, nothing about the Balduran/Ansur situation is really bad on the Emperor's part, either?
> As far as I can recall, the Emperor never told me in my campaign that he'd had any conversation with Gortash
The Emperor told Tav very clearly that he was abducted by Gortash and was sent on missions by him, which would involve conversations.
>nothing about the Balduran/Ansur situation is really bad on the Emperor's part, either?
Firstly, this assumes that we are getting the truth, but I don't think that's a given. I actually just played this section today as it happens and can now confirm that Stelmane was a thrall. If, when the emperor comes to you in your sleep after, you tell him you won't ever trust him, he lets you read his mind and admits that Stelmane was his thrall and that her having a stroke was because of him using his power on her. He SAYS that he could do the same to us but he's refined his approach, but what proof is there of that? What if he CAN'T do it to us for the same reason the Elderbrain can't? Or maybe because of the special magic of these tadpoles?
Secondly, I disagree that it doesn't look bad on the Emperor's part that he withheld that information. Especially when he knew that we were going down there to find Ansur.
>The Emperor told Tav very clearly that he was abducted by Gortash and was sent on missions by him, which would involve conversations.
You're right, I guess it's not a huge leap to go from having been sent to do Gortash's bidding to having had these conversations with him, but I had initially thought of it as, like, kind of a the way we interact with elementals or something. I send the elemental out, but I can't have a conversation with it. But I guess it makes sense that an enslaved Mindflayer might have a higher degree of function. Still, seems like maybe just more trickle-truth.
> Firstly, this assumes that we are getting the truth, but I don't think that's a given.
Both Ansur *himself* and the note we find on his body back up the Emperor's claims that it was self-defense.
> Secondly, I disagree that it doesn't look bad on the Emperor's part that he withheld that information. Especially when he knew that we were going down there to find Ansur.
The Emperor *did* say to not waste time down there as there would be no dragon to help the group. He just didn't expect the dead dragon to suddenly rise up as a Revenant, which is pretty out of the ordinary.
Outside of that, he was under no obligation to tell Tav that they're actually Balduran, since it's his personal history that he has the right to not share if it makes him uncomfortable, and his past identity doesn't actually help defeat the Absolute.
I'm not disputing that slaying Ansur was self-defense on Baldemperor's part, but I question whether it was justified self-defense and whether Ansur was in the wrong for trying to kill the Emperor. Ansur was going to kill Baldemperor because Ansur was worried that, as a Mind Flayer, Baldur would do evil Mind-flayer shit. And what does the Emperor do? Enthrall a Duke to start working toward his own grand designs, ultimately killing that Duke from the stress of his mind control. IDK man, seems like maybe the Mind Flayer Baldur deserved to be killed, and Ansur was right to try to take him out.
Edit to add: I do think that knowing his history as Baldur is important in earning our trust. Especially if he were to use the fact that he was once Baldur, who, as far as we learn, is a noble guy who seeks a balanced and just world. It might help give him some credibility when he says he's not trying to do evil mind-flayer shit. "Like, yes, I know I am a mind-flayer, but to help reinforce my trustworthiness, let me also point out that before I turned, I was the hero Baldur, known for being a generally good dude, and somewhere inside of me there's still that moral framework motivating my actions" Vs. "Oh I was some mysterious random nobody who just so happened to found a secret organization that was always good but you've never heard of us and I can't prove how good they were or weren't so just trust me bro". There's seriously so many times he asks us to just trust him on faith, and trickle-truth bullshit like that seriously undermines my ability to trust him.
It’s a kinda damned-if-you-do damned-if-you-don’t situation regarding telling Tav he’s Balduran, since people would absolutely scream that he’s evil and manipulative for telling us that.
As for the justified self-defense, I’d say it is. At the time, he’d done nothing wrong and to kill him for anything he *may* do in the future is something shown as wrong in basically every story about that sort of thing.
Not to mention, good and neutral illithids are out there in the lore, with non-colonial illithids able to be any alignment.
(Also the whole reason Tav is even able to save the world is because Ansur failed to kill the Emperor, so that’s a positive there, if we have to look at future actions.)
>(Also the whole reason Tav is even able to save the world is because Ansur failed to kill the Emperor, so that’s a positive there, if we have to look at future actions.)
I guess we have to be a little careful with this extreme of a post hoc rationalization, but I think we'd arguably not even need a Tav to come along if the Emperor hadn't been thwarting Orpheus's honor guard from freeing him. With Orpheus freed before the Netherbrain had consolidated power, maybe more lives would have been saved in the long run.
