Alrighty, I stand corrected.
And no, that's not what Daisy was like in EA. There's an entire theory thread that occurred during EA that predicted Daisy was basically what the Guardian turned out being: a being trapped within the artifact helping the characters with the same power that allowed Gith to revolt against the mind flayers. The clues were all there, even in EA.
Well, I have read a lot on the matter over the years, kept up to date with datamines even and watched some vids and my original theory was that Daisy was a mental projection of the tadpole, or the Elder Brain trying to assert dominance, not... the Emperor. And I hear there were supposed to be cutscenes where the 'artefacts dweller' infiltrated some of those dreams and interacted with the PC using the same form as Daisy and it was supposed to be as if Daisy had a split personality (which in fact she kind of did... unless you weren't using illithid powers then you never got any dreams which was frankly a ridiculous oversight on Larian's part).
Also, that is why Orpheus out of nowhere mentions in the very ending 'stealing a githyanki egg' as one of our transgressions. Which is very likely a left over from some event from EA and a reason to dislike him on the spot, making us regret our decision of freeing him, making him look unreasonable to the player (and kind of proving Emperor's point).
I stand by my post. I'm all for things that have story reasons attached to them, but all I hear is: "this is what I want." Ending with an assertion that Larian is creative enough to figure it out. I would argue in turn that Larian was creative enough to figure it out, which is why you currently don't have what you want.
Look, it's not about having what I want. Larian decided in the very last damn minute to drop their original ideas, erase Daisy and poorly insert the Emperor in with an extra 'power up consequence free tree' (this is what illithid powers are currently) only because their stats showed that people weren't using the powers cause Daisy was overtly, obviously evil (you can't tell me that the dream of burning BG is NOT evil). So they came up with a solution, make it all consequence-free (so people wouldn't complain on the forums I bet, 'oh no, why my friend has entirely different sets of choices compared to me?', 'oh no, my companions hate me cause I used these powers too much' I can already imagine all the threads).
You can't tell me that Larian couldn't have thought of better options to end the game, ask Omeluum for example? If we really need a MF, I'd rather have one that would sacrifice it's own life for someone they never met (Ravengard). But why do we need a MF to begin with? It's a problem Larian has presented themselves (ooh, a mere mortal cannot outthink a Karsus Crown imbued Elder Brain) meanwhile we've got a very ancient, rumored to be one of the most powerful psionics in the realms, powerful enough to disrupt illithd control - son of Gith, Orpheus. And yet, he also cannot overpower a Netherbrain, why not? The entire game you fight to not become a MF and yet in the very ending, no matter what you did, someone has to. And there should be a way, like people proposed where you don't succumb to the allure of illithidness, you don't need a MF.
Question: why do you get "resisting powers" for not using the tadpole? Why would that give you increased saving throws, bonuses to concentration, increased movement speed? None of that makes any sense to me. It's like, I'm not gonna use these tadpoles that change me... so I don't change. Period, right? That's the result of not changing yourself... that you don't change.
Look, you can throw those passives into the trash bin for all I care, what I liked is the concept of getting something defensive for resisting. I agree, those might not have been the best ideas in the world (cause like you said, it makes no sense to get that for resisting)
Heck you can make it a passive (or active, 1 per long rest, scaling, and the final version being one that buffs the entire group) resistance to psychic damage. That would make sense, right? Getting resistant to MF's most common damage type (kind of how githyanki/zerai evolved). The more you resist, the higher the resistance.
And to repeat the question I had in my previous post: if there are no consequences to not using the tadpoles, why do people not want to use the tadpoles? Because there are obviously consequences to using them.
Cause currently it's all mental gymnastics. Or RP choices. Mostly RP.
Sure, you get some little dialogue changes here and there, the only notable being the ability to say straight up no to the Emperor with no further checks when he offers us the Astral one. Wow, you have to pass a pretty difficult check to not get evolved? WOW, in a game where you can scumsave in the middle of a cutscene, come completely prepared for a difficult dialogue check (also, your tadpole powers can help pass it - hail favorable beginnings) and have 4 inspiration points for rerolls!
The consequence being that you have to spend some inspiration points? These aren't consequences. Not when it's so damn easy to get out of.
Not to mention you can just use every single illithid dialogue option in the game willy nilly (and it's pretty much impossible to fail them), tadpoles make the game a lot easier too. Sure, a lot of them are pure garbage, but there are some nice ones. By not using the tadpoles you make your game intentionally harder, And that is NOT a consequence.
You know what I call consequences? Permanent changes to your endings depending on your choices. BG2 did it perfectly. Use the evil route even once? Permanent change of your alignment to evil. That. Can. Never. Be. Repaired. Game endings stating that you fell to the allure of evil.
Having the evil ending slide played out.
