I was about to say this. Then I thought about it. What causes him to NOT be under the influence anymore? If this all holds true which I like it short of the eyeball thing.
That and if you're in the character creator to build the dream guardian, it has a very purple pinkish tint, making it somewhat hard to get some colours of hair the way you want it. it could be the astral prism doing that cuz I think if you free orpius and fight the emperor later he has orange eyes again. although it don't quite make sese to my why he would willingly join the nether brain knowing it will only enslave him again if he ever was truly free of it in the first place.
Something I find interesting is that Orpheus never actually gave him free will - it was the Elder Brain letting him off of his leash when he found Shadowheart with the Astral Prism. He has to stay in there to enthrall Orpheus so that he can ‘protect’ allies from the voice of the Elder Brain. Also Raphael basically confirms it was the Emperor if you’re the Dark Urge - if you say ‘I’m not scared of the Emperor because I’ve looked upon Bhaal himself’ he says the Emperor is the whole reason you’re in this mess. Raphael never lies to you throughout the game. He may speak in half truths but he never lies.
@@54DrHouse Yep. The Netherbrain even confirms if you confront it with the Emperor. I mean, you still destroy it, but...arguably you (and the Emperor) have been following its Grand Plan all along.
@@OthelloSilvermoon i meant confirms it was the emperor in the opening cutscene. Obviously Orin infects the DUrge but everything else is 100% the emperor. By the way, the Emperor knows EXACTLY WHO YOU ARE as Dark Urge but doesn’t tell you
The emperor was so sketchy the entire game. Multiple lies to cover everything plus the fact that he lets Tav believe that Orpheus will be so petty to kill a thrall when his actual motif is to save anyone from the mindflayers to the point that he has to sacrifice himself in a certain scenario.
I'm pretty sure the only reason Orpheus doesn't kill us when we free him is because he has no other choice at that point. He even tells us we should have let his guard kill us because we were infected instead of fighting against it. So I don't think the emperor lied when he said Orpheus would kill us. It's just that once the elderbrain became a netherbrain, Orpheus couldn't fight it alone and needed our help.
@@cynaxis4002Also, Orpheus literally kills you by removing your mindflayer protection if you sit back and let his honor guard free him...the emperor is 100 percent vindicated in that moment
@@emilyyang2229 Simple self-preservation. Illithds don't broadly subscribe to a conventional spirituality and thus have less altruistic/selfless incentives like self-sacrifice or honour. Alongside the implication that they flat out don't have a soul, it makes sense. In that sense, Illithids are fairly "simple" and are firstly focussed on basic survival. When the Empire's Elder brains shot the species back in time, it wasn't out of loving compassion for the tadpoles, but the logical choice to preserve the species. The Emperor (in retaining his individuality) wants to be free and act out his own designs/ambitions and thus wishes the Elder Brain to go. It taking over also ruins his own desires to control Baldur's Gate again. His ideal scenario would be enslaving the Netherbrain, but he both understands the dangers and (wisely) realizes that the group of humanoid adventurers won't be on board, so he focusses on destroying it (hence his "surprise" when we offer to help him enslave it). If we side with Orpheus, he understandably reasons that the group of enraged fanatics he'll bent on rendering Illithid extinct won't be too keen on cooperating with one and it's "thralls" and will kill him without even hearing him out. If we insist, he goes back to the brain because he has no confidence you will succeed without him/Orpheus will ruin it by killing everyone... which he 100% would have if he wasn't left with no other options. As an Illithid, the Grand Design will welcome the Emperor while the rest of Faerun will hunt him down; it's not what he *wants* but it'll keep him alive, and as an Illithid, that comes first.
And if you turn against the Emperor he says, "Then you leave me no choice but to side with the Elder Brain." and his eyes TURN orange. I just assumed that his eyes are violet unless he is controlled by the Elder Brain, which means on board the Nautiloid he didn't have his own free will until he slipped into the orb. It would make as much sense as anything in 'game logic' goes.
though here's an idea, what if it's the other way around, the orange eyes are his natural color, and we always see them as purple because he's constantly using his mental powers to manipulate us, not trying to take direct control but more like the equivalent of constantly casting the "Friends" cantrip on us subtly pushing us to be more willing to go along with his plans/ideas and then when we go against him at the end they go back to orange as he doesn't see a reason to keep trying to manipulate us
You have the Mandela effect? His eyes didn't turn orange. In this scene his eyes still was purple even when he was entering his portal. And even in last fight where he joined the elder brain his eyes still was purple. Theory with orange=controlled just don't fit the facts
A possible solution to the eyes issue; Omeluum has yellow eyes, rather than the normal orange. Both Omeluum and the Emperor are 'rogue', meaning they're outside the control of an Elder Brain. There are several instances of mind control throughout the game, and a lot of it includes changing the victim's eyes, usually making them glow a "themed" colour. It's possible that the Emperor had the usual orange eyes in the opening because, at that time, he was still under the Nether Brain's control. When we see him later, he's rogue, allowing his eyes to return to their 'natural' purple colour.
I love the theory that the ring of mind shielding Omeluum has, because of its special effect in D&D (holding the wearers soul upon death), that Omeluum is unique in it's altruism because it's not a true mindflayer, because it still has its soul.
Many of us have come to this conclusion. My remaining question is what was the source of the connection breaking between the emperor and the nether brain? Great work on this video, I like it short of the color thing.
@danielericksen2679 the emperor was the first mind flayer that was sent to retrieve the Astral prism and getting it broke his link. That's probably the only outright truth the emperor tells us
@@_.Ok. He doesn't have a soul. Tadpole is taking over the body. It isn't transformation like werewolfs. It's literally parasite inside of you, eating you from the inside and then uses your carcass as their new body.
The Mind Flayer that Dror Ragzlin is trying to speak to is the same Mind Flayer you found dying in the beach wreckage. I know this because I used my fire breath to kill it then when I walked into the Goblin Camp I saw it's burnt corpse. EDIT: Another thing I want to add is that if you loot the Mind Flayer on the beach after killing it the one Dror Ragzlin is trying to speak to can't be looted. it will have the open chest icon indicating that you already looted it.
I’m gonna take a wild guess and say you also blew dror ragzlin up with barrels before seeing the mind flayer lol I’ve killed the beach mine flayer with firebolt every time and the one in the camp is never burned
This cutscene is very old and even Lae'zel has a slightly different design during that scene. It's possible that they didn't yet plan for the Emperor to have purple eyes, only later deciding to make this a defining distinction of his. Then they either forgot they gave him orange eyes in the cutscene or just couldn't remake the entire scene since it's pre-rendered.
The dreamguy/gal was originally a manifestation of the tadpole to lure your character into surrender and become a mindflayer. I liked that approach a lot more than this elaborate 'It was me all along!'
The timeline was always kinda murky. The emperors transformation would have happened well over 100 years ago. From what lore I could find the city was founded in 1356 DR. The emperor was transformed at some point after that not specified but probably within 10 years or so. Normal ceramorphosis only takes a week. The shadow curse happened 100 years before the game date. BG3 starts in the year 1494 DR. That is 138 years later. It is described that he returned to the city and acted independently for a while before being recaptured by gortash. He interacted with Stelmane who dies when you get to the city. Wyll describes meeting her when he was around 8. She would probably have only been at most 60-70 years old at this point or younger. So how long has it been since Gortash captured the emperor and put him back under the control of the absolute? Seems like it would have been around 20-30 years or so. So I guess the emperor only got his freedom back right at the start of the game. As soon as they found the prism. Its all very confusing and honestly it would probably need a whole ass video breaking down all the timelines.
Yeah. I've been trying to break down the timeline and it doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense. The Emperor was almost certainly returned to the Netherbrain relatively far in the past, since I'm guessing until he was returned, he kept the Knights of the Shield in power (which is referred to in a couple of letters). Almost certainly, Gortash's group couldn't instantly drive them into near oblivion, so at the least, it's been *years* since he was captured. We also know that he was recruited sometime before that to become part of the Knights of the Shield, but when that was, or who did it, is pretty murky. (It could have been relatively recently, it could have been decades or even centuries ago, considering that sometime in that time span they moved their headquarters.) It's also inferred that sometime in between he had some kind of situationship with Stelmane, who assumedly is still young enough to be alive as of the start of BG3, despite apparently being involved with him (and seemingly old enough that everyone was like, "yeah, she's having health problems, totally normal for a woman of her age") back when Wyll was around 8. (How old is Wyll suposed to be, anyway? The timelines look pretty different if he's 18 vs. 38.) My guess is that the writers didn't particularly think it through, so it's pretty contradictory, although I'd love a video of someone breaking it down in a way that's logical.
@@NinieneI think Wyll is 24? He was 17 when he made the pact with Mizora and was sent away and he’s been on his own as the Blade of Frontiers for seven years. I forgot where this was said, but it was said through in-game dialogue
Baldur's Gate is a good deal older than that. It was merely named something else to begin with, and renamed a bit later. A lot of info about Balduran is found in books in BG1.
@@Niniene Something else I learned is the Emperor was not always a character in the game. He didn't exist in the early versions of the early access title. Instead the companion was supposed to be the tadpole itself.
What's kinda dumb about the cutscene with the parasite being inserted into your character's eye is that it doesn't really work if you play as Dark Urge, because you find out later that it was inserted in you when you were in the colony under Moonrise, not while ont he ship.
Since the voice is male in the cinematic, we can always rationalize that the person being tadpoled as someone else. Since we don’t necessarily have a canon identity other than the Dark Urge, whose corpse we find.
@@TheFlyingPilgrim this kind of has to be true, no matter how much it smells like copium, because if we choose to play as Lae'Zel, well, it doesn't make much sense for the player character to be the one being infected at the end. Assuming this is a deliberate infection by the Emperor to make as many squadmates as possible who can serve him, it could be Gayle or Astarion... but if you try to figure out if it's Wyll or Karlach, things stop making sense because the ship didn't go into Avernus until after he stopped infecting people... who knows...
I thought it did still work. throughout the game, the narrator mentions that your brain is already riddled with holes, and that the new damage done by your parasite feels familiar. I think that the durge was double tadpoled. either orins tadpole was killed during durges torture, or the second (stronger?) tadpole placed in by the emperor killed the first. meaning the durge could have a second dead tadpole knocking around in their head.
@@christopherjones5700we know the nautiloid continued abducting people even after it all went to shit. It’s well within the realm of possibility that the two who were abducted received a tadpole from one of the other Mindflayers on the ship. From there, the Emperor simply assimilates them into that protection.
In the Astral Plane you can find a gith slate that depicts Raphael giving Vlaakith the prism: [Symbolic drawings, etched over a forgotten text. Two figures, one an imposing female with regal aspect, the other, a Devil, his face twisted with wry charm. Their hands meet in the exchange of an artefact - the Astral Prism.]
in act 3, after getting the emperors old clothes under the elfsong, there’s a line somewhere that the emperor says where he mentions that he personally made the armor he wears as he modeled it off the stuff you found.
I generally agree with what is being said in this video but i'd go a little bit farther on some points. I think the Absolute controlled the Emperor into infecting us. She reveals at the end of the game that she anticipated every twist and turn of the story. My understanding is that she rebelled very slightly aginst Gortash's commands in order to handpick the team than was eventuallly going to kill them (or some of it at least). She took personnal control of the Emperor, infected the player character and Lae'zel and maybe the rest of the crew then directed the emperor towards the prism; knowing he would slip from her grasp and would set in motion the events of the game that would eventually lead to the chosens downfall and consequently, her liberation from their grasp and her mutation into a netherbrain. This explains why the Emperor has orange eyes in the intro, why there is a dead mindflayer on the floor (the Emperor had to take control of the batch of tadpoles) and why he would then very conviniently "slip" into the astral prism. That's how i see it at least.
Cut the last part. After all, if the last command was to infect the party and he leaves to the next room (where you happen to stumble upon Shart who has the Prism, thus him "discovering it first" as he is the first of the absolute to legit find where it was, just omitting that it was Shar followers that likely stole it from one of the 3 Gith bases between the Ruins of Iniarv, Harbor and the Dessarin river if we follow Neverwinter Nights 2 presence of Githyanki), it would make sense that its the point where the prisms presence cut the connection just as he was free before the FF reject crew grabbed him and he took the chance to jump into it instead of risk losing the prism thus freedom.
is it too much to ask who put one of the Dead Three's Chosen on board that ship? Was he bumming around Sharess' Caress before getting bopped by a tentacle?
And if Durge is alive Netherbrain most likely also subttly manipulated events so that Durge will end up on the nautiloid. Remember, Durge was not infected by the Emperor, he was infected for around 2-3 years and basically feral, fighting the mental influence of mindflyers.
4:28 feels to me like the narrator is talking in general terms here. not saying that that is the specific mindflayer that put the tadpole in your head, but rather confirming that it is a mindflayer from the ship you came in on and by proxy responsible for the tadpole you have
Nobody gonna mention the armour IS a part of their skin and the emperors armour heavily HEAVILY suggests he's not illithid but a Ulitharid a prerequisite to an elder brain HE EVEN HAS THE STAFF THAT IS BORN WITH THEM if you make em join the brain (when they eat enough they place the staff under their chin and that staff becomes the tentacle/spine thing under the elder brains and every part of their body that isnt a brain gets dissolved and used as nutrients similar to ceramorphosis)
A few important details about Ulitharids that you missed: they have 6 tentacles, while regular Illithids and Emperor only have 4. Also, if I remember correctly, Ulitharids can naturally resist a regular Elder Brain themselves and leave the colony. Balduran would not have needed Ansur's help. So I don't think Emperor is really ulitharid. But Larian may have had it in mind as an early concept. That could explain these similarities. Also, the scene of the player turning into an illithid shows that the armor is created after the body (including skin) is formed. I suppose the emperor could have had it changed just because he wanted to.
@@ДенисЯковлев-ц1оYeah, he's definitely not a Ulitharid, but he's 100% some sort of elite ceremorphed flayer, most likely adorned by the Illithids themselves or the Elder Brain to look, be, and feel more elite as he was both Balduran, a good tactician, etc. So I'm assuming he was what Illithids have as some sort of general.
@@LightningsGames Ulitharids are old D&D lore. I'm not sure they have any references in the 5e era (the last 10-ish years or so), and may not still be canon. I'm not 100% sure when they were added to the mind flayer lore, but they were there at least since 2nd edition in the 90s.
The infernal chains binding Orpheus might be coming from Tiamat, not from Raphael, and might've been a secret part of Vlaakith's deal with Tiamat that resulted in Githyanki obtaining Red Dragons
There's one thing I don't understand, though This Vlaakith is not the one who betrayed Gith The Vlaakith we are dealing with is the 157th, and people talk about this Vlaakith like she's one and the same
@@FiguringOutFantasy Gith (the og queen) made a deal with Tiamom who at the time was the Archduke of the First, actively working as the dealer for big honcho Asmodeus (or against him by slacking, depends on adventure and setting). Gith got one of Tiamats personal fuckboys (whose limbs and/or body parts keep appearing as huge to gargantuan objects throughout the editions which makes me think either he knew Regenerate or his body really was sauced up with magic) and a army, but lost herself (and probably in the devilish way some sort of "and all of your direct descendants" deal), but her 2nd in command Vlaakith the 1st got to use said army of dragons to absolutely ruin the mindflayers day. Time passed and her successors took on the same name till 2nd edition Then between 2nd and 3rd edition, adventurers cucked the current Vlaakith to the point where she lost her Phylactery with its removal from her statblock features and nerfing her entire (sub)race (its destruction damaged the deadgod and is the explanation why Githyanki lost around 80% of their racial powers in 3.5 they had in 2nd edition going by adventure endings).