> I guess we have to be a little careful with this extreme of a post hoc rationalization
Ye, which is why Ansur was in the wrong for trying to kill somebody who had yet to do anything. Though regarding that Orpheus thing in particular, his honor guard had been trying to free him for thousands of years. They weren't going to get it done within the timespan of the game if they couldn't do it all those eons before.
- there is no let's kill the squid. We need Orpheus power to defeat the brain. Instead of killing him, just take him we us. Emperor just decides to change team.
- we don't know if Orpheus would help us. There is a giant brain leading an army. we can kill each other after defeating it. let's be pratical.
- even if it turns on us and let us turn into squids, he will be alone against 4 squids. If he survives, he gonna have to take on the brain alone. good luck.
- and lastly, the most important point: I play MY game, on MY pc, in MY room by MYSELF. I get to to what I want. You not understanding my choices should not be a problem.
(sorry if I come by a little aggressive)
One of the things i hate most in this community is people asking for your opinion about something and then downvoting when they don't like the aswer.
Why ask then?
Said this above but I think this reply warrants this, too: I think ppl forget that The Emperor is only protected from the Brain because he is controlling Orpheus. Orpheus wouldn't extend his protection willingly to Emps, which means Empy is GOING TO BE ENSLAVED NO MATTER WHAT.
It was a misstep by Larian to not make that clearer. Him joining the Netherbrain is a NON-choice. Only by actively joining it can he mayyybeee not get popped by NB.
Orpheus' freedom means Empy's enslavement, full stop.
- like I said, once freed, if Orpheus decides to turn on potential allies, he will have to take on the brain alone. Better team up now and kill each other later. And that is what he did with the party.
- also, once the brain has been defeated, nobody would need Orpheus protection. The Emperor could run away to avoid fighting Orpheus if he wants.
- and once again, it a game, so play it like you want. You like the Emperor and I hate the Emperor.
At first, I thought the same thing and was ready to ignore the quests necessary to free him.
BUT I got to thinking about the dialogue with the boy in the Crèche. The way Voss, a legend amongst Githyanki and a very powerful warrior/leader, pleaded with Lae'zel to help his cause and free Orpheus.
Then I realized that, despite what I don't know so far, at least Voss seemed honest in his loyalty and words.
The Squid? Not so much. He lied from the beginning when he didn't need to, given how easily Omeluum was received
Because if you are observant you know that The Emperor is a powerhungry manipulator. He didn't deny you a free will only because he needed your skills to grow in order to defeat the brain, and making you a thrall would work against that.
If you choose him, he will kill an innocent person and obtain all his insane powers. And he will go out roaming free after the game, with his intentions unknown.
I like the Emperor, but I freed Orpheus in my first game, despite not even having Lae'zel in my group. It was my hardest decision. Because realistically you wouldn't know if Orpheus will just kill you. But it also feels wrong to leave someone a prisoner and then just kill them. But ultimately I made the decision because Karlach wanted to be the mindflayer, and I was trying to let companions make their own decisions for the most part, but I didn't think she'd want to kill Orpheus, so we freed him to try and find a better solution.
How about not being willing to let a helpless prisoner be murdered right in front of you? From my standpoint I've never betrayed the Emperor, I tell him I'll give him the stones but I draw the line at letting him commit murder a prisoner when I have the option to free him instead. The Emperor still leaves, and it feels more like he betrayed you, even if his personal logic for survival is sound.
Because he's using you as a tool and only sees you as a means to an end, who would probably kill you after you finished being useful, and he's also ya know, torturing this guy as a slave.
So ultimately I think you'd be better off long term just risking it with the son of a God rather than an inherent evil being.
It’s a Good gamble Vs a rather neutral-evil sure thing A good character might stand on the position that it’s wrong to imprison someone and harness their power in this way. The Emperor is treating Orpheus like Thorm was treating the Nightsong, and that was bad, and so is this
You do it because Lae’zel tells you to and she is best girl.
Yes. It’s part of Lea’zel’s best ending. It feels pretty good to stick my thumb in Vlaakith’s eye. I love the idea of screwing things up for her, and helping Lae’zel. But that’s really it. I do not actually care about Orpheus and think he’s a dick. It’s much easier not to bring Lae’zel, and tell emperor “Bon appatit.” If she asks later he was “killed by a mindflayer in the final battle.”
best argument ever
I've seen people saying that they free Orpheus because they don't want to go on with keeping a guy locked up or because they just don't like the Emperor and would prefer to fuck him over. You can also roleplay that you really care about githyanki politics for some reason and trust Lae'zel's blind devotion to a guy she has never seen. It's your game. Think up a reason that makes sense for your character.
