Originally Posted by FuryouMiko
[quote=spectralhunter]

That said, it doesn't make much sense for the Illithid to be trying to resurrect gods. Ilsensine is their patron deity and they don't even recognise it as a divine power, more as... the perfect ideal to which they aspire.

They are known for venerating their children however - the hatching pools are one of their most closely guarded sites, and having one on a roving ship is rather unlikely.

My personal theory is that the ship was a research vessel and the tadpoles aboard it were the only survivors of the project that hadn't been seeded yet. A project to create illithid sleeper agents who could gather information from the surfacers, telepathically relaying it back to their kin in the underdark, much the same as Ilsensine plumbs the minds of surfacers from its nest in the Caverns of Thought.

I'm not sure that I can respect Ilsensine as a god, the holy symbol in that link looks like the face my toddler makes when she tries to swallow a whole ball of ice cream in one go and realizes that she's failing miserably.

I agree on the "research vessel" part, and given how eager the hag and Volo are to give you spy eyes, it makes sense that this is paralleled with an Illithid plot. That said, I don't think that the plot is very succesful if you don't access the tadpole's powers; in a way, the telepathic connection with other tadpoles only seems to work at close range -- unless you count the dreams. Think of it as bluetooth tethering vs. 4G.