I'm still just more confused on the Moonrise timeline, we know the stonemason who built it for Ketheric was still around to see it falling into Sharran influence, so I'm assuming he was an elf also, but there's no mention of a mind flayer colony there already then. The treasure be buried was a chest in the tunnel so not some bigger secret. What treasure would Balduran have been looking for, back then? And would the Thorms have known? I just have so many questions about the timing of Isobel dying and things getting bad in Reithwin and the battle and how the other two Thorm kids are never mentioned anywhere else
Oh, I can clarify this for you: The timeline makes no sense and doesn't remotely hang together if you think about it all. There's a chance it was because of major plot changes happening late in development (which we know happened) and them just not having the time to back through and fit it all back together perfectly. Or it might be because different writing teams weren't coordinating their stuff as well as they should have (which we know happens in almost everything with multiple writers to at least some degree). But looking for answers will give you a headache because they aren't there. There's no way to make it work. It just literally doesn't work.
if you actually read enough of the documents scattered throughout the game you eventually learn that the emperor was the pilot of the nautiloid that crashed, which is how he was able to save Tav right at the beginning of the game. He had been tasked with exfiltrating the strike team that acquired the prism from the githyanki. When the elder brain finally reveals that the companions and the Emperor had been a part of the plan all along this is what it's referring to. It needed the prism to protect the companions from itself while it was still under the control of the netherstones. The Emperor was the one chosen to facilitate all of that because he believed himself to be beyond the influence of the elderbrain as long as he was protected by the prism. He was lying when he said he couldn't leave the prism like he lied about a lot of other things. The elder brain allowed him to believe the story he wanted to believe because it served as motivation for his assistance to the companions to acquire the netherstones and eventually free the brain from the control of the chosen.
What if the mind flayer ship we were in was taken by the emperor and his rebels. Why would there be a dead mind flayer in the intro? Didn't show any signs of the ship being damaged at all until the githyanki showed up. What if before the scene, the emperor entered that ship and took it and saw an opportunity to create more hosts for his rebellion against the brain. When we enter the fight, devils fighting the mind flayers. One of them talked to us to take over the noitoiliod. Mindless mind flayers can't even speak, but that one did before he was killed. A free will thinking mind flayers vs. the brain. Just a thought
Not how mindflayers work. Even under the influence of an elder brain mindflayers still have all their powers, including telepathy. Whether it would decide it was worth the energy to converse with you is another question though. Mindflayers generally see all other sentients as either cattle or threats. Do you talk to the cow you plan on turning into a steak?
Shadowheart and other Shar worshippers had raided the ship looking for the artifact Shadowheart has, they are probably responsible for the dead mind flayer if I had to guess.
That mindflayer tries to kill you too if you kill all enemies around you. It has been some time but he calls you something like thrall and that he doesnt need you anymore and attacks. So he is not really teaming with us, just only for time being for whatever reason
The elder brain says so, it says it sent the emperor to infect you and broke the emperor control to make it think he was free and knew he would do what he did and in doing it freed the brain and made it stronger, all the answer are in game and ppl are still in denial, the eye thing is just because that cutscene was made way before full release and models changed but the cutscene didn't cause changing only the eyes would need them to basically have to remake the entire cutscene a small inconsistency that is just not worth the hassle
"eye thing is just because that cutscene was made way before full release and models changed but the cutscene didn't cause changing only the eyes would need them to basically have to remake the entire cutscene" Why not just change the in-game model?
@Jackrazorus probably because the ingame model looks way more badass lol I like the model way more than the cutscene, they probably do too or else they wouldn't have changed it in the first place
The emperor is NOT the mindflayer which tadpoles the PC. Why? Well look at the intro again and you'll find out but ... I will also tell you. The mindflayer which tadpoled us, is the one on the bridge of the nautiloid. Why? You see him tadpoling you, then you see him in the cutscenes moving the nautiloid from plane to plane. The one in the tutorial also has the special medici collar. Also, the netherbrain does not say that it made the emperor infect you. It says that it allowed the emperor to break free, so you are right on that aspect but, the netherbrain telling you that it is the emperor who tadpoled you, is a connection your mind made based on your own assumptions not on what the game actually says.
The eye color change could just be a character design change after the pre-rendered cutscene was already made, since that cutscene was also the games trailer before it came out
Yeah, this is the answer. The cutscene was made years before in the in-engine character designs were finalised. Lae'zel also has some minor differences between cutscene and in-engine model.
Occam's Razor tells me this is the real answer. It's the simplest, most logical answer why there's a difference at all. There's a lot of evidence that suggests the Emperor was the one piloting the nautiloid that something as simple as an eye color change was an artistic choice made after the opening cinematic was made. A boring answer but the most likely one.
@@SpiritJuiceYT They hadn't even thought up the Emperor as a character when they made that cinematic. When they were adding the Emperor into things, they threw in some stuff implying it was him in the start to link it all back around together. So yeah, it's 100% this.
This is some crazy timing, I literally looked up a video disecting the Emperor and his place in the players' infection, and there was nothing. I hop on youtube today, lo and behold, there's a video. 🙏
My biggest question is was the Nautaloid's rampage through Baldur's Gate (and the subsequent Tadpoling of Tav/Durge and the other Origin characters) in the Intro done on orders from Gortash, or was it the Emperor trying to rebel? Rewatching the intro, we see Big E pass through a hall littered with dead mind flayers before he reaches the helm and sends the Nautiloid to Baldur's Gate. This would imply the prism is already on board when the craft reaches the city, yet instead of finding a sublte way to hand over the prism, the craft instead goes on rampage, abducting random citizens and causing chaos and oodles of damage. This in turn seems to imply (to me anyway) that Big E has already escaped the Absolute's influence, and is trying to create his own army of psychic thralls to fight the forces of the dead three. He ends up having to adapt his plans when "his" new ship crashes, killing all but 7 or so of "his" new thralls forcing him to be a bit more subtle in his control over "his" new "allies" than he had originally been planning....
The city in the opening cinematic isn't Baldur's Gate, btw. And the tadpoling of Tav and most of the others (besides Karlach and Wyll I guess because they were picked up in Avernus), happened before character creation. The nautiloid battle between the planes happens after that.
@@Rocker4JCforever The problem with that theory is if the city isn't Baldur's Gate, then how/when did Astarion get taken? He wasn't allowed to leave the city by order of Cazador, until he was tadpoled and that short-circuted the Vamp/spawn bond. It's far easier to justify Gale being out of Waterdeep, than it is to justify Astarion being out of BG. Some of the story and the entire party's backgrounds really break down when you look too closely, because the characters and their backgrounds were written by different people who were obviously not in enough communication between themselves and whoever scripted the overarching story of the game. The Gale/Astarion plot hole of which city it was in the cinematic is just one of the most egregious.
@@tiffanysimpson3336 It is definitely Baldur's Gate. Not just because Astarion can only have been snatched up there. Gale was likely paying a visit to Baldur's Gate, trying to find a cure for his problem in Baldur's Gate's magical library, since that Library in the tower contains the Book of Karsus. That also explains why in Act 3 we find his Tressym familiar Tara in Baldur's Gate instead of her being in Waterdeep.
@@tiffanysimpson3336 The cinematic is at Yartar, which is a small city to the North of Waterdeep. The geography and tabards are wrong for BG or Waterdeep. Astarion (and presumably Tav) are kidnapped off the streets of BG Gortash's Black Guard. The nautiloid needs bodies/brains for food and so Gortash sends some unmissed unfortunates to moonrise to stock it. Gale does want to be out of Waterdeep, but heading to BG is just as bad, he's trying avoid populated areas since he might explode at any moment. Between Waterdeep and Yartar is a mountain range that houses creche K'liir, where Lae'zel comes from. Creche K'liir is known to non-gith as Stardock, and is the easiest way to get to the Astral Plane for normal people, like Shadowheart's Sharran raid going after this prism. It's not acknowledged in game due to spoilers and being irrelevant, but someone did have this as a plan.
Good thinking but also how do literally any of these characters have access to a nautiloid in the first place? Omeluum says something like it’s something his ancestors would’ve had implying it was some kind of lost technology. Even with the mind flayer colony always existing in Moonrise that’s a huge leap to say they also always had a nautiloid to jump planes just parked out back.
There is incorrect information in regard to Orpherus's imprisonment. In game it is stated that his rebellion is a result of the FIRST Vlaakith betraying Gith and selling what is presumed her soul out to the Archdevil Tiamat in exchange for the aid of red dragons the Lich Queen Vlaakith in game is a different person.
She isn't a different person. She's a necromancer that stays alive by basically eating the life force of her people and plays it off by periodically pretending to die and be succeeded by another Vlaakith. The information you get about her being multiple people with the same name comes from Lae'zel who is an unreliable narrator due to the systemic lies Vlaakith has been telling to the Githyanki. It's very clearly stated with in game lore than GITH made the pact with Tiamat to get the dragons. Then you get all the lore around her son Orpheus that states that Vlaakith used the power vacuum of her sacrifice to take control instead of Gith's son inheriting it as he was supposed to. That's why the Githyanki slates that talk about him are all supposed to be banned. Vlaakith doesn't want that information out there, because she claims to be Gith's choice to rule when that couldn't be further from the truth. Gith's son had her power to keep their people from being controlled by an Elder Brain, and Vlaakith does not. If you have just finished freeing your people from control, and go to the degree of sacraficing yourself to get the ability to control dragons gifted to your people, you're not going to leave them with an inferior leader on purpose. That's the basis of the "rebellion" Orpheus was fighting against her, and the reason she had to make a pact with Raphael to lock him away. The longer he was out there fighting the good fight, the more of the Githyanki he would be able to sway away from her. She had to put that rebellion down quickly, before her lies caught up with her, despite how it made them weaker as a people not to have Orpheus around to protect them from their racial enemy. It's not just her hunger for ultimate power that is the reasoning behind her trying to become some immortal god. She's running scared from having to pay her half of the bargain with Raphael. When she dies, he owns her soul. Raphael just doesn't care enough to bother with her, because for him it was more about fcking with his fathers supposed plans and her potential soul is just a side benefit.
@tiffanysimpson3336 She is a different queen. The current queen Vlaakith does do that, but she had many predecessors who were mortal. Though they obviously must have died through unnatural means like battle or assasination given that they mostly reside in the astral plane where nobody ages. The githyanki being a martial race does make that plausible. It is true that the first vlaakth has been referred to as a lich queen in some lore sources, but I think that is purely due to inconsistencies with the lore and authors mistaking the two vlaakiths. DnD lore is a convoluted mess largely written by third party authors where the line between canon and non-canon is extremely blurry, and at times canon stuff can be de-canonised later. Inconsistencies are everywhere. The only canon that really exists is whatever the dungeon master decides, which in this case is Larian.
Well, in the flashbacks, the emperor has pink eyes as well when he's around Stelmane. If you harass him enough while he's trying to romance you, he'll show a flashback of himself enthralling Duke Stelmane, her eyes turn pink and she becomes basically his zombie. I think the reason his eyes are pink when you meet him is because the entire time you're around him after the nautiloid, he's enthralling you.
It can't be the emperor because he's stuck in the prism at that time tho and there's only a few moments where he can freely leave the prism and the moment we get the tadpole isn't one of them
Good reasoning! Also if you take a good look at the intro trailer it is clear that the mindflayer which tadpoled you, is the one who fights the demon on the bridge.
As far I remember, it was told or written in the game somewhere that the Dark Urge was the actual designer of the whole plan and the thing he didn't foresee was the Orin's betrayal. And that is where things are confusing - he was infected as one of the first or literally the first one with the tadpool in the Moorise Towers, then by some undisclosed circumstances, ended up on the nautoloid. Also, the animation with being infected with tadpool on the nautuloid is in contradiction to writings in the ilithid colony. My guess is, the basic premise and the starting movie was created first, then the details and the Dark Urge story came later, and they missed the contradiction, especially that Dark Urge as a playable character showed up very late, short before the release of the game, while the into movie was known for years and was not changed for most of the time (or was it?). Or, maybe the sequence of being infected was out of the order and happened before the nautuloid?
New idea to make it more realistic, if you play dark urge, start with a second tadpole (because of opening cinematic giving you technically the second one) for when you’re spending them later on
I’d still interpret that info as meaning it was the dark urge’s plan to utilize Mephistopho’s writings and plot after having stolen the crown of karsus to begin with. It could very well be an oversight, but I think it still makes sense.
It’s only Dark Urge’s plan when you play as them because Tav doesn’t exist then and dark urge is found dead during the play through as tav in Orin’s room
in the become the absolute ending , our companions have now orange eye and are mind controled . Im pretty sure that in the opening cinematic before the emperor found the astral prison of shadowheart that he was still controled by the elder brain , as we also know that he state he gain back control when entering the prism
So, the one thing I never see mentioned anywhere in these sort of videos, is that it's highly likely Shadowheart was already tadpoled BEFORE we were. Remember, until we killed Ketheric and the Brain started actively trying to wrestle control from the Three, ALL the tadpoled were in suspended ceramorphosis regardless of being near the prism. That was the whole point, an invisible sleeper army slowly populating Baldur's Gate and eventually the Sword Coast as a whole. Gortash sent the Emperor AND a tadpoled team to get the prism from the Gith. Shadowheart's team was supposedly sent by the Sharrans to get the prism from the Gith, but it feels very unlikely that two groups were both sent on the same fetch quest at the same time, competing with each other yet we never hear or see any other sign of Gortash's group beyond the Emperor/Ship. Yet, there Shadowheart is, on the ship having successfully stolen the prism, the rest of HER party having died? I call BS. Shadowheart was already tadpoled, and was part of the group Gortash sent. With her swiss cheese memory, it is entirely possible she doesn't even remember who actually sent out the mission or whether they too were tadpoled as sleeper agents in Shar's ranks. Also, to more directly reference the video: There is more than one kind of Mindflayer. The normal kind that does basic melee and psychic damage, and another type that has both psychic and normal Arcane magic. The same kind as the only other Mindflayer we meet who is able to break free from the Elder Brain; Omeluum. He tells us that the mindflayers with Magic are more dangerous to the colony because they are more easily able to break free, but it is also implied that they are more valuable than the rank and file when they don't break free. Which can be denoted by their special armor. Despite his "rogueish" qualities, Baldur had magic. I think he was either an Arcane Trickster, or more likely a Bard with good sneak skills (Especially given his "friendship" with a Copper dragon. It's a DnD meme for a reason, afterall...) It would fit his own description of himself very well. When he underwent ceramorphosis, he kept his magic, and that is why his armor is different from the rank and file, and why they wanted him back in the fold enough to seek him out rather than simply kill him for proving he could escape.