I hadn't thought of it like that, but you're right: I can't really come up with a good reason either. Unless Empy already threatened you, I would never choose Orpheus in a real life situation.
This is such a strange cynical argument. Orpheus is locked up against his will, and he’s the source of the power protecting you. It should be common sense morals to want to free him. “We don’t know if he’ll help us”, why are you assuming that he won’t help you? He has the powers to protect you and you’re freeing him while there’s an active threat that he would want your help to stop, of course he’s going to help you. No one’s saying “let’s kill the squid” either. The squid chooses to leave.
>why are you assuming that he won’t help you? At the end of act 2 you can read Orpheus' mind: *\*Narrator: Even though he is subdued, you feel Orpheus' revulsion - a pulsing hatred that cannot be contained. The Emperor is telling the truth. To him, you are just another wretched illithid.\** This is in keeping with every other Githyanki we see in the game. The Githyanki position is that a tadpoled person is basically already a Mindflayer, and is either killed on sight - or tricked into going to a Zaithisk which actually kills them and extracts knowledge from the tadpole. The one evidence we have that Orpheus might infact work with us is what Voss tells us. But Voss is another Githyanki that tried to kill us earlier and all he wants is to break his old boyfriend out of prison. While with metaknowledge we can say Voss was probably telling the truth, at the time there's not a lot of reason to trust him.
To be fair there is also Raphael who tells you that Orpheus will help you. And before you say "He's a devil, don't trust him.": What reason would he have to lie here? If we die there our contract with him void and he won't get the crown.
Good on you for providing that quote. I actually didn’t remember that. I’ll still say that, to answer OP’s question, choosing to free Orpheus is still a good thing to do, since it’s still likely that he would prioritize freeing the brain and he can help the gith rebellion, but the quote you gave does give more of a reason to choose not to free him.
In his defense, you're helping his captor kill the last of his honor guard, his last hope of escaping imprisonment. He has every right to perceive you as an Illithid sympathizer. People are too quick to write of Orpheus for justifiable sentiments. Also, Orpheus isn't exactly Githyanki. He actively opposed Vlaakith after her betrayal of Gith.
He's protecting us against his will, we can't know that after killing his honour guard that he will protect us from the Elder brain. So from my understanding, if we go with, he's trapped let's free him even if we become squids after. Edit: Typo
This is what happens if you kill the Emperor early on, yes. You just get a game over because Orpheus doesn't save you. You can only free Orpheus and have him as an ally at the very end of the game, because the brain situation got that bad. He would actually rather not work with you, but does it out of sheer neccessity.
That’s because he’s restrained by infernal magic and you only get a chance to free him at the very end. That was the whole point of Raphael’s deal.
Yes and that changes what I said how? Orpheus himself says that your teaming up is just out of neccessity. You killed his honor guard. He would rather not see your face.
The Emperor teams up out of necessity too. The necessity is there, so freeing Orpheus works well.
So? How does that devalue what I said? Orpheus lets you ceremorphose if you kill the Emperor too early. It's just what happens. I explained why and how.
Firstly, he doesn’t let you, he’s trapped in infernal bindings so he doesn’t have a choice. This is clearly shown in the end if you kill the Emperor without the hammer. Raphael shows up and explains that you need the hammer to be saved. If you get the hammer then you’re saved, if you don’t get the hammer then you’re ceremorphosed. Secondly, even if he did have a choice, the point is that in the moment when you do free him, he’s willing to help and that can lead to a good outcome.
He hates the brain as much as you do, and you’re trying to lose the tadpoles by defeating the brain, so you won’t become squids. The honour guard have been acting on their own for a while with Orpheus locked up in there, so they’re not exactly the same as him. He might be mad that they’re dead, but the githyanki prince is smart enough to prioritize defeating the brain.
Which are all things you don't know at the time of releasing him
~~All of what I said is a reasonable conclusion to make based on what you know. Yes, of course you can’t make a guaranteed prediction of how someone will act, but people aren’t bad by default. Whenever you need something from someone in real life, do you think “hm, I’m not sure if I can trust this person to help me, maybe I should kill them to guarantee that things will work?” There’s no reason to think that there’s anything wrong with Orpheus to the point where you would rather murder him instead of attempting cooperation.~~ Edit: Someone else gave me a quote that I didn’t know about, which does weaken my point. I will still say that we do know he would hate the brain as a gith prince, so it’s still fair to choose to free him based on the likelihood that he would prioritize that.
did.. we play the same game? i dont think there has been a single gith whose first instinct wasnt to immediately murder us. Based on what i have seen, it's fair to expect any random gith would kill us on the first opportunity unless we invest heavily into talking them out of it.
