I believe the Emperor went rogue on the ship after coming into contact with the prism. I always thought there was something suspect about that glance that's given to the dead mind flayer in that opening scene.
I think the Emperor probably tadpoled as many people as possible to get as many potential weapons as possible. I don't think the mission was to go around grabbing people from cities so brazenly. I think the Emperor chose to do that out of desperation because he had to act fast.
I don't get it. Why was the Emperor desperate and why did he have to act fast? He was executing a planned heist, wasn't he? Did something go wrong unexpectedly?
So for some reason he panicked and started pulling random people from the streets of some city and among them was Shadowheart, who had the prism in her pocket. The Emperor got close to the prism and maybe personally tadpoled Shadowheart. Why didn't he pocket the prism then? Or did he slip into the prism right away?
It must have been Shadowheart that somehow, as a level 1 cleric, managed to nick the prism from Vlaakith. She then somehow incurs an extra bit of memory loss and winds up in the Emperor's nautiloid. How did that happen? Was it a coincidence? It could be that the Emperor somehow knew Shadowheart had the prism on her, so he abducted her. Mission accomplished, right? Why did he go plucking people off the streets in some city somewhere?