Alt interpretation: Book states its a plan to happen. Plan wasn't being executed yet and the Nautilod run was to scout out the Astral+grab some more followers. Sharts team is confirmed to have stolen the prism by the Gith thesmelves and the Prism was on her. Since her room is on the way out that Emperor (eyes glowing orange from anon-corpse POV from opening cutscene) took out, yet his eyes glow orange only when dominated by EB, when he was tadpoling Shart he found the Prism, got freed of the control again and jumped in. Also Omeluum is a reference to older (and 3e Lords of Madness, book entirely on far realm entities like flayers and beholders) where immunity to mind effects is immunity to psionics that Flayers use and that EB use to dominate the flayers themselves, which is what the Rings 5e tabletop version does (which in turn is a reference to a Cursed Mental Fortitude Ring made out of Mind Shielding rings in a few 3e appearances). And no, Arcane capable (as well as certain innate Divine caster) flayers are generally killed, or if unable to be killed, thrown out of colonies unless very weak and thus dominated as frontline bait just barely better than strong thralls (to use the most recent entry on that lore, from 5e monster manual on flayer arcanists: "A few mind flayers supplement their psionic power with arcane spells. However, they are regarded as deviants by their illithid peers and usually shunned."). Also Balduran was a fighter, we know this from prior BG games (and his gear).
For those wondering if the eye colour can be explained by the control of the elder brain changing it, that is not it. His eyes are still purple when you fight him on top of the netherbrain after allying with Orpheus, when he has returned under the influence of the netherbrain. I can only assume that this is either a simple oversight on the part of the developers, or that the illithid in the opening cinematic is simply a different one who is never seen again.
The Emperor isn’t the one. The one that infected us was the one that Bugbear was trying to resurrect in the goblin camp. If you cast Speak with the Dead, I believe it tells you that.
Why I betrayed him in the end. I never truly trusted him because I couldn’t understand his motives for helping me. It seemed like he was using me more than anything else.
The Emperor reminded me of the Century Egg from Smiling Friends "now you know my coool f*cking backstory" he always felt like he was gaslighting me, it was smart to approach as a "dream visitor" but it also backfired as I already didn't trust his Visitor form.
I think he was both using us and helping us. This may seem contradictory to us, but here me out. We know he was using us because he was constantly misleading us and telling us half truths, and if you chose the right dialog options, he will even go so far as to threaten us. However, he is also helping us. The first and most obvious way he is helping us is preventing us from becoming mindflayers and protecting our minds from the Absolute. But you can also view the Emperor's manipulations as helping us to. Now we would prefer that the Emperor stop trying to manipulate us, but from the Emperor's point of view, he is protecting us from our own nature. He thinks we will not trust a mindflayer, so he appears as the "guardian" even wearing fancy gold armor. And even when we discover he is a mindflayer, he doesn't tell us everything, or he will set ultimatums trying to force us to do things his way. The best example of this is when we get the chance to recruit Minsc, and he tries to convince us to kill Minsc. This is obviously due to the fact that Minsc is hard-headed and a wee bit dumb which makes it hard for the Emperor to control him, but again, he views this as for our own good as he believes that the only way we will succeed is if we do as he says and adding someone like Minsc is adding someone who is unlikely to do as the Emperor says no matter how much sense he's making. Now, the main reason I think the Emperor views his attempts to manipulate us as helping us all comes down to the ending. The Emperor doesn't take control of the Netherbrain unless we convince him to. His first instinct upon dominanting the Netherbrain is to destroy it, thus freeing us all from the Netherbrains control. This proves that he is only after freedom from the Netherbrain, not its power. Now, that's not to say I trust him at all. Even if, from his point of view, his manipulations were for our own good and choosing to side with him keeps us from turning mindflayer, he is still constantly manipulating us or telling us half truths and keeping secrets from us. It doesn't matter if those manipulations are for our benefit, trusting someone like that is a fool's errand. So, during my first playthrough, I killed them Emperor and dominated the Netherbrain myself rather than sharing that power with someone who has proven his willingness to manipulate us. Just because someone thinks something you don't want to do will benefit you doesn't mean it will, and allowing the Emperor control over the Netherbrain is giving him the power to dominate your mind and force you to do as he says even if you disagree. That is not the kind of power you should trust the Emperor with given his proven willingness to manipulate us.
I found the way that he reacted to Rapheal and Vos when they offer an alternative to him a bit sus. Orpheus attacking you if you betray the emperor and free him seems unreasonable, so when Vos asks tells you otherwise it seems believable. The emperor gets mad if you even just get the Orphic hammer, even if you just want to kill Raphael. He has good reasons to not appear as a mindflayer when you meet. That seems more than reasonable. But the controlling attitude did him in for me. Orpheus was a bit discusted by what I had done with the Emperor though.
Seems legit. Emperors was a shadow tyrant of bg. So using tadpoles for new pawns is natural for him. If you hostile to him during seduction cutscene and later, he confirms that his friendship with duke lady was a lie. He never hid his nature and ruled with fear and mindcontrol. He says - be glad that i decided on anew apporach, now do as i say or transform.
This theory has been around for...ever. But I vividly remember that Larian addressed this as not true. Please, please remember that the scene was made months before the Emperor was added to the game, don't forget that the Early Access BG3 story had been entirely different, the dream visitor being more of a manifestation of the tadpole with the Emperor completely missing from the picture. Even the twist that the Emp is Balduran was just a late addition. Don't subscribe to ideas that lack nuance please
If you could provide a source that would be nice to see, cause Larian isn't usually sloppy like that. I tried searching online for what you're talking about but it might be obscure or you misinterpreted it.
The last part is a bit of a double edged sword because story bits can be repurposed from EA. Also it being put in the game months before the emperor was actually is the game doesn’t disprove it either. Sometimes devs during early access don’t put every single little piece in together
@@godessnerd I agree with this, that it probably existed before the emperor was made, but I also don't think it's too far fetched they'd connect those dots later on
Unfortunately I haven't been able to find the article I referenced, it got lost to the murkyness as this theory has been out since the launch. I have to say it is was nice to be asked a source, like a serious debate but I find it ridiculous to be dismissed by another commenter under a video that disproves its own take in the 4th minute. I will die on the hill that this "theory" is...well, insignificant as the evidence against it ingame outweighs it's importance. Apart from art direction being an evolving thing and the opening cinematic came 3 years before official launch, a Durge playthrough will have even more of the answers one needs. It's fun to theorise, but in my opinion the Emperor does enough sketchy shit that this one act he should be absolved of. And also you can find the Emperor's (Old) Robes in his hideout, he just dresses to impress. I think it should have been more of a twist to have him be an ulitharid or an alhoon but the lore is convoluted enough for any newcomer to the setting enough to let illithid social hierarchies go this time.
Wish I could've spat in the Emperor's face the first time I met the real him. I don't trust any illithid (aside from Omeluum as he's a good boy), I'd been spoiled on the identity of the dream guardian beforehand so I knew what'd be coming later. The more I interact with the Emperor, the more he seems like a classic case of an abusive, toxic boyfriend trying to mold me into something he'd prefer instead of accepting me as myself, constantly goading me into absorbing the tadpoles and telling me I should be *grateful* he hasn't brute-forced me into anything yet. And then he got really mad at me when I called him a freak in his face. Get f****d, squidface.
I didn’t think it was the emp who infected us until my second play through. First one I listened to him, second play was all about telling him to piss off; doing that made me think it was him who infected me.
Occam's razor: His eyes In the original concept art his eyes are white (neutral, undefined). The creators of the cutscene interepted it as glowing orange eyes, the develops of the character in the game made it purple. It was a detail they couldn't change once the cutscene was done.
Your videos on BG3 are incredible. I’d love to see more!! Especially a piece on Orin or Gortash, as we don’t have as much of a deep dive as we do with Ketheric.
I've got a couple of ideas: Maybe it's an indication that he was under control of the brain and/or cult(we haven't seen any clear shots of his eyes when he is contolled that I am aware of)(+ correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly, didn't the lady he mind controlled previously eyes glow purple(the color of the his eyes) when mind controled? It's been a while since I've seen the cut scene) The lighting makes his eyes appear more gold in different lighting
I think the eyes are orange bc when they made the cutscene they probably didn't have the entire plot ready and all it's tiny details and since it wasn't directly referenced I think it was just an oversight by the designers
Our mind flayers were special ,bound with netherese magic. It makes sense that the Emperor went out of the Astral Prism killed the other mindflayers, selected and infected the most potent hosts and so he can use our party for his own schemes. The changing of eye color could be result of using the magic, I don't think he was under the influence of the brain (it wouldn't make sense). Once he infected the party in main cockpit he went back to shadowheart, because the prism is his shelter. I didn't think about that until I saw this video. The other thing which didn't make sense was that he was not mind flayer with rogue skills, he was pure caster but how he learned about the netherese magic.
I think the pre-rendered cutscene was an early model of the Emperor. In the final release Larian must've decided the color of his eyes should be different to drive home the notion that he is effectively different than every other mindflayer. Just to confirm this: 1 - he is not under the influence of the Elder Brain at the cutscene. He already has the prism and potentially was the one that killed the other illithids. 2 - when you "betray" him at the end of the game, he joins the absolute to survive. But even if he returns to the fold, his eyes are still purple.
The eyes... Maybe he's constantly channeling magic during his time in the Astral Prism. After all, he always goes on about how the Elder Brain is relentlessly sending waves of psioninc energy that he has to counter. It's a common fantasy trope: "Power makes your eyes glow."
In addition to what's in the video, there are some pieces of evidence of Raphael's involvement with Orpheus and the Astral Prism found in books and notes in the game (which can be referenced in the BG3 Wiki): Inscribed Githyanki Slate (found in the Astral Prism) - [Symbolic drawings, etched over a forgotten text. Two figures, one an imposing female with regal aspect, the other, a Devil, his face twisted with wry charm. Their hands meet in the exchange of an artefact - the Astral Prism.] About Creation of Orphic Hammer (found in a chest in the House of Hope) - [A detailed history of the Orphic Hammer, describing the infernal workforce Raphael harnessed to locate and mine the rare materials used in its creation, and its intented purpose.] / The Hammer is not a weapon, it is an insurance policy. Its function is specific, but its utility is boundless. No chains forged by infernal hand can withstand its power, for its core is a metalifferous compound combining the purest of essence of all Nine hells. If I should ever need to liberate the prisoners held in the Iron City of Dis, to shatter the vaults of Nargus, or even to free the child of Gith, my hammer will be equal to the task. The Power Of The Crown (found in the Archive in the House of Hope) - [All one hundred chapters of this dense book describe the coronation of Raphael as Archdevil Supreme of the Nine Hells, but the circumstances vary in each case. Some versions are written as if historical fact, others are imagined futures, but all end with Raphael wearing the Crown of Karsus. One in particular catches your attention.] / In the end, it was the Prism-Bearers who came to him seeking salvation, and he laid out a course for their survival. They would be free of the parasite, the Sword Coast would be cleansed of illithids, and Raphael would receive the Crown for his part in the victory. From the moment he met them, it was inevitable. The Realms would weep to see his glory. Those texts imply that Raphael provided Vlaakith with the Astral Prism to imprison Orpheus long ago, and also created the Orphic Hammer as a safeguard if things went badly and he were to ever need "to free the child of Gith". Later, he saw an opportunity to make a deal with adventurers to acquire the Crown that Gortash had stolen from Mephistopheles' vault One more thing: the plan for Accelerated Grand Design was not created by Mephistopheles, it was an alhoon whose journal was in the vault with the Crown of Karsus To Take Control - "Gortash Private Memoir Notes, Number 9 / To Take Control / We were deep in Mephisto's vault, burgling the Crown of Karsus, when I saw next to the crown that the wily archdevil had a portfolio labelled 'Accelerated Grand Design'. I couldn't resist taking that as well. The portfolio contained plans compiled by a mad alhoon known only as Blue Apex for a version of the illithid resurgence, a Grand Design that called for mass tadpoling of both friends and enemies - but not to convert the tadpoled into mind flayers, but rather to suspend that ceremorphosis under powerful magic to create a vast and unconscious hive mind commanded by an enhanced elder brain. My mind, trained in the tyrannical tenets of Bane, instantly saw that this was a means to perpetrate a powerful religious hoax, a mass movement controlled, ultimately, by none other than myself. For who but the Chosen of Bane could master so grand a scheme?"
All this is nice were it not for one exception: Half-fiends, even the most powerful ones, have a lifespan based on the mortal parent no more than double the maximum (so assuming regular tiefling to make a 3e lore classic cambion, around 350 years tops, average under 225 years, lets add a few cheaty spells and pots and you can stretch it to 720-730 without doing something that would be impossible for a resident of the hells or no longer being a half-devil). Its literally the backstory of Acererak. Raph is in fact a cambion, he wasnt there for the fall of Netheril despite his lies (since he does explicitly lie/directly contract facts you can find or even act upon as long as its external events) and its even less possible that he was the thousands of years prior when Tiamat and Gith made the deal with OG Vlaakith (the 1st) present. Closest it would have been in his early/teen-ish years that he could have made the deal with the prior Vlaakith, which makes no sense timescale side as numerous Githyanki plots wouldnt happen if a direct descendant of Gith was alive/known to be alive; but the easier explanation is that the OG devil is Mephisto dealing with Vlaakith the 1st while Tiamom gave Gith the scepter with Asmos shiny rock. Both made a deal, Vlaakith was smart enough to make her personalized while Gith made it tied to the scepter so that as long as its in the posession of the Gith her people are safe. Then Raph is writing fanfics taking the spot of his dad and how his future plans will look like as if they would ever realize.
This is super cool and well thought out. I think the color discrepancy is ultimately due to the difference in renderings. There are other slight color alterations in his outfit and I think this could just be chalked up to internal design stuff, like it they had made that intro cinematic earlier in development and much later tweaked the colors a bit or something. That's my guess anyways
Regarding the narrator, it's basically our inner consciousness, so when narrator says 'this is the one' it's basically we think this is the culprit, but it doesn't have to be the truth. It's just what we believe at that moment, hence why in two different situations narrator says/we think opposite things. Kinda like what happens during random checks with insight, history, religion... If we pass the check then narrator says one thing, if we fail the check then says different thing.
Something I noticed just as I began a new game last night with this in mind. During character creation, the Emperor is the one who asks "Who are you?" and insists "You need a guardian". He is digging into our minds and commanding us to imagine our ideal savior, which he later uses against us. Immediately after confirming your choice of guardian, the screen flashes back to his face; there's not even a loading screen, when by all rights there ought to have been. This feels deliberate.
The intro cut-scene was made very early into the development, hence there's only one such cut-scene, all others are made in-engine. This explains the discrepancies between Emperors cut-scene and in-game appearance.
Well, if I never trusted Emperor before (I didn't) I certainly am never trusting him now (I won't). Now I definitely never have to feel bad about "betraying" him and freeing Orpheus in every playthrough.
There was another great comment mentioning Tiamat, saying how it the astral prism could have been involved in the githyanki acquiring their dragons they ride.
