Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion The Emperor tadpoled us!

It took me a while to notice it, surprisingly. The distinctive armor is a give away, but there's also a book that you can find in the one of the vault's in the Counting House called the "Astral Prism Heist." It is listed as Gortash's private memoir notes. Within, it talks about how Gortash found out about the astral prism, and--to quote--it goes on to say:


Somehow this plan must have converged with Shadowheart's strike team. Once Shadowheart was on board the nautiloid with the astral prism, the Emperor must have been freed from the Elder Brain's control.

I suspect that the dead mind flayer seen in the opening scene was killed by the Emperor when he was freed. And that the Emperor was the one who tadpoled us, probably in an effort to create a weapon he planned to use against the Absolute plot.

Interesting. It does bring up questions.

Why would Gortash think it a good idea to send a single nautiloid piloted by a mindflayer to the heart of the empire of the mindflayer's arch enemies?

Was Gortash's heist successful? Or was Shadowheart succesful?

What did the Emperor do when the nautiloid crashed? He hid himself in the prism which was in Shadowheart's back pocket, who fell to unconiousness but could have been killed? And at the same time, while he was inside the prism, did he negate gravity on Tav? How does that make sense?

And did the Emperor tadpole us before or after he was freed from megabrain's control? His unlikability depends on it.

From some dialogues in the game I always got the impression that all True Souls got their tadpoles at Moonrise tower (although I may be completely wrong about this). That might indicate that if Emperor tadpoled us, he did it on his own initiative, probably because he needed leverage against our heroes.

The woman that turned "on the flip of a lever" was tadpoled on the ship for sure, and I was under the impression that every so-called "thrall" on the ship was tadpoled.

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?

Shadowheart says it was her group that obtained the prism from the Gith and that she was kidnapped by the mindflayers after that.
In the first dream sequence, you can say "I recognize your voice" to the dream figure, and then you see a sequence with the PC inside the pod and the dreamfigure on the outside looking at you.

So if the emperor found the prism first, he managed to find his way inside. Then, later Shar's party found it and SH took it with her and then was kidnapped. In that case, the emp was already in the prism, so it's unlikely he was part of that "kidnapping" nautiloid crew and thus also unlikely that it was he who tadpoled you.

Or he was in the nautiloid when SH was taken, found the prism on her and found a way to get in after that. In this case he might have tadpoled you before that, but could he then still remain in mindflayer form as nautiloid commander at the same time that he was inside the prism ?

I think the first option is the least problematic, so the nautiloid you got on was not that of the emperor, but simply on a mission to harvest humanoids to infect, bring to moonrise towers and reinforce the elder brain's army of sleeper cells.

The Emperor led the expedition to get the prism from Vlaakith. Meanwhile, Shadowheart's team was stealing the prism.

The Emperor captured Shadowheart after the prism had already been stolen. Being near the prism gave the Emperor back his identity.

At this point, the Emperor had the prism and was *supposed* to have returned the prism to the chosen of the dead three. However, he quickly devised a plan to fight against the cult of the Absolute.

That plan included getting victims to tadpole. That's why the nautiloid is suddenly attacking cities in such a brazen unheard of manner. He's gathering people to be tadpoled so that he can use them to fight against the Absolute.

The Emperor manages to tadpole some of the captured people, as we see in the opening scene. We also see a dead mind flayer in that scene, which suggests that the Emperor has gone rogue and had to kill some of his crew to enact his plan.

He continues trying to get more victims.

Unfortunately for the Emperor, the githyanki respond to the theft of the prism by sending dragon riders. They've now caught up to the nautiloid. The Emperor pilots the ship to the nine hells to escape the attack.

Some of the prisoners break free. It is around this time that the Emperor enters the prism.

The escaped Tav and Lae'zel make their way to the helm.

Note: Us tells Tav that Shadowheart will be safe if she is left in the pod. That's because Us is taking mental cues from the Emperor, which is ultimately what "tainted" Us away from the Absolute.

Before the ship crashes, Tav is struck in the head by a piece of the ship. This is an unlikely event that is probably caused by the Emperor. It leads to Tav falling out of the ship and ultimately being saved by, of course, the Emperor. All so that Tav and company can become the weapons of the Emperor who knows he needs help to defeat the Absolute. Hence the aforementioned desperation.

*

Just look at the armor in the opening sequence and compare it to the Emperor's armor. It's obvious. That coupled with the passage from the book in the vault make it pretty clear what's happening in the plot.

This is the rough sketch of what's going on. I have no doubt that Tav was tadpoled by the Emperor. Somewhat clever of the writers if you ask me.

Shadowheart, like the others, was above level 1 before the tadpole removed her powers. The blade of frontiers was taking down minotaurs before he struggled to take on a goblin. And the document in the Sharran Cloister tells you that she was healing - the others in the group were more powerful.

Likely timeline

1. SH's team gets artifact

2. Gith slaughter everyone but SH, she grabs artifact and runs

3. Emperor's nautaloid shows up and slaughters and captures Gith

4. Emperor get artifact and goes rogue

5. Emperor attacks some random city and grabs people.

6. Emperor tadpoles Tav and co. The goal is to have an army of illithids and half illithids to take on Netherbrain

Attacking a random city with a nautaloid is not Gortash's plan. He wants everything hidden until the last minute. Attacking a city is part of a desperate attempt on the part of The Emperor to kill the brain before the Gith or the brain can respond.

But it turns out he is stuck with a small handful of adventurers not a the small army he wanted.

