I agree, I think this is a choice that feels really forced.
The thing is, Emps is a big gas-lighter and manipulator constantly wanting to hold all cards and to do it his why, but it begs the question **WHY** did Emperor not just assimilate Orpheus before, it feels it would have been the best solution for him since the start.
When you tell him we should free Oprheus, Emperor just goes "You still don't trust me?" ... I mean, why don't you trust me?? Let me and my party convince Orpheus, and we all join together for the netherbrain.
If we really need conflict between Orpheus and Emperor, then save that until after the brain is dead, and allow us to end with having to pick between them.
I really want to have an ending where I help the Githyankis without having to surrender in to being and illithid.
My guess is that this was a possible ending once, but when they removed the consequence for using tadpoles, they also removed this.
I avoided all tadpoles the whole game, so why do I need to end up as Illithid if I want to avoid a whole species genocide and enslavement?