My problem with this the fact that the emperor is the same one from the opening cut scene is that the PC/companions don’t recognise him, why wouldn’t they say anything about the emperor literally being the one that infected them? Like the evidence for the emperor being the mindflayer makes sense, it’s just that this particular point doesn’t imo.
I'm gonna be honest the whole mindflayer plot is kinda shit, like I enjoy the game more when I'm not thinking about it and just focusing on the dread 3. Regardless the emperor can't be the one to infect us because that would mean he was walking about the nautiloid while it was being attacked and not in the prism, and I'd be willing to bet that he wouldn't be able to resist the netherbrain while on a return mission from getting the prism and then just casually hop into the prism right after infecting us and getting attacked by the gith, again, while under the influence of the brain. I think its more likely that he hopped into the prism on the mission and someone else infected us after passing over Baldur's gate the first time. The other thing from what I remember of the dialogue the armor is made psionically, so its stylized, and that means any mindflayer that sufficiently strong could have a Medici collar. All of this ignores that fact that this is a story and having a definable reason or explanation for everything is kinda boring. It doesn't matter if the emperor infected us with the tadpole bc he's already dodgy as hell
Awesome video! I think the eye thing might only be different because Omeluum has its orange eyes but has its shield ring, so it may still have the physiology of being "enthralled", so maybe being rogue does change eye color? The Elder Brain basically confirms that dominating Orpheus through The Emperor so that it could eventually break free from the Chosen Three's control, was its ultimate goal. I think The Emperor is complicated because its hard to know what if any free will it truly has. Raphael has also been waiting and laying his puzzle pieces the entire time as well, so it's hard to say if Raph wasn't also involved in guiding that ship (piloted by our lovely lying illithid Emperor) to successfully finding the prism. Meanwhile poor Durge is like I HAVE A HOLE IN MY SKULL THIS WAS NOT HOW THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO GO
i always thought it was very strange that he spends the entire game trying to build an army to thwart the elder brain but if you so much as want to hear Orpheus' side or truly what he thinks we should do he just fucking leaves to join the elder brain? it feels like it goes against everything his character had been set up as we're literally fighting an evolved via ancient magic and the power of 3 gods elder brain its not as if our chances of succeeding were especially high in the first place we were going to at least try to put up a fight yet the emperor just throws that philosophy away just cuz ig
correct me if i'm wrong but doesn't the emperor believe orpheus will definitely attack him/the player if freed? the emperor seems to prioritize his survival over anything else so it makes sense that he would join the big brain after in his mind being betrayed.
Though my personal theory was that withers somehow orchestrated the whole thing to keep his juniors in check. Its heavily implied that he is Jergal the original god of death with which Baahl, Bane, and Myrkul, made a deal with to ascend to godhood. Those gods make each of their chosen work together to try and take over the world using mind flayer tadpoles. The very key to the chosen's downfall along with a select few extraordinary individuals all with direct ties to the plot just so happen to crash land on his doorstep after traveling through multiple planes of existence.
The armor looks more red-tinted than purple in the tadpole scene, so it may be the lighting. Some things can look drastically different colors in different lighting.
One thing you touched on that is truly interesting is how Mestophales is the source of the ENTIRE PLOT of BG3. As you pointed out it was his book Gortash stole for the plan with the Elderbrain but also it was Mestophales who gave the Ascension ritual to Cazador to begin with!
Perhaps his eyes were orange because he was at that time still under control of the Elder Brain while on the ship, and when Shadowheart got abducted it ended up breaking the Elder Brains control again once the Emperor got within range of her after a set duration, and slipped into the prism after realizing it as it was the only way to keep him safe?
It does make alot of sense since the default option for the guardians appearance is a drow female. If you take shadowhearts backstory into account it kinda comes together that would be a form she trusts.
It's more likely that there were changes throughout development and not all loose threads were 'tied up'. Same thing happens in Act 2 where the events that lead up to Ketheric and the shadow curse don't all add up. Likewise in Act 3 the Netherbrain throws the entire plot in the blender when it claims it 'was in control the whole time' and everything was by it's design. Which completely contradicts what happens in Act 1 and Act 2.
I think that the brain intended that being controlled was the part of the plan, like a big gamble. The brain may have immagined that before or after the chosens would have lost control on him or that having the crown would have permitted him to absorbe the power and brake free eventualy
I imagine the orange eyes are a sign he's under the influence of the elder brain, while the purple eyes shows he's not. He's thinking for himself. There's also a rune slate you can find in the Nautiloid [in the room you find Us in, iirc] that says the following: "A feeling penetrates your mind. An anomaly. One like ourselves, unconnected from the whole. Caution." I believe this slate is probably talking about the Emperor. There is Omeluum, another rogue mind flayer, but he's pretty much just minding his own business and I don't think he would be perceived as a threat much? There's also a slate in the room with Shadowheart that I think hints towards Orpheus, too.
I thought it was pretty obvious that Shadowheart's group ganked that second dead illithid, so it makes sense for the Emperor to be inside the prism in SH's possession.
Little info i can add to the half dead mindfair at the beach area and the one in the goblin camp. They're the same. My proof for that claim is that, depending on how you kill the one at the beach, the mindflair in the goblin camp will change. For example If you kill the one at the beach with ray of frost, both it and the one at the camp will be frozen corpses. In conclusion i doubt that it's the same one as in the intro cinematic since that one appeared to be dead already.
There are 'higher ranking' Mind Flayers called Ulitharids that usually wear the more exaggerated collars, these are the mindflayers that can eventually be evolved into a new elder brain through a ritual of sorts. Just a fun fact
The reason für the different eye colors is simple and the same reason why Lae'zel looks so much cuter in the intro cinematic than later in the game. The Cinematic was made before all design choices were final. Lae'zel was made more mature and the eyes changed colors. And I'm pretty sure as the cinematic was created parts of the story also wasn't set in stone.
I do agree that, unless it was a cut piece of content, it is odd for them to pay such attention to his look unless it was going to be a significant character or twist.
The reason why he has orange eyes is simple: he faked his eyes color while he was infecting his future pawns. I mean, he literally said he is good at shapeshift spell (the one that so powerfull in player hands it even can fool githyanki gear). In final fight his shapeshifted copies even existed separated from him (however he might be using Absolute's power, yet still impressive). But as we know - shapeshift spell does not support transforming to illithid. And Emperor never needed to improve this spell to support illithid shape just because he always used it to be somebody that is not illithid. So he had to improvise and he just swaped his eyes with this spell to look like common illithid. A person like him can do such a trick for sure. He probably also did it in order if any of the infected would recognize him he could say "I still was in control of Absolute, don't you see my eyes? I'm the victim". It would be looking earnestly, if not two facts. First, we have seen him in moments he was 100% controlled by Elder brain and he still was purple-eyed. Second, at intro we have seen a dead illitihid in that chamber. I don't think illithid corpses is common in nautiloid interrior, so there must be a reason he's dead. Who could kill an illithid at an illithid controlled ship? Obvously, another illithid. And that was for sure the one that is not controlled by Elder brain. I think, the Emperor got freed once he got Shadowheart. He has designed a plan that he would hide in that Prism and he need a minions that would be dependent from him. So he have infected as much people as he can (and killed another illithid staying at his way). Then he have hided in Astral Prison and waited until cereromorphosis starts in order to look like a savior to his pawns. And, of course, he always was against freeing Orpheus because Orpheus knows what he done
0:25 I mean... it's implied that he was. But not explicitly said. It's only he wasn't willing to do it. He was under control by the Elder Brain at that point. A few points for it: 1. The Emperor is the one mind flayer in the story using that armor. 2. He was supposed to be there, in charge of that mission, according to Gortash's notes. 3. According to himself, he gets the artifact, frees himself from the Elder Brain control. But then he goes inside the artifact and gives it to Shadowheart. 3. The Emperor-like mind-flayer is also in the ship, but then is nowhere to be seen. 4. Then the mind flayer who "is responsible for the tadpoles" looks nothing like that.
There's this mod called Glut's Ring Controlled Followers that lets you revive any dead creature as a spore servant. A glitch happens after killing the Mind Flayer at the crash site and reviving him as a spore servant. If you click on him to "start dialogue" the game teleports you to Dror Raglin's cave and starts the entire interrogating dead mindflayer cutscene. After the cutscene ends the mind flayer that you were interrogating is already alive as your spore servant. I know that it's a mod and bound to glitch but the fact that the game to a certain extent considers the crash site mindflayer and Dror Ragzlin's mind flayer the same is interesting.
If you speak to the curator in the house of hope about the Orphic hammer, he states that Raphael made it himself, giving more evidence that he either also made or aided in making the prism.
I'm curious as to the one who tadpoles us as the Emperor because one thing I think I recall, is in the cutscenes showing mind flayers with armor, they're all in that Emperor style armor. I dont think his armor style is unique. Though another unique armor for a mind flayer is when Orpheus becomes Illithid or if we choose to become Illithid, the armor is different and it all seems to materialize onto the mind flayer. I'm not sure it matters which mindflayer tadpoled us. Because the chosen 3 were at this point tadpoling the entire sword coast. The tadpoling center under Moonrise was well into operation when we go hurtling through the cosmos. Not to mention, our origin is from Baldurs Gate. So Gortash orders our tadpoling, we get picked up by the Nautiloid, and then the ship is attacked by demons (because Gortash broke into the hells to get the crown) and we were poised to be transformed in the pod, because for some reason (and this is where my own theory gets me) the Absolute's orders arent reaching us so we get stuck in the pod to force ceremorphosis and we break out of the pod due to demon and dragon attack. Not saying that the Emperor is a good guy. He's not in my book. I just think his goal is more self serving to take control of an elder brain responsible for controlling him and we're a means to that end. And tadpoling us does not achieve that goal. In fact, its counter to his goal I think he was fully within his own mind when he had the conversation with Gortash in that note at the pool. I think he was acting like he was still under control of the brain but he was not. He's a very manipulative character to be sure. But he's also very self preservation focused as seen by his actions as an adventurer, his actions with Ansur, his panic that we signed a contract with Raphael, his reaction to us going to the Hells. Heck, I dont even think his enslaving Orpheus was magnanamous to save us. I think it was to keep himself free from the brain's influence.
Is everyone forgetting that in the first section of the game where you see a mind flayer trapped under a piece of the ship, that the narator says this is the mind flayer that put the tadpole in your eye?
There’s two possible explanations to the orange vs purple eyes: 1. Orpheus’ power is changing his eye color to purple, as it can’t just be him being disconnected from the elder brain as Omellum has yellow eyes and not purple or orange eyes. 2. The opening cutscene is one of the oldest pieces of content left in the game from EA, it hasn’t been changed at all and back when it was made the emperor plotline didn’t exist. It’s possible that they simply retconned that Illithid to be the emperor but since it hasn’t been changed the orange eye color was left there too.
That first mindflayer is most certainly a threat. At least if you are as unlucky as me, I died to the 3 intellect devourers after missing 3 times in a row, then I meet the mindflayer, proceed to fail both saving throws and fucking die again, all in the span of 10 min. This was all in my first hour of playing the game, so I probably could have played it better, but it was also on balanced difficulty.
The weird thing about the mind flayer corpse Ragzlin talks to is that in early access, I'm fairly certain that the narrator did confirm that it was the mind flayer that infected you even when you spoke to it with Ragzlin, but the line was changed in the full release. I remember being confused at the change in my first run. It's possible then that the other speak with dead line is a holdover from that and was an oversight that wasn't changed. There's a good handful of holdover dialogue from early access in the release of the game, so this doesn't seem implausible to me. Considering early access was also when the dream visitor was Daisy instead of the Guardian, and Daisy seemed more like a stand-in for the Absolute than the Emperor, I could almost take a stab at the fact that the change might confirm that the Emperor IS the one that infected us, possibly because the role of the Emperor in the story wasn't completely set in stone by then (or they were just deliberately trying to hide it for early access players?) and they had to iron out the plot hole from that scene. But this is a lot of guesswork and supposition, so I'unno.
His eye color probably changed cuz he was no longer under the influence of the elder brain
was about to say that
I was about to say this. Then I thought about it. What causes him to NOT be under the influence anymore? If this all holds true which I like it short of the eyeball thing.
That and if you're in the character creator to build the dream guardian, it has a very purple pinkish tint, making it somewhat hard to get some colours of hair the way you want it. it could be the astral prism doing that cuz I think if you free orpius and fight the emperor later he has orange eyes again.
although it don't quite make sese to my why he would willingly join the nether brain knowing it will only enslave him again if he ever was truly free of it in the first place.
I was gonna say that as well, I wonder if the colors mean something.
I would've guessed so too but Omeluums eyes are still orange even though he's free
Something I find interesting is that Orpheus never actually gave him free will - it was the Elder Brain letting him off of his leash when he found Shadowheart with the Astral Prism. He has to stay in there to enthrall Orpheus so that he can ‘protect’ allies from the voice of the Elder Brain.
Also Raphael basically confirms it was the Emperor if you’re the Dark Urge - if you say ‘I’m not scared of the Emperor because I’ve looked upon Bhaal himself’ he says the Emperor is the whole reason you’re in this mess. Raphael never lies to you throughout the game. He may speak in half truths but he never lies.
Yeah, domination of Orpheus by Emp was a masterplan of Netherbrain to eventually break free from netherstones control.
Wow! i didn't know about this interaction with Raphael at all! Always cool to hear new interactions with some of my favorite characters.
@@54DrHouse Yep. The Netherbrain even confirms if you confront it with the Emperor. I mean, you still destroy it, but...arguably you (and the Emperor) have been following its Grand Plan all along.
Expect he does here because ORION ADMITS TO INFECITING THE DURGE SHE"S PROUD OF IT!
@@OthelloSilvermoon i meant confirms it was the emperor in the opening cutscene. Obviously Orin infects the DUrge but everything else is 100% the emperor. By the way, the Emperor knows EXACTLY WHO YOU ARE as Dark Urge but doesn’t tell you
The emperor was so sketchy the entire game. Multiple lies to cover everything plus the fact that he lets Tav believe that Orpheus will be so petty to kill a thrall when his actual motif is to save anyone from the mindflayers to the point that he has to sacrifice himself in a certain scenario.
i think he genuinely believed orpheus woul kill on site since that's literally whatever gythyanki ever would do
@@emilyyang2229I agree but idk why he’d side with the brain
I'm pretty sure the only reason Orpheus doesn't kill us when we free him is because he has no other choice at that point. He even tells us we should have let his guard kill us because we were infected instead of fighting against it. So I don't think the emperor lied when he said Orpheus would kill us. It's just that once the elderbrain became a netherbrain, Orpheus couldn't fight it alone and needed our help.
@@cynaxis4002Also, Orpheus literally kills you by removing your mindflayer protection if you sit back and let his honor guard free him...the emperor is 100 percent vindicated in that moment
@@emilyyang2229 Simple self-preservation.
Illithds don't broadly subscribe to a conventional spirituality and thus have less altruistic/selfless incentives like self-sacrifice or honour. Alongside the implication that they flat out don't have a soul, it makes sense. In that sense, Illithids are fairly "simple" and are firstly focussed on basic survival.
When the Empire's Elder brains shot the species back in time, it wasn't out of loving compassion for the tadpoles, but the logical choice to preserve the species.