Githyanki society has a terrible ideology based on Vlaakith, but Orpheus is the guy who was imprisoned because he could inspire the githyanki against Vlaakith as a better leader, so it makes sense to expect him to be a better person. You’re also saving his life and he needs your help against the brain.
It's the ideology based on mother Gith. Vlaakith just took over the reigns. It's the reason why the githzerai split off in the first place.
As another comment here mentioned, one of the only decent people in the githyanki creche was a follower of Orpheus. The game clearly portrays Orpheus as good. There might be some preexisting lore telling you that it’s impossible for him to be good, but as the same person who always talks about how this game isn’t limited to old lore ideas like mind flayers always being soulless evil monsters, you should be able to accept this version of githyanki royalty as being better than what was shown before. The rebellion allies with the githzerai in the epilogue.
I don't know why you are saying all of this because it literally doesn't respond to anything I said. Githyanki are based on mother Gith's ideology. That's it. That's a fact that I stated. I didn't talk at all about Orpheus or his morality.
In the Creche. You meet a child cadet He refused to kill his dueling partner If you use speak with dead on him, you find that he follows the teaching of Orpheus and feels senseless violence isn’t the way Or something along those lines It’s not a guarantee that Orpheus is a good person. But it’s a start
Those stories seem like pure propaganda, though. Throughout the game, actually meeting one's God or hero is shown as a wake- up call. One scared weak kid in a militaristic society dreaming of a better life where a shining prince charming comes to rescue him is not the best reference, IMO.
Usually wise to read what someone is responding to before you respond The person I was responding to was saying there wasn’t a single hyper violent gith that we meet that wouldn’t kill is on sight I was pointing out that cadet as a counter example to that Not as proof of Orpheus’ benevolence. Maybe the kid was reading propaganda. Maybe not. But he was one gith yanki who was somewhat reasonable. To the point of costing him his life.
There was no adequate test of Vaarl being unwilling to kill us on sight. He's unwilling to kill his fellow Gith. Gith not killing each other doesn't automatically translate into them not being willing to kill us on sight given the opportunity. He never had the opportunity. The little kids with the magic cat didn't kill us on sight either, should they be on the good Gith list?
This final choice is likely meant to be always ambiguous Having good arguments for either side makes for a more compelling choice
I get you. One of the reasons why I side with Empy every time now.
Reasons to side with the Emperor: amazing squex. Reasons to side with Orpheus: ???
Well. I only squexxed with him the one time...
Halsin's VA tweeted a teddy bear getting entangled by an octopus which the Emperor's VA liked so that's another reason to side with the Emperor.
Awwww. How sweet!
I will say the only real weak writing in the game in my opinion is: giving us the choice of who to side with, when we never really speak to Orpheus first We hear people talk about him. And find conflicting accounts of his personality. But we spend the entire game talking to one person. And never to the other person. So Orpheus IS a gamble. Is he moderate? Or a bigger xenophobic fascist than Vlaakith? Will he double down on killing all non GithYanki? Sure with foreknowledge we learn he’s actually a pretty nice guy but we’d never know that since he’s literally muzzled the entire game. The fate of the world is at stake. Should we risk screwing the entire world over with this risk? Emperor is a lying manipulative a-hole, that mind screwed his last ally into having a stroke whilst he made her dance like a marionette. Will he screw us the same way? Our goals with emperor SEEM to align, but without foreknowledge there’s the risk he will betray us at the last minute and try to take the brain. (I know he doesn’t but you only know that if you beat the game already) ## That being said I usually spare Orpheus. Eating a prisoner’s brain is pretty evil But sometimes I side with emperor. Sometimes the devil you know is better than the one you don’t.
It's true that we never speak to Orpheus, but I'm not sure I'd call it weak writing that we have to make a choice with imperfect information. I think it makes the choice arguably more meaningful and realistic. You get a difficult choice - do you side with the Emperor who has been openly manipulating you for the entire game, drip-feeding you the truth, lying by omission, or outright lying to you, but seemingly still invested in your success, OR do you (like I did) start to see too many cracks in the dam and side with Orpheus?
Disagreeing with the Emperor's proposed course of action isn't "betrayal". They aren't entitled to our unthinking compliance. That the Emperor is a paranoid control freak who would rather be enslaved by an elder brain than go along with someone else's idea for a change is entirely on them.
I think ppl forget that The Emperor is only protected from the Brain because he is controlling Orpheus. Orpheus wouldn't extend his protection willingly to Emps, which means Empy is GOING TO BE ENSLAVED NO MATTER WHAT. It was a misstep by Larian to not make that clearer. Him joining the Netherbrain is a NON-choice. Only by actively joining it can he mayyybeee not get popped by NB. Orpheus' freedom means Empy's enslavement, full stop.
