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And I agree with you on [spoiler]his relationship to Stelmane. I really wish there was more opportunity to engage with this storyline, both discussing it with the Emperor without having to be so hostile towards him, as well as maybe being able to talk to others to fact-check him. This frustrated me with Ansur, as well, where I felt like neither party was giving me a full account of what went down between them, but there was nothing to be done about it. I also personally took the interpretation that Stelmane and the Emperor were once on friendlier terms and the Emperor may even miss those days, but that something caused a rift between them, he responded by trying to control her, and it caused irreversible damage both to her health and their friendship. Given that he only tells you this after you've angered him, I don't take his attitude about it there as his "true feelings" so much as him lashing out at you. That's why I wish that finding some of those documents would present the option to confront him in a more even-handed conversation, where you could ask him how he really feels about how things went. Even in his outburst, he makes a comment along the lines of "Aren't you glad I've finessed my methods?" which in context is definitely a threat, but stepping back, the fact that he's clearly been putting in the effort to NOT have to mind-control his allies this time does seem to imply that he isn't all that happy about how things with Stelmane went, or else he might as well just repeat that. And what happened with Stelmane already seems like an attempt at a less violent outcome than with Ansur, where he was "forced" to directly kill his friend (do I trust either of them on this being necessary? No, but I have no evidence to go on). It seemed like the Stelmane murder "plot" (if it can even be called that, with how little we get to do with it) could have been an entry point to a story exploring Stelmane, the Emperor, and their connection to the early days of Gortash's / the Absolute's plot, but instead we just get some breadcrumbs and a weird trip into his basement. I personally envisioned a situation where the Emperor and Stelmane were in an argument over how to deal with the rising threat of Gortash, and given the Emperor's strong inclination towards his own survival, he tried to force Stelmane to go along with whatever measures he thought would be necessary, only for his methods to eventually be what gave him away as a mindflayer (this fits with some of the hints about how he manipulated their business partners).

I hadn’t thought about
the possibility of Stelmane and The Emperor’s relationship fracturing during the early days of Gortash and The Absolute, but it makes sense given how Gortash’s rise in the city threatened the Knights of Shield among others. It would make for a fascinating storyline on multiple fronts to uncover, and would also tie that wonderful opening cinematic into the story further. We know The Emperor was part of a tadpoled task force to retrieve the Artifact, and he’s the one who tadpoles the companions and player character (with the exception of the Durge who was tadpoled earlier, then placed on the nautiloid). The camera in the opening cinematic shows the player multiple times the dead illithids scattered about the ship while The Emperor is going rogue gathering up people to tadpole, and we know this is NOT how True Souls are tadpoled. The Emperor explains early in act III that he felt his free will coming back when he found the Artifact, so being able to uncover more of this story in the game and confront him on his role would make for very interesting gameplay. This could also be a pivotal point where the player decides the nature of their relationship to The Emperor. We could hear him finally tell the full story of finding his agency and desperately hatching a plan on the nautiloid by tadpoling then shielding the player character and companions from The Absolute. If he hadn’t done that, all of them would have just been folded into the Grand Design. This would also make for some additional lore and dialogue when it comes to a Durge playthrough given their role in the story.
There’s just so much here worthy of additional writing.