The Emperor (in retaining his individuality) wants to be free and act out his own designs/ambitions and thus wishes the Elder Brain to go. It taking over also ruins his own desires to control Baldur's Gate again.
His ideal scenario would be enslaving the Netherbrain, but he both understands the dangers and (wisely) realizes that the group of humanoid adventurers won't be on board, so he focusses on destroying it (hence his "surprise" when we offer to help him enslave it).
If we side with Orpheus, he understandably reasons that the group of enraged fanatics he'll bent on rendering Illithid extinct won't be too keen on cooperating with one and it's "thralls" and will kill him without even hearing him out. If we insist, he goes back to the brain because he has no confidence you will succeed without him/Orpheus will ruin it by killing everyone... which he 100% would have if he wasn't left with no other options. As an Illithid, the Grand Design will welcome the Emperor while the rest of Faerun will hunt him down; it's not what he *wants* but it'll keep him alive, and as an Illithid, that comes first.
And if you turn against the Emperor he says, "Then you leave me no choice but to side with the Elder Brain." and his eyes TURN orange. I just assumed that his eyes are violet unless he is controlled by the Elder Brain, which means on board the Nautiloid he didn't have his own free will until he slipped into the orb. It would make as much sense as anything in 'game logic' goes.
though here's an idea, what if it's the other way around, the orange eyes are his natural color, and we always see them as purple because he's constantly using his mental powers to manipulate us, not trying to take direct control but more like the equivalent of constantly casting the "Friends" cantrip on us subtly pushing us to be more willing to go along with his plans/ideas and then when we go against him at the end they go back to orange as he doesn't see a reason to keep trying to manipulate us
You have the Mandela effect? His eyes didn't turn orange. In this scene his eyes still was purple even when he was entering his portal. And even in last fight where he joined the elder brain his eyes still was purple. Theory with orange=controlled just don't fit the facts
@@danileros3563 Ooh, interesting point. Not just debunking the above poster, but also ruling out the orange=enthralled theory altogether.
A possible solution to the eyes issue;
Omeluum has yellow eyes, rather than the normal orange. Both Omeluum and the Emperor are 'rogue', meaning they're outside the control of an Elder Brain. There are several instances of mind control throughout the game, and a lot of it includes changing the victim's eyes, usually making them glow a "themed" colour. It's possible that the Emperor had the usual orange eyes in the opening because, at that time, he was still under the Nether Brain's control. When we see him later, he's rogue, allowing his eyes to return to their 'natural' purple colour.
This makes the most sense to me so far! Well said!
I love the theory that the ring of mind shielding Omeluum has, because of its special effect in D&D (holding the wearers soul upon death), that Omeluum is unique in it's altruism because it's not a true mindflayer, because it still has its soul.
Many of us have come to this conclusion. My remaining question is what was the source of the connection breaking between the emperor and the nether brain? Great work on this video, I like it short of the color thing.
@danielericksen2679 the emperor was the first mind flayer that was sent to retrieve the Astral prism and getting it broke his link. That's probably the only outright truth the emperor tells us
@@_.Ok. He doesn't have a soul. Tadpole is taking over the body. It isn't transformation like werewolfs. It's literally parasite inside of you, eating you from the inside and then uses your carcass as their new body.
The Mind Flayer that Dror Ragzlin is trying to speak to is the same Mind Flayer you found dying in the beach wreckage. I know this because I used my fire breath to kill it then when I walked into the Goblin Camp I saw it's burnt corpse.
EDIT: Another thing I want to add is that if you loot the Mind Flayer on the beach after killing it the one Dror Ragzlin is trying to speak to can't be looted. it will have the open chest icon indicating that you already looted it.
Huh I heard it's not because if you pick up the corpse it's still there, guess not.
I’m gonna take a wild guess and say you also blew dror ragzlin up with barrels before seeing the mind flayer lol I’ve killed the beach mine flayer with firebolt every time and the one in the camp is never burned
@@_.Ok. That might be because there will be a backup corpse if the original one is not available. This game has a metric ton of contingencies.
@@_.Ok.If you pick up the corpse, then it will actually disappear from your inventory at a certain point to be used in the ritual.
Also, approaching the goblin camp causes the corpse to dissappear from the wreckage (presumably because it was taken by goblins)
This cutscene is very old and even Lae'zel has a slightly different design during that scene. It's possible that they didn't yet plan for the Emperor to have purple eyes, only later deciding to make this a defining distinction of his. Then they either forgot they gave him orange eyes in the cutscene or just couldn't remake the entire scene since it's pre-rendered.
The eye colour difference has been there since before Early Access began. That hasn't changed.
@@noctoi That doesn't really disprove what they said
@@noctoi the scene is just older than ea
The dreamguy/gal was originally a manifestation of the tadpole to lure your character into surrender and become a mindflayer. I liked that approach a lot more than this elaborate 'It was me all along!'
Well the Emperor probably didn't exist in EA.
The timeline was always kinda murky. The emperors transformation would have happened well over 100 years ago. From what lore I could find the city was founded in 1356 DR. The emperor was transformed at some point after that not specified but probably within 10 years or so. Normal ceramorphosis only takes a week. The shadow curse happened 100 years before the game date.
BG3 starts in the year 1494 DR. That is 138 years later. It is described that he returned to the city and acted independently for a while before being recaptured by gortash. He interacted with Stelmane who dies when you get to the city. Wyll describes meeting her when he was around 8. She would probably have only been at most 60-70 years old at this point or younger. So how long has it been since Gortash captured the emperor and put him back under the control of the absolute? Seems like it would have been around 20-30 years or so.
So I guess the emperor only got his freedom back right at the start of the game. As soon as they found the prism. Its all very confusing and honestly it would probably need a whole ass video breaking down all the timelines.
Yeah. I've been trying to break down the timeline and it doesn't make a whole heck of a lot of sense. The Emperor was almost certainly returned to the Netherbrain relatively far in the past, since I'm guessing until he was returned, he kept the Knights of the Shield in power (which is referred to in a couple of letters). Almost certainly, Gortash's group couldn't instantly drive them into near oblivion, so at the least, it's been *years* since he was captured. We also know that he was recruited sometime before that to become part of the Knights of the Shield, but when that was, or who did it, is pretty murky. (It could have been relatively recently, it could have been decades or even centuries ago, considering that sometime in that time span they moved their headquarters.) It's also inferred that sometime in between he had some kind of situationship with Stelmane, who assumedly is still young enough to be alive as of the start of BG3, despite apparently being involved with him (and seemingly old enough that everyone was like, "yeah, she's having health problems, totally normal for a woman of her age") back when Wyll was around 8. (How old is Wyll suposed to be, anyway? The timelines look pretty different if he's 18 vs. 38.)
My guess is that the writers didn't particularly think it through, so it's pretty contradictory, although I'd love a video of someone breaking it down in a way that's logical.
@@NinieneI think Wyll is 24? He was 17 when he made the pact with Mizora and was sent away and he’s been on his own as the Blade of Frontiers for seven years. I forgot where this was said, but it was said through in-game dialogue
Baldur's Gate is a good deal older than that. It was merely named something else to begin with, and renamed a bit later. A lot of info about Balduran is found in books in BG1.
@@Niniene Something else I learned is the Emperor was not always a character in the game. He didn't exist in the early versions of the early access title. Instead the companion was supposed to be the tadpole itself.
Not a bad idea for a video! I'd be interested in doing some research into where Baldurs Gate 3 occurs in the forgotten realms timeline.
What's kinda dumb about the cutscene with the parasite being inserted into your character's eye is that it doesn't really work if you play as Dark Urge, because you find out later that it was inserted in you when you were in the colony under Moonrise, not while ont he ship.
Since the voice is male in the cinematic, we can always rationalize that the person being tadpoled as someone else. Since we don’t necessarily have a canon identity other than the Dark Urge, whose corpse we find.
@@TheFlyingPilgrim this kind of has to be true, no matter how much it smells like copium, because if we choose to play as Lae'Zel, well, it doesn't make much sense for the player character to be the one being infected at the end. Assuming this is a deliberate infection by the Emperor to make as many squadmates as possible who can serve him, it could be Gayle or Astarion... but if you try to figure out if it's Wyll or Karlach, things stop making sense because the ship didn't go into Avernus until after he stopped infecting people... who knows...
I thought it did still work. throughout the game, the narrator mentions that your brain is already riddled with holes, and that the new damage done by your parasite feels familiar. I think that the durge was double tadpoled.
either orins tadpole was killed during durges torture, or the second (stronger?) tadpole placed in by the emperor killed the first.
meaning the durge could have a second dead tadpole knocking around in their head.
@@jacoblockett390 He has SUCH a headache
@@christopherjones5700we know the nautiloid continued abducting people even after it all went to shit. It’s well within the realm of possibility that the two who were abducted received a tadpole from one of the other Mindflayers on the ship. From there, the Emperor simply assimilates them into that protection.
In the Astral Plane you can find a gith slate that depicts Raphael giving Vlaakith the prism:
[Symbolic drawings, etched over a forgotten text. Two figures, one an imposing female with regal aspect, the other, a Devil, his face twisted with wry charm. Their hands meet in the exchange of an artefact - the Astral Prism.]
Wow thanks for the extra confirmation! Some other comments had made me scepticsl of my own conclusions…
"Seems to depict" is the crucial part of the flavor text.
Doesn't mean it's Raphael. He isn't the only manipulative devil in the underworld.
Came here to mention that. Like @sterenn726 says, it doesn't say it's Raphael, but that's who came to my mind when I read it too.
That doesn't mean it was Raphael. There are a lot of Devil's willing to do that and a lot more
in act 3, after getting the emperors old clothes under the elfsong, there’s a line somewhere that the emperor says where he mentions that he personally made the armor he wears as he modeled it off the stuff you found.
I generally agree with what is being said in this video but i'd go a little bit farther on some points.
I think the Absolute controlled the Emperor into infecting us. She reveals at the end of the game that she anticipated every twist and turn of the story. My understanding is that she rebelled very slightly aginst Gortash's commands in order to handpick the team than was eventuallly going to kill them (or some of it at least). She took personnal control of the Emperor, infected the player character and Lae'zel and maybe the rest of the crew then directed the emperor towards the prism; knowing he would slip from her grasp and would set in motion the events of the game that would eventually lead to the chosens downfall and consequently, her liberation from their grasp and her mutation into a netherbrain. This explains why the Emperor has orange eyes in the intro, why there is a dead mindflayer on the floor (the Emperor had to take control of the batch of tadpoles) and why he would then very conviniently "slip" into the astral prism.
That's how i see it at least.
thought the same, i think this completes the story
Cut the last part.
After all, if the last command was to infect the party and he leaves to the next room (where you happen to stumble upon Shart who has the Prism, thus him "discovering it first" as he is the first of the absolute to legit find where it was, just omitting that it was Shar followers that likely stole it from one of the 3 Gith bases between the Ruins of Iniarv, Harbor and the Dessarin river if we follow Neverwinter Nights 2 presence of Githyanki), it would make sense that its the point where the prisms presence cut the connection just as he was free before the FF reject crew grabbed him and he took the chance to jump into it instead of risk losing the prism thus freedom.
is it too much to ask who put one of the Dead Three's Chosen on board that ship? Was he bumming around Sharess' Caress before getting bopped by a tentacle?
And if Durge is alive Netherbrain most likely also subttly manipulated events so that Durge will end up on the nautiloid. Remember, Durge was not infected by the Emperor, he was infected for around 2-3 years and basically feral, fighting the mental influence of mindflyers.
4:28 feels to me like the narrator is talking in general terms here. not saying that that is the specific mindflayer that put the tadpole in your head, but rather confirming that it is a mindflayer from the ship you came in on and by proxy responsible for the tadpole you have
Nobody gonna mention the armour IS a part of their skin and the emperors armour heavily HEAVILY suggests he's not illithid but a Ulitharid a prerequisite to an elder brain HE EVEN HAS THE STAFF THAT IS BORN WITH THEM if you make em join the brain
(when they eat enough they place the staff under their chin and that staff becomes the tentacle/spine thing under the elder brains and every part of their body that isnt a brain gets dissolved and used as nutrients similar to ceramorphosis)
A few important details about Ulitharids that you missed: they have 6 tentacles, while regular Illithids and Emperor only have 4. Also, if I remember correctly, Ulitharids can naturally resist a regular Elder Brain themselves and leave the colony. Balduran would not have needed Ansur's help.
So I don't think Emperor is really ulitharid. But Larian may have had it in mind as an early concept. That could explain these similarities.
Also, the scene of the player turning into an illithid shows that the armor is created after the body (including skin) is formed. I suppose the emperor could have had it changed just because he wanted to.
@@ДенисЯковлев-ц1оYeah, he's definitely not a Ulitharid, but he's 100% some sort of elite ceremorphed flayer, most likely adorned by the Illithids themselves or the Elder Brain to look, be, and feel more elite as he was both Balduran, a good tactician, etc. So I'm assuming he was what Illithids have as some sort of general.
@@ДенисЯковлев-ц1о Laria is known to mess up lore before. It's very likely they forgot to anime 2 more tentacles.
Where did you guys found this lore?
@@LightningsGames Ulitharids are old D&D lore. I'm not sure they have any references in the 5e era (the last 10-ish years or so), and may not still be canon. I'm not 100% sure when they were added to the mind flayer lore, but they were there at least since 2nd edition in the 90s.
The infernal chains binding Orpheus might be coming from Tiamat, not from Raphael, and might've been a secret part of Vlaakith's deal with Tiamat that resulted in Githyanki obtaining Red Dragons
Interesting point about the dragons! I never knew what their possible origin could be in relation to why the githyanki ride them.
There's one thing I don't understand, though
This Vlaakith is not the one who betrayed Gith
The Vlaakith we are dealing with is the 157th, and people talk about this Vlaakith like she's one and the same
@@FiguringOutFantasy Gith (the og queen) made a deal with Tiamom who at the time was the Archduke of the First, actively working as the dealer for big honcho Asmodeus (or against him by slacking, depends on adventure and setting). Gith got one of Tiamats personal fuckboys (whose limbs and/or body parts keep appearing as huge to gargantuan objects throughout the editions which makes me think either he knew Regenerate or his body really was sauced up with magic) and a army, but lost herself (and probably in the devilish way some sort of "and all of your direct descendants" deal), but her 2nd in command Vlaakith the 1st got to use said army of dragons to absolutely ruin the mindflayers day. Time passed and her successors took on the same name till 2nd edition
Then between 2nd and 3rd edition, adventurers cucked the current Vlaakith to the point where she lost her Phylactery with its removal from her statblock features and nerfing her entire (sub)race (its destruction damaged the deadgod and is the explanation why Githyanki lost around 80% of their racial powers in 3.5 they had in 2nd edition going by adventure endings).