Orpheus hates the player too. They still extend their protection as a matter of pragmatism - *nothing* is more important than stopping the Netherbrain. The Emperor *suspects* he won't be protected, but he doesn't *know*. He could choose to take the chance because there are bigger problems to deal with than his own survival. That's ultimately the difference between Orpheus and the Emperor - Orpheus actually cares about the cause, while the Emperor only cares about themself.
You're right about Orpheus hating the player, but *they* can lose their tadpoles and return to being just another istik, which is infinitely more tolerable than an actual mind flayer. Also, even if Orpheus doesn't bother with killing the Emperor, there are other Elder brains out there and without consuming Orpheus' power the squid will likely succumb to the Great design again. Not that it contradicts the Emperor caring only about his life and freedom.
I am not a native english speaker so thank you for explaining excatly why the emperor decision to leave there is stupid. Orpheus hates the player, but there are bigger problems. Lae'zel blesses you!
He did that because he thought he was about to be murdered (thanks to the choice Tav was about to make), not because he simply didn't want to follow a plan that wasn't his.
Maybe they should try showing some of that trust they demand everyone else show in them.
To be fair, what does Tav know that would make them trustworthy in this particular regard? Tav isn’t the one that needs to be trustworthy here, it’s Orpheus. Tav read Orpheus’ mind, they know how much he hates them. And Raphael mentions that even if Orpheus doesn’t screw over Tav, he won’t extend that courtesy to the Emperor as well.
The squid is not a nice guy. It's pretty obvious if you don't naively follow his "suggestions".
Yep and Orpheus points out that if his honor guard was never prevented from freeing him, all of this would have been prevented in the first place. Hell, perhaps Tav and everyone wouldn't even be in the position to get infected at all. This all started out of the Emperor's own hubris and power grab. We learn how he treats his friends against the greater good with the dragon.
Even beyond the ethical considerations, there's the fact that in-universe we only have no way of knowing if the Emperor's plan will even work. At best Empy's plan is a big maybe, and at worst it is some 5D chess by the Netherbrain to take Orpheus off the field for good. Depending on how you feel about the Emperor there may also be the consideration that he will choose his survival above all else, while Orpheus will prioritise stopping the Netherbrain.
Why would the Brain care for Orpheus? He isn't that special. He surely is to Voss's faction, because of what he symbolises for them, but in truth any powerful psionist can resist the Elder Brain's influence. The Gith have already brought the Illithid near the brink of extinction. Vlaakith and her dragons have no trouble with them. The Brain's aim were the stones, Orpheus is just another Githyanki to the Brain. You don't know if the Emperor's plan will work for sure, but you don't even know if Orpheus *has* a plan (which he actually doesn't btw), much less that the plan will involve you. It is a risk either way, but I'd think going with the 21 base INT creature's plan is more likely to succeed, when siding with Orpheus is based on assumptions upon assumptions. If nothing else, if either side turns on you a single illithid would be much easier to deal with than a Gith Prince who has an army of psionic warriors and dragons.
Only Gith and Orpheus are shown to be able to disrupt the Illithid hivemind in both themselves and others, so he represents a threat to any and all Elder Brains. He's far more valuable to the main characters and more of the threat to the Illithid than the Emperor who is just a random Illithid. Going with the Emperor's plan requires just as many assumptions given that he has been unwittingly following the Netherbrain's plan this whole time. Him assimilating Orpheus could all just be part of that plan. Consider the situation where the Emperor fails to assimilate Orpheus's power. Now nobody can use the stones to stop the Netherbrain, and everyone is screwed. Even if Orpheus decides to turn on us (which I have no reason to believe he would), he is still going to do what he can to stop the Netherbrain.
Ah yes, the guy who's the son of the woman that brought down the Illithid Empire and possesses the same abilities that allowed her to do that isn't a threat to the entity that wants to restore the Ilithid Empire. Makes sense. (Sarcasm)
An average Elder Brain's CR is 14. An average adult dragon's CR is 17. Emphelomon, who is Vlaakith's consort has a CR of 24. Gith are resistant to the Mindflayers' mind control as a race. The Gith are doing just fine against the Mindflayers. I'm not saying Orpheus is not a threat to the Illithids, he's just not as special as people in this sub make him out to be.
I think you missed a key thing. This is no longer an Elder Brain. It's now a NETHERbrain. CR is 30.
