The Emperor is all about personal survival. So if you go against him, he assumes you will fail and as such his best chance of survival, even as a thrall of the brain, is to join him.
Ye but that is a very simple minded decision, specially considering the higer mental power of an Illithid and that all he have to do is make a deal with the prince: freedom for both in exchange for a truce untill the netherbrain is dead. This would be the best bet for both of them as the prince stay a gith, being able to "free" his people (by lore he is the same as his mother and wanted to do exactly what she did, but Vlakit did it first) and the emperor stay free.
@@kain7759 the emperor knows that the prince would never let him live afterwards, and most likely wouldn't even accept the alliance with him. The emperor states that only inside the prism he could steal the power from orpheus while he's imprisoned. Orpheus knows he is being used, he's incapacitated but conscious. For a truce to be made, Orpheus would have to be willingly protecting the Emperor with his power, an illithid who was using him. The emperor knows that either of these would happen: 1-he isn't protected and falls immediately under elder brain control, where he would be in overwhelming disadvantage (orpheus+party) 2-he is protected, but still attacked by Orpheus. That would force either him or Orpheus to die, which woul be doom either way. 3- even if a truce is made, he would then still be hunted down as a illithid and be right in the middle of an army of gith. The problem is that these things are not presented well and to not punish the players who sacrifice themselves, Orpheus acts tolerant. He initially is confrontational and doesn't want to help you. Even if you romance Lae'zel, and turn into a mindflayer for her and her prince, she says that's too much. I think the Emperor does what is logical to his survival, it's just that the game rushes those things to keep the momentum of the finale so it's not so clear
@@TheEvilErmine As a matter of fact he does not kill you of you free him as an illithid, so no he would not. The opportunity of killing the brain AND return to return to his people as a gith Is worth too much ti let It slide. He Is not stupid
If you go to his room in baldurs gate you see his true nature he was manipulating you the whole time he sees you as a puppet and if you sleep in his room you will get that cutscene
A freed Orpheus means a unified Gith society. A unified Gith society is NOT a good thing for a rogue illithid. The Emperor knows he will be hunted (he did literally imprison their true King after all).
@@edyburkay yes, the mindflayer that hosts her memories and the imprint of her personality that was left behind after the parasite consumed her is very happy.
I aligned myself with the Emperor every time after making the mistake of trying to please Lae’zel the first play through. No regrets! He saved the day and no one had to become a mind flayer!
@@JoshJr98laezel really grew on me start of act 2 after the creche but man ... her throwing tantrums whenever you don't agree with her 100% is so fucking pathetic and annoying. We know nothing about the prince and you want me to trust he wont butcher us on sight rather than trust the guy who's been keeping us alive this whole time?
Honestly have no idea why people think Orpheus is a better choice than Emperor, not only is Orpheus just as much of a tyrant as Vlaakith, but Emperor is literally the guy thats been helping you the whole time, why betray him just to give the Gith a near equally bad new leader
I thought honestly he was flawed. He was telling us to gather allies for the battle then bitches and moans about how I need to hurry up to the brain. Like dude, what do you want? Raphael said it clearly "The Emperor gives the carrot and the stick" and it's so true with these choices. I felt The Emperor character went astray in the Third act because this whole time, I thought, we want to become powerful but instead he wants us to bumrush into the thing. What an ass.
the repeated brain quakes make it clear to him that if you don't take control of the brain quickly, it will go rogue. he wants you to hurry up because it would be disastrous if that were to happen. he tells you to gather allies in act 2, before the quakes happen (or at least before we can feel them), but when he realizes what's going on he gets more urgent.
@Foxr- fun fact, if you never eat any worms, you don't have to roll to avoid becoming ugly. you do lose out on some nice upgrades, so you win some you lose some
There is a book by the mind rats in the sewers of the lower city. It’s an interview where gortash is asking the emporer questions about himself and the emporer says that “He will do anything for the elder brain and his kind”
Kinda douche move by the emperor, specially if you build up your relationship with him. I thought it was possible for him to see other perspectives more openly.
If you hadn't realized, it was all fake. He sees other perspectives perfectly well but he doesn't care. Everyone is just a tool for him to manipulate. Being able to see other perspectives merely makes him more skilled at manipulation.
So either person I chose Emperor or Orpheus I can still go to avernus with Karlach and Wyll and also turn Gale into a god? or if I want that specific ending am I forced to side with a specific one?
hi, just to confirm, I just finished the game choosing to free Orpheus (I became an illithid) - and I could go to Avernus with Karlach :) Not sure about the other endings, this was my first run.
Larian studios has a forum thread saying you can have the emperor wake orpheus up and talk to him. If you pass a hard skill check and you can convince them to team up but I can't find anything online to support that. Does that option exist?
I think you misread that entire thread from way back in September. That thread was about asking for a option to side with both. Said option doesn't exist in the current game.
@@crimsoncrusader4829 But it is him.. There are documents that he was sent as part of the exploration team. Luck would had it that his squad was the one that came into contact with the artifact. As to why he decided to slaughter the rest of the Mindflayer crew instead of releasing them from indoctrination? (We can only speculate as to why - he couldn't risk mutiny perhaps?)
@@bryon29able you just proved my point by saying you didn’t do everything in act 1, also I’m pretty sure the value of the game is replaying it and with the origin characters, there is more content if you actually delve into it instead of just spamming clicking through the cutscenes