@@ANDELE3025 gotta love the edition shift cataclysms
Couldn’t be. Orpheus has two red dragons, Quulos and Quuthos
I'm still just more confused on the Moonrise timeline, we know the stonemason who built it for Ketheric was still around to see it falling into Sharran influence, so I'm assuming he was an elf also, but there's no mention of a mind flayer colony there already then. The treasure be buried was a chest in the tunnel so not some bigger secret. What treasure would Balduran have been looking for, back then? And would the Thorms have known? I just have so many questions about the timing of Isobel dying and things getting bad in Reithwin and the battle and how the other two Thorm kids are never mentioned anywhere else
Oh, I can clarify this for you: The timeline makes no sense and doesn't remotely hang together if you think about it all. There's a chance it was because of major plot changes happening late in development (which we know happened) and them just not having the time to back through and fit it all back together perfectly. Or it might be because different writing teams weren't coordinating their stuff as well as they should have (which we know happens in almost everything with multiple writers to at least some degree). But looking for answers will give you a headache because they aren't there. There's no way to make it work. It just literally doesn't work.
if you actually read enough of the documents scattered throughout the game you eventually learn that the emperor was the pilot of the nautiloid that crashed, which is how he was able to save Tav right at the beginning of the game. He had been tasked with exfiltrating the strike team that acquired the prism from the githyanki. When the elder brain finally reveals that the companions and the Emperor had been a part of the plan all along this is what it's referring to. It needed the prism to protect the companions from itself while it was still under the control of the netherstones. The Emperor was the one chosen to facilitate all of that because he believed himself to be beyond the influence of the elderbrain as long as he was protected by the prism. He was lying when he said he couldn't leave the prism like he lied about a lot of other things. The elder brain allowed him to believe the story he wanted to believe because it served as motivation for his assistance to the companions to acquire the netherstones and eventually free the brain from the control of the chosen.
What if the mind flayer ship we were in was taken by the emperor and his rebels. Why would there be a dead mind flayer in the intro? Didn't show any signs of the ship being damaged at all until the githyanki showed up. What if before the scene, the emperor entered that ship and took it and saw an opportunity to create more hosts for his rebellion against the brain. When we enter the fight, devils fighting the mind flayers. One of them talked to us to take over the noitoiliod. Mindless mind flayers can't even speak, but that one did before he was killed. A free will thinking mind flayers vs. the brain. Just a thought
Not how mindflayers work. Even under the influence of an elder brain mindflayers still have all their powers, including telepathy. Whether it would decide it was worth the energy to converse with you is another question though. Mindflayers generally see all other sentients as either cattle or threats. Do you talk to the cow you plan on turning into a steak?
Shadowheart and other Shar worshippers had raided the ship looking for the artifact Shadowheart has, they are probably responsible for the dead mind flayer if I had to guess.
Unfortunately, one other pop to that theory is that if you kill the Cambions, the Mind Flayer turns on you since you 'outlived your usefulness'.
@@NecroTokyo Mindflayers under Elderbrain control can still speak. We meet one in act 3, if you choose to wake the Mindflayer under the windmill.
That mindflayer tries to kill you too if you kill all enemies around you. It has been some time but he calls you something like thrall and that he doesnt need you anymore and attacks. So he is not really teaming with us, just only for time being for whatever reason
The elder brain says so, it says it sent the emperor to infect you and broke the emperor control to make it think he was free and knew he would do what he did and in doing it freed the brain and made it stronger, all the answer are in game and ppl are still in denial, the eye thing is just because that cutscene was made way before full release and models changed but the cutscene didn't cause changing only the eyes would need them to basically have to remake the entire cutscene a small inconsistency that is just not worth the hassle
Yes! Can't believe I had to scroll so far to see this comment.
"eye thing is just because that cutscene was made way before full release and models changed but the cutscene didn't cause changing only the eyes would need them to basically have to remake the entire cutscene"
Why not just change the in-game model?
@Jackrazorus probably because the ingame model looks way more badass lol I like the model way more than the cutscene, they probably do too or else they wouldn't have changed it in the first place
You forgot bg3 players haven’t finished the game
The emperor is NOT the mindflayer which tadpoles the PC. Why? Well look at the intro again and you'll find out but ... I will also tell you. The mindflayer which tadpoled us, is the one on the bridge of the nautiloid. Why? You see him tadpoling you, then you see him in the cutscenes moving the nautiloid from plane to plane. The one in the tutorial also has the special medici collar.
Also, the netherbrain does not say that it made the emperor infect you. It says that it allowed the emperor to break free, so you are right on that aspect but, the netherbrain telling you that it is the emperor who tadpoled you, is a connection your mind made based on your own assumptions not on what the game actually says.
The eye color change could just be a character design change after the pre-rendered cutscene was already made, since that cutscene was also the games trailer before it came out
This makes sense, but I'm hoping it's deeper than that!
Yeah, this is the answer. The cutscene was made years before in the in-engine character designs were finalised. Lae'zel also has some minor differences between cutscene and in-engine model.
Occam's Razor tells me this is the real answer. It's the simplest, most logical answer why there's a difference at all. There's a lot of evidence that suggests the Emperor was the one piloting the nautiloid that something as simple as an eye color change was an artistic choice made after the opening cinematic was made. A boring answer but the most likely one.
@@FiguringOutFantasy it's not
@@SpiritJuiceYT They hadn't even thought up the Emperor as a character when they made that cinematic. When they were adding the Emperor into things, they threw in some stuff implying it was him in the start to link it all back around together. So yeah, it's 100% this.
This is some crazy timing, I literally looked up a video disecting the Emperor and his place in the players' infection, and there was nothing. I hop on youtube today, lo and behold, there's a video. 🙏
I’m here to provide!
Perhaps the Orange eyes were because he was still under the Absolute's control? That's the only explanation i can come up with
We would need to see the other thralls eyes to confirm. If they still had orange eyes, then slam dunk.
My biggest question is was the Nautaloid's rampage through Baldur's Gate (and the subsequent Tadpoling of Tav/Durge and the other Origin characters) in the Intro done on orders from Gortash, or was it the Emperor trying to rebel? Rewatching the intro, we see Big E pass through a hall littered with dead mind flayers before he reaches the helm and sends the Nautiloid to Baldur's Gate. This would imply the prism is already on board when the craft reaches the city, yet instead of finding a sublte way to hand over the prism, the craft instead goes on rampage, abducting random citizens and causing chaos and oodles of damage. This in turn seems to imply (to me anyway) that Big E has already escaped the Absolute's influence, and is trying to create his own army of psychic thralls to fight the forces of the dead three. He ends up having to adapt his plans when "his" new ship crashes, killing all but 7 or so of "his" new thralls forcing him to be a bit more subtle in his control over "his" new "allies" than he had originally been planning....
The city in the opening cinematic isn't Baldur's Gate, btw. And the tadpoling of Tav and most of the others (besides Karlach and Wyll I guess because they were picked up in Avernus), happened before character creation. The nautiloid battle between the planes happens after that.
@@Rocker4JCforever The problem with that theory is if the city isn't Baldur's Gate, then how/when did Astarion get taken? He wasn't allowed to leave the city by order of Cazador, until he was tadpoled and that short-circuted the Vamp/spawn bond. It's far easier to justify Gale being out of Waterdeep, than it is to justify Astarion being out of BG.
Some of the story and the entire party's backgrounds really break down when you look too closely, because the characters and their backgrounds were written by different people who were obviously not in enough communication between themselves and whoever scripted the overarching story of the game. The Gale/Astarion plot hole of which city it was in the cinematic is just one of the most egregious.
@@tiffanysimpson3336 It is definitely Baldur's Gate. Not just because Astarion can only have been snatched up there. Gale was likely paying a visit to Baldur's Gate, trying to find a cure for his problem in Baldur's Gate's magical library, since that Library in the tower contains the Book of Karsus. That also explains why in Act 3 we find his Tressym familiar Tara in Baldur's Gate instead of her being in Waterdeep.
@@tiffanysimpson3336 The cinematic is at Yartar, which is a small city to the North of Waterdeep. The geography and tabards are wrong for BG or Waterdeep. Astarion (and presumably Tav) are kidnapped off the streets of BG Gortash's Black Guard. The nautiloid needs bodies/brains for food and so Gortash sends some unmissed unfortunates to moonrise to stock it. Gale does want to be out of Waterdeep, but heading to BG is just as bad, he's trying avoid populated areas since he might explode at any moment.
Between Waterdeep and Yartar is a mountain range that houses creche K'liir, where Lae'zel comes from. Creche K'liir is known to non-gith as Stardock, and is the easiest way to get to the Astral Plane for normal people, like Shadowheart's Sharran raid going after this prism.
It's not acknowledged in game due to spoilers and being irrelevant, but someone did have this as a plan.
Good thinking but also how do literally any of these characters have access to a nautiloid in the first place? Omeluum says something like it’s something his ancestors would’ve had implying it was some kind of lost technology. Even with the mind flayer colony always existing in Moonrise that’s a huge leap to say they also always had a nautiloid to jump planes just parked out back.
I never even questioned how I got the tadpole, just on how to get rid of it during the game.
we got an adventure hook follower here
The Early Access setup with Dream Lover being the tadpole talking to you 2as so much more fun...
less interesting and less involved*
omeluum is quaking in the underdark, realizing it was nearly found out
There is incorrect information in regard to Orpherus's imprisonment. In game it is stated that his rebellion is a result of the FIRST Vlaakith betraying Gith and selling what is presumed her soul out to the Archdevil Tiamat in exchange for the aid of red dragons the Lich Queen Vlaakith in game is a different person.
She isn't a different person. She's a necromancer that stays alive by basically eating the life force of her people and plays it off by periodically pretending to die and be succeeded by another Vlaakith. The information you get about her being multiple people with the same name comes from Lae'zel who is an unreliable narrator due to the systemic lies Vlaakith has been telling to the Githyanki.
It's very clearly stated with in game lore than GITH made the pact with Tiamat to get the dragons. Then you get all the lore around her son Orpheus that states that Vlaakith used the power vacuum of her sacrifice to take control instead of Gith's son inheriting it as he was supposed to. That's why the Githyanki slates that talk about him are all supposed to be banned. Vlaakith doesn't want that information out there, because she claims to be Gith's choice to rule when that couldn't be further from the truth. Gith's son had her power to keep their people from being controlled by an Elder Brain, and Vlaakith does not. If you have just finished freeing your people from control, and go to the degree of sacraficing yourself to get the ability to control dragons gifted to your people, you're not going to leave them with an inferior leader on purpose. That's the basis of the "rebellion" Orpheus was fighting against her, and the reason she had to make a pact with Raphael to lock him away. The longer he was out there fighting the good fight, the more of the Githyanki he would be able to sway away from her. She had to put that rebellion down quickly, before her lies caught up with her, despite how it made them weaker as a people not to have Orpheus around to protect them from their racial enemy.
It's not just her hunger for ultimate power that is the reasoning behind her trying to become some immortal god. She's running scared from having to pay her half of the bargain with Raphael. When she dies, he owns her soul. Raphael just doesn't care enough to bother with her, because for him it was more about fcking with his fathers supposed plans and her potential soul is just a side benefit.
@@tiffanysimpson3336 This is a lovely comment. Thanks for the info i don't think I'd ever have found out about otherwise c:
@tiffanysimpson3336 She is a different queen. The current queen Vlaakith does do that, but she had many predecessors who were mortal. Though they obviously must have died through unnatural means like battle or assasination given that they mostly reside in the astral plane where nobody ages. The githyanki being a martial race does make that plausible. It is true that the first vlaakth has been referred to as a lich queen in some lore sources, but I think that is purely due to inconsistencies with the lore and authors mistaking the two vlaakiths.
DnD lore is a convoluted mess largely written by third party authors where the line between canon and non-canon is extremely blurry, and at times canon stuff can be de-canonised later. Inconsistencies are everywhere. The only canon that really exists is whatever the dungeon master decides, which in this case is Larian.
Well, in the flashbacks, the emperor has pink eyes as well when he's around Stelmane. If you harass him enough while he's trying to romance you, he'll show a flashback of himself enthralling Duke Stelmane, her eyes turn pink and she becomes basically his zombie. I think the reason his eyes are pink when you meet him is because the entire time you're around him after the nautiloid, he's enthralling you.
It can't be the emperor because he's stuck in the prism at that time tho and there's only a few moments where he can freely leave the prism and the moment we get the tadpole isn't one of them
Good reasoning! Also if you take a good look at the intro trailer it is clear that the mindflayer which tadpoled you, is the one who fights the demon on the bridge.
As far I remember, it was told or written in the game somewhere that the Dark Urge was the actual designer of the whole plan and the thing he didn't foresee was the Orin's betrayal. And that is where things are confusing - he was infected as one of the first or literally the first one with the tadpool in the Moorise Towers, then by some undisclosed circumstances, ended up on the nautoloid. Also, the animation with being infected with tadpool on the nautuloid is in contradiction to writings in the ilithid colony.
My guess is, the basic premise and the starting movie was created first, then the details and the Dark Urge story came later, and they missed the contradiction, especially that Dark Urge as a playable character showed up very late, short before the release of the game, while the into movie was known for years and was not changed for most of the time (or was it?).
Or, maybe the sequence of being infected was out of the order and happened before the nautuloid?
New idea to make it more realistic, if you play dark urge, start with a second tadpole (because of opening cinematic giving you technically the second one) for when you’re spending them later on
I’d still interpret that info as meaning it was the dark urge’s plan to utilize Mephistopho’s writings and plot after having stolen the crown of karsus to begin with. It could very well be an oversight, but I think it still makes sense.
Ah, but maybe the Dark Urge didn't receive a second tadpole, but is experiencing another's infection through the tadpole...
It’s only Dark Urge’s plan when you play as them because Tav doesn’t exist then and dark urge is found dead during the play through as tav in Orin’s room
actually theres this dude called "blue apex" that came up with the plan
in the become the absolute ending , our companions have now orange eye and are mind controled . Im pretty sure that in the opening cinematic before the emperor found the astral prison of shadowheart that he was still controled by the elder brain , as we also know that he state he gain back control when entering the prism
This makes total sense!
So, the one thing I never see mentioned anywhere in these sort of videos, is that it's highly likely Shadowheart was already tadpoled BEFORE we were. Remember, until we killed Ketheric and the Brain started actively trying to wrestle control from the Three, ALL the tadpoled were in suspended ceramorphosis regardless of being near the prism. That was the whole point, an invisible sleeper army slowly populating Baldur's Gate and eventually the Sword Coast as a whole.
Gortash sent the Emperor AND a tadpoled team to get the prism from the Gith. Shadowheart's team was supposedly sent by the Sharrans to get the prism from the Gith, but it feels very unlikely that two groups were both sent on the same fetch quest at the same time, competing with each other yet we never hear or see any other sign of Gortash's group beyond the Emperor/Ship. Yet, there Shadowheart is, on the ship having successfully stolen the prism, the rest of HER party having died?
I call BS. Shadowheart was already tadpoled, and was part of the group Gortash sent. With her swiss cheese memory, it is entirely possible she doesn't even remember who actually sent out the mission or whether they too were tadpoled as sleeper agents in Shar's ranks.
Also, to more directly reference the video: There is more than one kind of Mindflayer. The normal kind that does basic melee and psychic damage, and another type that has both psychic and normal Arcane magic. The same kind as the only other Mindflayer we meet who is able to break free from the Elder Brain; Omeluum. He tells us that the mindflayers with Magic are more dangerous to the colony because they are more easily able to break free, but it is also implied that they are more valuable than the rank and file when they don't break free. Which can be denoted by their special armor.