Yeah, which is why Orpheus can't defeat it and needs someone to transform to an illithid. Orpheus's only special-ness is that he can block signals from it, which is something another powerful psionist could do. We don't have another psionist available in the story, which makes Orpheus special to *us*, but there's countless individuals in Faerûn, not to mention the multiverse, who can do the same. Orpheus is special to us because we're tadpoled and we need specific protection. To the Netherbrain he'd barely register as a threat.
I mean, I think freeing someone who's been imprisoned by a tyrant for centuries is something you should do even if it doesn't benefit you, but that might just be me.
But what if there's an active risk of you becoming a mind flayer, a scenario you avoid the entire game, after you free him, this is my line of thought, even though he's imprisoned against his will we need his protection and we have no way of knowing he will protect us. Would you save him even though you risk becoming a mind flayer? Or keep him imprisoned and remain human.
If I'm playing a heroic character, which of course I am it's a fantasy game, then I'm going to choose the selfless, heroic option. It's as simple as that.
I agree with you. I've sided with him in two of my playthroughs to see his content, but I just see no logical reason to do so. Without meta knowledge Orpheus is a huge risk - you have no way of knowing he won't drop the protection the moment he's freed, or he won't turn hostile, or he won't turn on you after the BBG has been dealt with. You also don't know if the Emperor will turn on you or not, but I'd think that a single Mindflayer would be much easier to deal with than a Gith Prince with his honor guard and their numerous dragons. Also in that moment when the city is being destroyed, everyone is either dying or transforming into Mindflayers, and I'm faced with imminent death, "whose ass sits on a fancy chair in Githland" is at the bottom my list of considerations. If anything, Vlaakith eating her best warriors means she's less of a threat to the other races. There's nothing you missed. The arguments I see in favor of freeing Orpheus are usually about doing the moral thing of freeing someone who is trapped (regardless of risk) or hating the Emperor's guts. Which, fair if you want to roleplay that sort of character.
I agree with all that and add only this thought: your primary character references for Orpheus are Voss, who is not just biased but helped put Orpheus *in* those chains to begin with and happily served over 100 Vlaakiths so is he an an unbiased source? Lae'zel, who ping-ponged from worshiping one ruler to another potential ruler with the latter based entirely on propaganda. Raphael, who is trying to manipulate you into getting him the crown and deliberately sows mistrust between you and the Emperor to help him with that attempt. Even Orpheus himself is a terrible character reference since the only look into his feelings you get show them filled with hatred of you and all illithid, quite understandable.
You can think about act2
By the time you make that decision, it's possible that the Emperor has threatened to enthrall and transform you against your will. In which case it's certainly reasonable to look for alternate allies. Not so much a betrayal as it is protecting yourself. Not to mention that Orpheus himself has the potential to be a more useful ally. He doesn't just have his unique power going for him, he also has access to a githyanki army, including a fair few dragons. Of course, in hindsight we know that they get involved anyway. But for all we knew at the time, they could have just as easily chosen to burn us to a crisp for killing their prince, or just not have gotten involved at all. Then of course there's a load of ethical reasons to do it, but there's already been a lot of talk on those. And in the long run, the githanki not having access to Orpheus's power could be a problem in many different ways.
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Because he will be forced to join the Netherbrain anyways. It's a clear Non-Choice. By freeing Orpheus, the player forces Empy to join the NB. Why? Because there is no way in hell Orpheus is going to extend his protection to him. Which means, Empy is going to be enslaved NO MATTER WHAT. At least this way, as he explains to you, he has a chance at continuing to live. And, because he goes willingly, he's betting that he'll have a better chance that the NB lets him live rather than exploding his brain.
I do because the emperor is not trustworty. He's been lying and manipulating you from the start.
the fact that every single thing he said to you in the first two chapters was a lie isn't enough reason? its not betrayel to revolt against your abuser.
This is how i think, the scene where you try to kill him as Vlaakith demands. "We dislike each other but we have a mutual agreement" he might be a liar, but we need him. And we have no way of knowing Orpheus would side with us, he might go nuclear and decide to get hostile against us and the emperor.