Ok, this is getting near a somewhat plausible turn of events. I still have some questions, though:

1. Why didn't the Emperor pocket the prism once he had captured Shadowheart?
2. We must have been picked up after the Emperor got hold of Shadowheart. He then becomes autonomous and he is suddenly in a hurry to execute a new plan. He inserts tadpoles that are under his power, because he needs a fighting force. The tadpoles do not cause ceremorphosis, which leaves him with a couple of level 1 thralls. What good are they?
3. Why is the Emperor in such a hurry after he's gone rogue? Why doesn't he go into hiding, or take time to think up a good plan to achieve his goal?
4. Speaking of the Emperor's goal: what is his motive for hurriedly attacking the cult of the Absolute? Why does he want to defeat them? What's in it for him?
5. It was my understanding that the Emperor can communicate with us from the prism by means of the tadpole interfaced with our brain. Being in another realm/dimension, he can use the tadpoles to connect to the minds/brains of people in Faerûn. But by which means can he control gravity in Faerûn when he is inside the prism?
6. Why where there so many Baldurians in a different city?

1. My guess based on what he says about Orpheus (which is where the story falls apart) is that he can only be independent inside the artifact
2. I think he wanted them to incubate so the thralls would be able to use illithid powers. Which is why he only comes to us at the last minute. He wasn't really saving us - we had finished cooking and it was time to turn off the oven. I think he was hoping to the let the pods cook us for a few more days
3. Dunno. He knows the Gith will find him?
4. He wants to kill the brain so it won't make him a thrall again. Which I'm 99% certain is the answer but which also makes his decision to join the elder brain make approximately 0 sense.
5. Good question, no good answer
6. Good question, no good answer

If this turn of events is accurate, and it sounds plausible enough, it’s kind of ridiculous how deeply buried it is in the game. How much you have to dig. Is it great writing if you never realize it or see it?

Emperor has different coloured eyes to the one that tadpoles us.

So the Emperor definitely isn't the one who directly tadpoled us. He may have still been on board and might have orchestrated the tadpoling, but he didn't personally do it.

Yes and his armor has a different number of 'spikes' on it but consider that Lae'zel also has different facial markings. Her freckles ( or whatever gith facial spots are called ) are in different places. Also consider that the orange eyes are signs of using the illithid domination power in the Stelmane cinematic.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGat...dcss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1

Also consider the last sentence of this Magic, the gathering card:

https://scryfall.com/card/clb/76/illithid-harvester-plant-tadpoles

Well, the main plot in the EA was different to what it is now, and that is when the trailer was made. It could have been the emperor from the start, or they could have made his model look like the trauler after they rewrote the story.

I very seriously doubt there is a plausible and coherent story behind the things we get to see and hear.

I suspect that this was the influence of Disco Elysium - the idea that you only discover the full story if you work for it. In that game you only discover parts of your forgotten backstory if you randomly dial some number 5 times or so.

It's the same with the Mason's guild I completely missed the conclusion of that story on my first playthrough because I thought talking to randos in the House of Hope would lead to discovery and quest failure.

So I don't think the it's a problem that the plot is hard to put together - it kinda fun to put together and talk about in the forums. But imo it is a problem that the player is not rewarded for piecing it together. Once you have read Gortash's notes and put everything together you should be able to challenge the emperor.

Did you tadpole us? Did you purposefully let the tadpoles change our brains?

Even once we uncover the emperor's evil doings the game assumes we trust him. Indeed fans on Reddit call the moment you release Orpheus a 'betrayal' but that's a misreading. Pawns cannot betray their manipulator, they can only free themselves from his machinations.

At @Nella has come up with great suggestions for a 'distrust path' with the emperor.


https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=929396&page=2

Was about to comment on this, the EYES are the reason why this Theory Falls Apart, the Emperor has PURPLE EYES, the Mindflayer that Tadpoled us, However had ORANGE EYES.

At this point, I'm convinced it was the Emperor.

The eye thing, meh. Look at Lae'zel and her armor in that scene. Consider the differences between that and how Lae'zel ended up looking. Certain design changes happened, without a doubt. But it remains obvious, at least in my opinion.

Agreed. If you read the Reddit post and the top comments the case is closed.

But back to the question about whether or not it's good writing. I enjoying solving mysteries but I don't like feeling that my efforts were futile. Once you put everything together the game should acknowledge that.

Does Larian employ good writers? I think so but the authors were given a difficult task on a tight timeline. Revise The Emperor so people can feel good about working with him. You have two emperors:

1. The rogue illithid that kept his personality and is a victim of xenophobic prejudice. It's a tragic necessity that he needs to hide his form and deceive others. Most adventurers would attack him on sight and so his deception is easily understood and forgiven.

2. The evil mastermind who is responsible for all the (non DU) misfortunes that the MC faces

Interpretation 1 is favored by people who identify with character in some manner. They too feel like the they need to hide their true selves from the world. Perhaps they are gay, trans or neurodiverse? Or perhaps they are just retail workers who need keep their contempt for their customers buried deep inside. This interpretation works well if you rely up and believe The Emperor's statements.

Interpretation 2 is the interpretation that best fits with the physical 'empirical' evidence in the game and with the statements made by the Elder Brain. Gortash has no incentive to author a deceptive diary and stash it in the most secure vault in Baldur's Gate; when he's speaking to himself he's telling the truth.

But the game cannot acknowledge the efforts taken by those who have solved the mystery without spoiling it for people who are happy with interpretation 1. Interpretation 2 makes people who accept interpretation 1 feel foolish. Interpretation 1 constructs fans of the emperor like the Nessa the displacer beast who can die without ever understanding that the person who protects and provides is actually manipulating her for his own ends.

If you've ever gotten into a discussion with people who strongly favor interpretation 1 you know that interpretation 2 offends them deeply.

So the writing is a flawed I don't think it is flawed because the writers lack talent. The flaw starts with the instructions given by the managers when the game was revised: tell two stories at the same time and make sure that people are happy with either interpretation. I couldn't have done it.