Despite his "rogueish" qualities, Baldur had magic. I think he was either an Arcane Trickster, or more likely a Bard with good sneak skills (Especially given his "friendship" with a Copper dragon. It's a DnD meme for a reason, afterall...) It would fit his own description of himself very well. When he underwent ceramorphosis, he kept his magic, and that is why his armor is different from the rank and file, and why they wanted him back in the fold enough to seek him out rather than simply kill him for proving he could escape.
Alt interpretation: Book states its a plan to happen. Plan wasn't being executed yet and the Nautilod run was to scout out the Astral+grab some more followers.
Sharts team is confirmed to have stolen the prism by the Gith thesmelves and the Prism was on her. Since her room is on the way out that Emperor (eyes glowing orange from anon-corpse POV from opening cutscene) took out, yet his eyes glow orange only when dominated by EB, when he was tadpoling Shart he found the Prism, got freed of the control again and jumped in.
Also Omeluum is a reference to older (and 3e Lords of Madness, book entirely on far realm entities like flayers and beholders) where immunity to mind effects is immunity to psionics that Flayers use and that EB use to dominate the flayers themselves, which is what the Rings 5e tabletop version does (which in turn is a reference to a Cursed Mental Fortitude Ring made out of Mind Shielding rings in a few 3e appearances). And no, Arcane capable (as well as certain innate Divine caster) flayers are generally killed, or if unable to be killed, thrown out of colonies unless very weak and thus dominated as frontline bait just barely better than strong thralls (to use the most recent entry on that lore, from 5e monster manual on flayer arcanists: "A few mind flayers supplement their psionic power with arcane spells. However, they are regarded as deviants by their illithid peers and usually shunned."). Also Balduran was a fighter, we know this from prior BG games (and his gear).
For those wondering if the eye colour can be explained by the control of the elder brain changing it, that is not it. His eyes are still purple when you fight him on top of the netherbrain after allying with Orpheus, when he has returned under the influence of the netherbrain. I can only assume that this is either a simple oversight on the part of the developers, or that the illithid in the opening cinematic is simply a different one who is never seen again.
The Emperor isn’t the one. The one that infected us was the one that Bugbear was trying to resurrect in the goblin camp. If you cast Speak with the Dead, I believe it tells you that.
Jeez… this Emperor guy has a lot of stuff up his sleeves, huh?
Why I betrayed him in the end. I never truly trusted him because I couldn’t understand his motives for helping me. It seemed like he was using me more than anything else.
The Emperor reminded me of the Century Egg from Smiling Friends "now you know my coool f*cking backstory" he always felt like he was gaslighting me, it was smart to approach as a "dream visitor" but it also backfired as I already didn't trust his Visitor form.
@@meatmanmagoo hes like that toxic ex stereotype. when you dont trust him he throws a tantrum and tries to make you feel bad
I think he was both using us and helping us. This may seem contradictory to us, but here me out. We know he was using us because he was constantly misleading us and telling us half truths, and if you chose the right dialog options, he will even go so far as to threaten us.
However, he is also helping us. The first and most obvious way he is helping us is preventing us from becoming mindflayers and protecting our minds from the Absolute. But you can also view the Emperor's manipulations as helping us to. Now we would prefer that the Emperor stop trying to manipulate us, but from the Emperor's point of view, he is protecting us from our own nature. He thinks we will not trust a mindflayer, so he appears as the "guardian" even wearing fancy gold armor. And even when we discover he is a mindflayer, he doesn't tell us everything, or he will set ultimatums trying to force us to do things his way. The best example of this is when we get the chance to recruit Minsc, and he tries to convince us to kill Minsc. This is obviously due to the fact that Minsc is hard-headed and a wee bit dumb which makes it hard for the Emperor to control him, but again, he views this as for our own good as he believes that the only way we will succeed is if we do as he says and adding someone like Minsc is adding someone who is unlikely to do as the Emperor says no matter how much sense he's making.
Now, the main reason I think the Emperor views his attempts to manipulate us as helping us all comes down to the ending. The Emperor doesn't take control of the Netherbrain unless we convince him to. His first instinct upon dominanting the Netherbrain is to destroy it, thus freeing us all from the Netherbrains control. This proves that he is only after freedom from the Netherbrain, not its power.
Now, that's not to say I trust him at all. Even if, from his point of view, his manipulations were for our own good and choosing to side with him keeps us from turning mindflayer, he is still constantly manipulating us or telling us half truths and keeping secrets from us. It doesn't matter if those manipulations are for our benefit, trusting someone like that is a fool's errand. So, during my first playthrough, I killed them Emperor and dominated the Netherbrain myself rather than sharing that power with someone who has proven his willingness to manipulate us. Just because someone thinks something you don't want to do will benefit you doesn't mean it will, and allowing the Emperor control over the Netherbrain is giving him the power to dominate your mind and force you to do as he says even if you disagree. That is not the kind of power you should trust the Emperor with given his proven willingness to manipulate us.
I found the way that he reacted to Rapheal and Vos when they offer an alternative to him a bit sus. Orpheus attacking you if you betray the emperor and free him seems unreasonable, so when Vos asks tells you otherwise it seems believable. The emperor gets mad if you even just get the Orphic hammer, even if you just want to kill Raphael.
He has good reasons to not appear as a mindflayer when you meet. That seems more than reasonable. But the controlling attitude did him in for me. Orpheus was a bit discusted by what I had done with the Emperor though.
Seems legit. Emperors was a shadow tyrant of bg. So using tadpoles for new pawns is natural for him. If you hostile to him during seduction cutscene and later, he confirms that his friendship with duke lady was a lie. He never hid his nature and ruled with fear and mindcontrol. He says - be glad that i decided on anew apporach, now do as i say or transform.
This theory has been around for...ever. But I vividly remember that Larian addressed this as not true. Please, please remember that the scene was made months before the Emperor was added to the game, don't forget that the Early Access BG3 story had been entirely different, the dream visitor being more of a manifestation of the tadpole with the Emperor completely missing from the picture. Even the twist that the Emp is Balduran was just a late addition. Don't subscribe to ideas that lack nuance please
If you could provide a source that would be nice to see, cause Larian isn't usually sloppy like that. I tried searching online for what you're talking about but it might be obscure or you misinterpreted it.
The last part is a bit of a double edged sword because story bits can be repurposed from EA. Also it being put in the game months before the emperor was actually is the game doesn’t disprove it either. Sometimes devs during early access don’t put every single little piece in together
@@godessnerd I agree with this, that it probably existed before the emperor was made, but I also don't think it's too far fetched they'd connect those dots later on
i looked for it but couldnt find anything. I doubt u have any idea of what ur saying, unless ofcourse u have sources
Unfortunately I haven't been able to find the article I referenced, it got lost to the murkyness as this theory has been out since the launch. I have to say it is was nice to be asked a source, like a serious debate but I find it ridiculous to be dismissed by another commenter under a video that disproves its own take in the 4th minute.
I will die on the hill that this "theory" is...well, insignificant as the evidence against it ingame outweighs it's importance.
Apart from art direction being an evolving thing and the opening cinematic came 3 years before official launch, a Durge playthrough will have even more of the answers one needs.
It's fun to theorise, but in my opinion the Emperor does enough sketchy shit that this one act he should be absolved of. And also you can find the Emperor's (Old) Robes in his hideout, he just dresses to impress. I think it should have been more of a twist to have him be an ulitharid or an alhoon but the lore is convoluted enough for any newcomer to the setting enough to let illithid social hierarchies go this time.
Never trust an ilithid (except Omeluum. He's alright).
I was too Naïve on my first playthrough…😅
Wish I could've spat in the Emperor's face the first time I met the real him. I don't trust any illithid (aside from Omeluum as he's a good boy), I'd been spoiled on the identity of the dream guardian beforehand so I knew what'd be coming later. The more I interact with the Emperor, the more he seems like a classic case of an abusive, toxic boyfriend trying to mold me into something he'd prefer instead of accepting me as myself, constantly goading me into absorbing the tadpoles and telling me I should be *grateful* he hasn't brute-forced me into anything yet. And then he got really mad at me when I called him a freak in his face. Get f****d, squidface.
Is he though...?? (Omeluum) I'm sure he is a scumbag too, we just didn't get the chance to know him better
I didn’t think it was the emp who infected us until my second play through. First one I listened to him, second play was all about telling him to piss off; doing that made me think it was him who infected me.
It's not just the eyes. The armor is also different but I guess he just evolved a bit over time.
Emperor: You, yeah you. You’re my friend now, no take backs.
Occam's razor:
His eyes
In the original concept art his eyes are white (neutral, undefined). The creators of the cutscene interepted it as glowing orange eyes, the develops of the character in the game made it purple. It was a detail they couldn't change once the cutscene was done.
Its detail they could have changed in the game, though.
Your videos on BG3 are incredible. I’d love to see more!! Especially a piece on Orin or Gortash, as we don’t have as much of a deep dive as we do with Ketheric.
Ask and you shall receive! Just gotta be patient as these videos take a lot of time to make. Thanks for watching!
I've got a couple of ideas:
Maybe it's an indication that he was under control of the brain and/or cult(we haven't seen any clear shots of his eyes when he is contolled that I am aware of)(+ correct me if I'm remembering incorrectly, didn't the lady he mind controlled previously eyes glow purple(the color of the his eyes) when mind controled? It's been a while since I've seen the cut scene)
The lighting makes his eyes appear more gold in different lighting
I think the eyes are orange bc when they made the cutscene they probably didn't have the entire plot ready and all it's tiny details and since it wasn't directly referenced I think it was just an oversight by the designers
I hope it’s at least a little bit canon!
awesome, keep up the good work!
Our mind flayers were special ,bound with netherese magic. It makes sense that the Emperor went out of the Astral Prism killed the other mindflayers, selected and infected the most potent hosts and so he can use our party for his own schemes. The changing of eye color could be result of using the magic, I don't think he was under the influence of the brain (it wouldn't make sense). Once he infected the party in main cockpit he went back to shadowheart, because the prism is his shelter. I didn't think about that until I saw this video. The other thing which didn't make sense was that he was not mind flayer with rogue skills, he was pure caster but how he learned about the netherese magic.
The mind flayers eyes color change when they are under an elder brain control vs when they are not.
I think the pre-rendered cutscene was an early model of the Emperor.
In the final release Larian must've decided the color of his eyes should be different to drive home the notion that he is effectively different than every other mindflayer.
Just to confirm this:
1 - he is not under the influence of the Elder Brain at the cutscene. He already has the prism and potentially was the one that killed the other illithids.
2 - when you "betray" him at the end of the game, he joins the absolute to survive. But even if he returns to the fold, his eyes are still purple.
The eyes...
Maybe he's constantly channeling magic during his time in the Astral Prism. After all, he always goes on about how the Elder Brain is relentlessly sending waves of psioninc energy that he has to counter.
It's a common fantasy trope: "Power makes your eyes glow."
Not a bad theory! I honestly hope this is right!
In addition to what's in the video, there are some pieces of evidence of Raphael's involvement with Orpheus and the Astral Prism found in books and notes in the game (which can be referenced in the BG3 Wiki):
Inscribed Githyanki Slate (found in the Astral Prism) - [Symbolic drawings, etched over a forgotten text. Two figures, one an imposing female with regal aspect, the other, a Devil, his face twisted with wry charm. Their hands meet in the exchange of an artefact - the Astral Prism.]
About Creation of Orphic Hammer (found in a chest in the House of Hope) - [A detailed history of the Orphic Hammer, describing the infernal workforce Raphael harnessed to locate and mine the rare materials used in its creation, and its intented purpose.] / The Hammer is not a weapon, it is an insurance policy. Its function is specific, but its utility is boundless. No chains forged by infernal hand can withstand its power, for its core is a metalifferous compound combining the purest of essence of all Nine hells. If I should ever need to liberate the prisoners held in the Iron City of Dis, to shatter the vaults of Nargus, or even to free the child of Gith, my hammer will be equal to the task.
The Power Of The Crown (found in the Archive in the House of Hope) - [All one hundred chapters of this dense book describe the coronation of Raphael as Archdevil Supreme of the Nine Hells, but the circumstances vary in each case. Some versions are written as if historical fact, others are imagined futures, but all end with Raphael wearing the Crown of Karsus. One in particular catches your attention.] / In the end, it was the Prism-Bearers who came to him seeking salvation, and he laid out a course for their survival. They would be free of the parasite, the Sword Coast would be cleansed of illithids, and Raphael would receive the Crown for his part in the victory. From the moment he met them, it was inevitable. The Realms would weep to see his glory.
Those texts imply that Raphael provided Vlaakith with the Astral Prism to imprison Orpheus long ago, and also created the Orphic Hammer as a safeguard if things went badly and he were to ever need "to free the child of Gith". Later, he saw an opportunity to make a deal with adventurers to acquire the Crown that Gortash had stolen from Mephistopheles' vault
One more thing: the plan for Accelerated Grand Design was not created by Mephistopheles, it was an alhoon whose journal was in the vault with the Crown of Karsus
To Take Control - "Gortash Private Memoir Notes, Number 9 / To Take Control / We were deep in Mephisto's vault, burgling the Crown of Karsus, when I saw next to the crown that the wily archdevil had a portfolio labelled 'Accelerated Grand Design'. I couldn't resist taking that as well. The portfolio contained plans compiled by a mad alhoon known only as Blue Apex for a version of the illithid resurgence, a Grand Design that called for mass tadpoling of both friends and enemies - but not to convert the tadpoled into mind flayers, but rather to suspend that ceremorphosis under powerful magic to create a vast and unconscious hive mind commanded by an enhanced elder brain. My mind, trained in the tyrannical tenets of Bane, instantly saw that this was a means to perpetrate a powerful religious hoax, a mass movement controlled, ultimately, by none other than myself. For who but the Chosen of Bane could master so grand a scheme?"
LOVE THIS agree! I have 3,000+ hours in the game and have read every book. The game pretty much explains it IMO
All this is nice were it not for one exception: Half-fiends, even the most powerful ones, have a lifespan based on the mortal parent no more than double the maximum (so assuming regular tiefling to make a 3e lore classic cambion, around 350 years tops, average under 225 years, lets add a few cheaty spells and pots and you can stretch it to 720-730 without doing something that would be impossible for a resident of the hells or no longer being a half-devil). Its literally the backstory of Acererak.
Raph is in fact a cambion, he wasnt there for the fall of Netheril despite his lies (since he does explicitly lie/directly contract facts you can find or even act upon as long as its external events) and its even less possible that he was the thousands of years prior when Tiamat and Gith made the deal with OG Vlaakith (the 1st) present. Closest it would have been in his early/teen-ish years that he could have made the deal with the prior Vlaakith, which makes no sense timescale side as numerous Githyanki plots wouldnt happen if a direct descendant of Gith was alive/known to be alive; but the easier explanation is that the OG devil is Mephisto dealing with Vlaakith the 1st while Tiamom gave Gith the scepter with Asmos shiny rock. Both made a deal, Vlaakith was smart enough to make her personalized while Gith made it tied to the scepter so that as long as its in the posession of the Gith her people are safe.