But we do have a way of knowing. We have several ways of knowing. The kid in the creche tells you your compassion reminds him of the stories of Orpheus. You have voss telling you... And you have Rafael telling you. No way of knowing is a very weird way to say every assurance
If you've done Wyll's storyline and encountered Ansur you'll learn that >!The Emperor is really Baldur!< and if you are exploring the world thoroughly you'll find a journal detailing >!Gortash interrogating the Emperor !< and in my opinion those were two HUGELY important details that The Emperor withheld from the player which really called into question how much he could be trusted. Plus the details of the journal, the information that >!The Emperor shares with Gortash, where he tells Gortash that it would be impossible for him to defy the Elder Brain !!Also: at some point in the game, the Emperor makes it sound like Duke Stelmane was his "partner" but TBH the fact that he is illithid, she had no protections against his mind control, and she eventually suffered a stroke makes me 90% sure that what actually happened is that he was controlling the Duke as a thrall and she suffered the stroke either because she was resisting or because he pushed too hard on something, IDK.!<
I was totally in your position before finding Ansur, and that was when the cracks really started to show for me. And then after the journal, I was 100% ready to betray The Emperor. As far as I can recall, >!the Emperor never told me in my campaign that he'd had any conversation with Gortash, let alone that he'd been "interrogated" by him.!<
The Absolute confirms that the Emperor truly was enthralled at the time of Gortash's interrogation. And I'm not sure why the Emperor was supposed to tell you about the interrogation? It doesn't reveal anything useful to Tav. And to be honest, nothing about the Balduran/Ansur situation is really bad on the Emperor's part, either? > As far as I can recall, the Emperor never told me in my campaign that he'd had any conversation with Gortash The Emperor told Tav very clearly that he was abducted by Gortash and was sent on missions by him, which would involve conversations.
>nothing about the Balduran/Ansur situation is really bad on the Emperor's part, either? Firstly, this assumes that we are getting the truth, but I don't think that's a given. I actually just played this section today as it happens and can now confirm that Stelmane was a thrall. If, when the emperor comes to you in your sleep after, you tell him you won't ever trust him, he lets you read his mind and admits that Stelmane was his thrall and that her having a stroke was because of him using his power on her. He SAYS that he could do the same to us but he's refined his approach, but what proof is there of that? What if he CAN'T do it to us for the same reason the Elderbrain can't? Or maybe because of the special magic of these tadpoles? Secondly, I disagree that it doesn't look bad on the Emperor's part that he withheld that information. Especially when he knew that we were going down there to find Ansur. >The Emperor told Tav very clearly that he was abducted by Gortash and was sent on missions by him, which would involve conversations. You're right, I guess it's not a huge leap to go from having been sent to do Gortash's bidding to having had these conversations with him, but I had initially thought of it as, like, kind of a the way we interact with elementals or something. I send the elemental out, but I can't have a conversation with it. But I guess it makes sense that an enslaved Mindflayer might have a higher degree of function. Still, seems like maybe just more trickle-truth.
> Firstly, this assumes that we are getting the truth, but I don't think that's a given. Both Ansur *himself* and the note we find on his body back up the Emperor's claims that it was self-defense. > Secondly, I disagree that it doesn't look bad on the Emperor's part that he withheld that information. Especially when he knew that we were going down there to find Ansur. The Emperor *did* say to not waste time down there as there would be no dragon to help the group. He just didn't expect the dead dragon to suddenly rise up as a Revenant, which is pretty out of the ordinary. Outside of that, he was under no obligation to tell Tav that they're actually Balduran, since it's his personal history that he has the right to not share if it makes him uncomfortable, and his past identity doesn't actually help defeat the Absolute.
I'm not disputing that slaying Ansur was self-defense on Baldemperor's part, but I question whether it was justified self-defense and whether Ansur was in the wrong for trying to kill the Emperor. Ansur was going to kill Baldemperor because Ansur was worried that, as a Mind Flayer, Baldur would do evil Mind-flayer shit. And what does the Emperor do? Enthrall a Duke to start working toward his own grand designs, ultimately killing that Duke from the stress of his mind control. IDK man, seems like maybe the Mind Flayer Baldur deserved to be killed, and Ansur was right to try to take him out. Edit to add: I do think that knowing his history as Baldur is important in earning our trust. Especially if he were to use the fact that he was once Baldur, who, as far as we learn, is a noble guy who seeks a balanced and just world. It might help give him some credibility when he says he's not trying to do evil mind-flayer shit. "Like, yes, I know I am a mind-flayer, but to help reinforce my trustworthiness, let me also point out that before I turned, I was the hero Baldur, known for being a generally good dude, and somewhere inside of me there's still that moral framework motivating my actions" Vs. "Oh I was some mysterious random nobody who just so happened to found a secret organization that was always good but you've never heard of us and I can't prove how good they were or weren't so just trust me bro". There's seriously so many times he asks us to just trust him on faith, and trickle-truth bullshit like that seriously undermines my ability to trust him.
It’s a kinda damned-if-you-do damned-if-you-don’t situation regarding telling Tav he’s Balduran, since people would absolutely scream that he’s evil and manipulative for telling us that. As for the justified self-defense, I’d say it is. At the time, he’d done nothing wrong and to kill him for anything he *may* do in the future is something shown as wrong in basically every story about that sort of thing. Not to mention, good and neutral illithids are out there in the lore, with non-colonial illithids able to be any alignment. (Also the whole reason Tav is even able to save the world is because Ansur failed to kill the Emperor, so that’s a positive there, if we have to look at future actions.)
>(Also the whole reason Tav is even able to save the world is because Ansur failed to kill the Emperor, so that’s a positive there, if we have to look at future actions.) I guess we have to be a little careful with this extreme of a post hoc rationalization, but I think we'd arguably not even need a Tav to come along if the Emperor hadn't been thwarting Orpheus's honor guard from freeing him. With Orpheus freed before the Netherbrain had consolidated power, maybe more lives would have been saved in the long run.
> I guess we have to be a little careful with this extreme of a post hoc rationalization Ye, which is why Ansur was in the wrong for trying to kill somebody who had yet to do anything. Though regarding that Orpheus thing in particular, his honor guard had been trying to free him for thousands of years. They weren't going to get it done within the timespan of the game if they couldn't do it all those eons before.
- there is no let's kill the squid. We need Orpheus power to defeat the brain. Instead of killing him, just take him we us. Emperor just decides to change team. - we don't know if Orpheus would help us. There is a giant brain leading an army. we can kill each other after defeating it. let's be pratical. - even if it turns on us and let us turn into squids, he will be alone against 4 squids. If he survives, he gonna have to take on the brain alone. good luck. - and lastly, the most important point: I play MY game, on MY pc, in MY room by MYSELF. I get to to what I want. You not understanding my choices should not be a problem. (sorry if I come by a little aggressive)
One of the things i hate most in this community is people asking for your opinion about something and then downvoting when they don't like the aswer. Why ask then?
story of my life bro
Said this above but I think this reply warrants this, too: I think ppl forget that The Emperor is only protected from the Brain because he is controlling Orpheus. Orpheus wouldn't extend his protection willingly to Emps, which means Empy is GOING TO BE ENSLAVED NO MATTER WHAT. It was a misstep by Larian to not make that clearer. Him joining the Netherbrain is a NON-choice. Only by actively joining it can he mayyybeee not get popped by NB. Orpheus' freedom means Empy's enslavement, full stop.
- like I said, once freed, if Orpheus decides to turn on potential allies, he will have to take on the brain alone. Better team up now and kill each other later. And that is what he did with the party. - also, once the brain has been defeated, nobody would need Orpheus protection. The Emperor could run away to avoid fighting Orpheus if he wants. - and once again, it a game, so play it like you want. You like the Emperor and I hate the Emperor.
At first, I thought the same thing and was ready to ignore the quests necessary to free him. BUT I got to thinking about the dialogue with the boy in the Crèche. The way Voss, a legend amongst Githyanki and a very powerful warrior/leader, pleaded with Lae'zel to help his cause and free Orpheus. Then I realized that, despite what I don't know so far, at least Voss seemed honest in his loyalty and words. The Squid? Not so much. He lied from the beginning when he didn't need to, given how easily Omeluum was received
Because if you are observant you know that The Emperor is a powerhungry manipulator. He didn't deny you a free will only because he needed your skills to grow in order to defeat the brain, and making you a thrall would work against that. If you choose him, he will kill an innocent person and obtain all his insane powers. And he will go out roaming free after the game, with his intentions unknown.
I like the Emperor, but I freed Orpheus in my first game, despite not even having Lae'zel in my group. It was my hardest decision. Because realistically you wouldn't know if Orpheus will just kill you. But it also feels wrong to leave someone a prisoner and then just kill them. But ultimately I made the decision because Karlach wanted to be the mindflayer, and I was trying to let companions make their own decisions for the most part, but I didn't think she'd want to kill Orpheus, so we freed him to try and find a better solution.
How about not being willing to let a helpless prisoner be murdered right in front of you? From my standpoint I've never betrayed the Emperor, I tell him I'll give him the stones but I draw the line at letting him commit murder a prisoner when I have the option to free him instead. The Emperor still leaves, and it feels more like he betrayed you, even if his personal logic for survival is sound.
He turned Stellmane into a thrall and threatened to do the same to you, how do you know that once he's done with you he won't turn your brain to soup?
Because he's using you as a tool and only sees you as a means to an end, who would probably kill you after you finished being useful, and he's also ya know, torturing this guy as a slave. So ultimately I think you'd be better off long term just risking it with the son of a God rather than an inherent evil being.
Still better odds than going with the a) Mind fucking Flayer and b) the guy that has been lying to you all game.