Then Raph is writing fanfics taking the spot of his dad and how his future plans will look like as if they would ever realize.
This is super cool and well thought out. I think the color discrepancy is ultimately due to the difference in renderings. There are other slight color alterations in his outfit and I think this could just be chalked up to internal design stuff, like it they had made that intro cinematic earlier in development and much later tweaked the colors a bit or something. That's my guess anyways
Regarding the narrator, it's basically our inner consciousness, so when narrator says 'this is the one' it's basically we think this is the culprit, but it doesn't have to be the truth. It's just what we believe at that moment, hence why in two different situations narrator says/we think opposite things. Kinda like what happens during random checks with insight, history, religion... If we pass the check then narrator says one thing, if we fail the check then says different thing.
Something I noticed just as I began a new game last night with this in mind. During character creation, the Emperor is the one who asks "Who are you?" and insists "You need a guardian". He is digging into our minds and commanding us to imagine our ideal savior, which he later uses against us. Immediately after confirming your choice of guardian, the screen flashes back to his face; there's not even a loading screen, when by all rights there ought to have been. This feels deliberate.
"Thrall. Connect the nerves of the transponder. We must escape. Now"
The intro cut-scene was made very early into the development, hence there's only one such cut-scene, all others are made in-engine. This explains the discrepancies between Emperors cut-scene and in-game appearance.
I just watched what happens when the emperor rejoins the netherbrain and his eyes are still purple.
Well, if I never trusted Emperor before (I didn't) I certainly am never trusting him now (I won't). Now I definitely never have to feel bad about "betraying" him and freeing Orpheus in every playthrough.
11:45 it makes more sense for it to be Tiamat tbh but it’s also quite possible to be Raphael
There was another great comment mentioning Tiamat, saying how it the astral prism could have been involved in the githyanki acquiring their dragons they ride.
@@FiguringOutFantasy Thats actually somewhat explicitely stated in the tower in Underdark. I think you find some artifact which explains it.
My problem with this the fact that the emperor is the same one from the opening cut scene is that the PC/companions don’t recognise him, why wouldn’t they say anything about the emperor literally being the one that infected them?
Like the evidence for the emperor being the mindflayer makes sense, it’s just that this particular point doesn’t imo.
I think that’s a good point! There’s no mention of even the possibility of it being him within dialogue.
There are multiple clips of the mindflayers creating their own clothing. This implies that the appearence instinctively matches their power level.
I'll be damned...none of this ever occurred to me.
I'm gonna be honest the whole mindflayer plot is kinda shit, like I enjoy the game more when I'm not thinking about it and just focusing on the dread 3. Regardless the emperor can't be the one to infect us because that would mean he was walking about the nautiloid while it was being attacked and not in the prism, and I'd be willing to bet that he wouldn't be able to resist the netherbrain while on a return mission from getting the prism and then just casually hop into the prism right after infecting us and getting attacked by the gith, again, while under the influence of the brain. I think its more likely that he hopped into the prism on the mission and someone else infected us after passing over Baldur's gate the first time.
The other thing from what I remember of the dialogue the armor is made psionically, so its stylized, and that means any mindflayer that sufficiently strong could have a Medici collar. All of this ignores that fact that this is a story and having a definable reason or explanation for everything is kinda boring. It doesn't matter if the emperor infected us with the tadpole bc he's already dodgy as hell
Great video man. Please keep up the great work!
Thank you! Stay tuned for more!
Awesome video! I think the eye thing might only be different because Omeluum has its orange eyes but has its shield ring, so it may still have the physiology of being "enthralled", so maybe being rogue does change eye color? The Elder Brain basically confirms that dominating Orpheus through The Emperor so that it could eventually break free from the Chosen Three's control, was its ultimate goal. I think The Emperor is complicated because its hard to know what if any free will it truly has. Raphael has also been waiting and laying his puzzle pieces the entire time as well, so it's hard to say if Raph wasn't also involved in guiding that ship (piloted by our lovely lying illithid Emperor) to successfully finding the prism. Meanwhile poor Durge is like I HAVE A HOLE IN MY SKULL THIS WAS NOT HOW THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO GO
For me the dead mindflayers he walk past at the beginning are the big hint that it was the Emperor, not the 'armor'.
the one who put the tadpole in you is the one who was piloting the nautiloid. it literally shows you that in the opening cinematic.
i always thought it was very strange that he spends the entire game trying to build an army to thwart the elder brain but if you so much as want to hear Orpheus' side or truly what he thinks we should do he just fucking leaves to join the elder brain? it feels like it goes against everything his character had been set up as we're literally fighting an evolved via ancient magic and the power of 3 gods elder brain its not as if our chances of succeeding were especially high in the first place we were going to at least try to put up a fight yet the emperor just throws that philosophy away just cuz ig
correct me if i'm wrong but doesn't the emperor believe orpheus will definitely attack him/the player if freed? the emperor seems to prioritize his survival over anything else so it makes sense that he would join the big brain after in his mind being betrayed.
Though my personal theory was that withers somehow orchestrated the whole thing to keep his juniors in check. Its heavily implied that he is Jergal the original god of death with which Baahl, Bane, and Myrkul, made a deal with to ascend to godhood. Those gods make each of their chosen work together to try and take over the world using mind flayer tadpoles. The very key to the chosen's downfall along with a select few extraordinary individuals all with direct ties to the plot just so happen to crash land on his doorstep after traveling through multiple planes of existence.
Orange eyes = hive mind
Purple eyes = solo
The armor looks more red-tinted than purple in the tadpole scene, so it may be the lighting. Some things can look drastically different colors in different lighting.
One thing you touched on that is truly interesting is how Mestophales is the source of the ENTIRE PLOT of BG3. As you pointed out it was his book Gortash stole for the plan with the Elderbrain but also it was Mestophales who gave the Ascension ritual to Cazador to begin with!
The origins of this game are incredibly interesting to dig through!
Perhaps his eyes were orange because he was at that time still under control of the Elder Brain while on the ship, and when Shadowheart got abducted it ended up breaking the Elder Brains control again once the Emperor got within range of her after a set duration, and slipped into the prism after realizing it as it was the only way to keep him safe?
It does make alot of sense since the default option for the guardians appearance is a drow female. If you take shadowhearts backstory into account it kinda comes together that would be a form she trusts.
It's more likely that there were changes throughout development and not all loose threads were 'tied up'. Same thing happens in Act 2 where the events that lead up to Ketheric and the shadow curse don't all add up. Likewise in Act 3 the Netherbrain throws the entire plot in the blender when it claims it 'was in control the whole time' and everything was by it's design. Which completely contradicts what happens in Act 1 and Act 2.
I think that the brain intended that being controlled was the part of the plan, like a big gamble. The brain may have immagined that before or after the chosens would have lost control on him or that having the crown would have permitted him to absorbe the power and brake free eventualy
"this is definitely The Emperor if you ignore this very important detail" yeah okay
I imagine the orange eyes are a sign he's under the influence of the elder brain, while the purple eyes shows he's not. He's thinking for himself. There's also a rune slate you can find in the Nautiloid [in the room you find Us in, iirc] that says the following: "A feeling penetrates your mind. An anomaly. One like ourselves, unconnected from the whole. Caution."
I believe this slate is probably talking about the Emperor. There is Omeluum, another rogue mind flayer, but he's pretty much just minding his own business and I don't think he would be perceived as a threat much? There's also a slate in the room with Shadowheart that I think hints towards Orpheus, too.
I thought it was pretty obvious that Shadowheart's group ganked that second dead illithid, so it makes sense for the Emperor to be inside the prism in SH's possession.
Little info i can add to the half dead mindfair at the beach area and the one in the goblin camp. They're the same. My proof for that claim is that, depending on how you kill the one at the beach, the mindflair in the goblin camp will change. For example If you kill the one at the beach with ray of frost, both it and the one at the camp will be frozen corpses. In conclusion i doubt that it's the same one as in the intro cinematic since that one appeared to be dead already.
There are 'higher ranking' Mind Flayers called Ulitharids that usually wear the more exaggerated collars, these are the mindflayers that can eventually be evolved into a new elder brain through a ritual of sorts. Just a fun fact
It seems that this section was rewritten at least once, but your explanation is a good one.
The reason für the different eye colors is simple and the same reason why Lae'zel looks so much cuter in the intro cinematic than later in the game. The Cinematic was made before all design choices were final. Lae'zel was made more mature and the eyes changed colors. And I'm pretty sure as the cinematic was created parts of the story also wasn't set in stone.
I do agree that, unless it was a cut piece of content, it is odd for them to pay such attention to his look unless it was going to be a significant character or twist.
Why there is "infernal presence" is explained on the first disk from the set that details Orpheus's story: a deal with Tiamat.
Purple eyes could be an indicator to the control of the absolute
The reason why he has orange eyes is simple: he faked his eyes color while he was infecting his future pawns. I mean, he literally said he is good at shapeshift spell (the one that so powerfull in player hands it even can fool githyanki gear). In final fight his shapeshifted copies even existed separated from him (however he might be using Absolute's power, yet still impressive). But as we know - shapeshift spell does not support transforming to illithid. And Emperor never needed to improve this spell to support illithid shape just because he always used it to be somebody that is not illithid. So he had to improvise and he just swaped his eyes with this spell to look like common illithid. A person like him can do such a trick for sure.
He probably also did it in order if any of the infected would recognize him he could say "I still was in control of Absolute, don't you see my eyes? I'm the victim". It would be looking earnestly, if not two facts. First, we have seen him in moments he was 100% controlled by Elder brain and he still was purple-eyed. Second, at intro we have seen a dead illitihid in that chamber. I don't think illithid corpses is common in nautiloid interrior, so there must be a reason he's dead. Who could kill an illithid at an illithid controlled ship? Obvously, another illithid. And that was for sure the one that is not controlled by Elder brain.
I think, the Emperor got freed once he got Shadowheart. He has designed a plan that he would hide in that Prism and he need a minions that would be dependent from him. So he have infected as much people as he can (and killed another illithid staying at his way). Then he have hided in Astral Prison and waited until cereromorphosis starts in order to look like a savior to his pawns. And, of course, he always was against freeing Orpheus because Orpheus knows what he done
0:25 I mean... it's implied that he was. But not explicitly said. It's only he wasn't willing to do it. He was under control by the Elder Brain at that point. A few points for it:
1. The Emperor is the one mind flayer in the story using that armor.
2. He was supposed to be there, in charge of that mission, according to Gortash's notes.
3. According to himself, he gets the artifact, frees himself from the Elder Brain control. But then he goes inside the artifact and gives it to Shadowheart.
3. The Emperor-like mind-flayer is also in the ship, but then is nowhere to be seen.
4. Then the mind flayer who "is responsible for the tadpoles" looks nothing like that.
There's this mod called Glut's Ring Controlled Followers that lets you revive any dead creature as a spore servant. A glitch happens after killing the Mind Flayer at the crash site and reviving him as a spore servant. If you click on him to "start dialogue" the game teleports you to Dror Raglin's cave and starts the entire interrogating dead mindflayer cutscene. After the cutscene ends the mind flayer that you were interrogating is already alive as your spore servant. I know that it's a mod and bound to glitch but the fact that the game to a certain extent considers the crash site mindflayer and Dror Ragzlin's mind flayer the same is interesting.
Thank you for sharing!
Really great video and great timbre. Gives TheEpicNate315 vibes.
Thank you! Taught me a new word too. “timbre” 😎
I never trusted the emperor always felt they gave me half truths
If you speak to the curator in the house of hope about the Orphic hammer, he states that Raphael made it himself, giving more evidence that he either also made or aided in making the prism.
I'm curious as to the one who tadpoles us as the Emperor because one thing I think I recall, is in the cutscenes showing mind flayers with armor, they're all in that Emperor style armor. I dont think his armor style is unique. Though another unique armor for a mind flayer is when Orpheus becomes Illithid or if we choose to become Illithid, the armor is different and it all seems to materialize onto the mind flayer.
I'm not sure it matters which mindflayer tadpoled us. Because the chosen 3 were at this point tadpoling the entire sword coast. The tadpoling center under Moonrise was well into operation when we go hurtling through the cosmos. Not to mention, our origin is from Baldurs Gate. So Gortash orders our tadpoling, we get picked up by the Nautiloid, and then the ship is attacked by demons (because Gortash broke into the hells to get the crown) and we were poised to be transformed in the pod, because for some reason (and this is where my own theory gets me) the Absolute's orders arent reaching us so we get stuck in the pod to force ceremorphosis and we break out of the pod due to demon and dragon attack.
Not saying that the Emperor is a good guy. He's not in my book. I just think his goal is more self serving to take control of an elder brain responsible for controlling him and we're a means to that end. And tadpoling us does not achieve that goal. In fact, its counter to his goal I think he was fully within his own mind when he had the conversation with Gortash in that note at the pool. I think he was acting like he was still under control of the brain but he was not.
He's a very manipulative character to be sure. But he's also very self preservation focused as seen by his actions as an adventurer, his actions with Ansur, his panic that we signed a contract with Raphael, his reaction to us going to the Hells. Heck, I dont even think his enslaving Orpheus was magnanamous to save us. I think it was to keep himself free from the brain's influence.
Is everyone forgetting that in the first section of the game where you see a mind flayer trapped under a piece of the ship, that the narator says this is the mind flayer that put the tadpole in your eye?
There’s two possible explanations to the orange vs purple eyes:
1. Orpheus’ power is changing his eye color to purple, as it can’t just be him being disconnected from the elder brain as Omellum has yellow eyes and not purple or orange eyes.
2. The opening cutscene is one of the oldest pieces of content left in the game from EA, it hasn’t been changed at all and back when it was made the emperor plotline didn’t exist. It’s possible that they simply retconned that Illithid to be the emperor but since it hasn’t been changed the orange eye color was left there too.
Schrödinger's Mindflayer
2 house to make my perfect emperor than he turns himself into a squid 😭
That first mindflayer is most certainly a threat.
At least if you are as unlucky as me, I died to the 3 intellect devourers after missing 3 times in a row, then I meet the mindflayer, proceed to fail both saving throws and fucking die again, all in the span of 10 min.
This was all in my first hour of playing the game, so I probably could have played it better, but it was also on balanced difficulty.
The weird thing about the mind flayer corpse Ragzlin talks to is that in early access, I'm fairly certain that the narrator did confirm that it was the mind flayer that infected you even when you spoke to it with Ragzlin, but the line was changed in the full release. I remember being confused at the change in my first run.
It's possible then that the other speak with dead line is a holdover from that and was an oversight that wasn't changed. There's a good handful of holdover dialogue from early access in the release of the game, so this doesn't seem implausible to me.
Considering early access was also when the dream visitor was Daisy instead of the Guardian, and Daisy seemed more like a stand-in for the Absolute than the Emperor, I could almost take a stab at the fact that the change might confirm that the Emperor IS the one that infected us, possibly because the role of the Emperor in the story wasn't completely set in stone by then (or they were just deliberately trying to hide it for early access players?) and they had to iron out the plot hole from that scene.
But this is a lot of guesswork and supposition, so I'unno.