After having picked the evil ending of controlling the Netherbrain, followed by the immeasurable disappointment of discovering that Larian decided to treat the only alternative ending in their entire game like a piece of cut content with zero epilogue and a single scene containing the phrase 'In my name', I wanted to get everyone's opinion on what might happen afterwards. Personally, these would be some of the main hypotheticals I wonder about:
1. With Orpheus out of the picture, does Illithi-Tav stand any real chance of 'threatening all of Faerun' with world domination as the game seems to imply, or do you just get immediately curbstomped by Elminster, The Lord's Alliance and a coalition of powerful nations and beings as soon as Baldur's Gate falls?
2. Following up on the above, it would appear that Tav's only hope of not getting their ass kicked very swiftly by a Faerunian coalition and ending up like every BBEG ever would be to unify the entire Illithid race and effectively carry out The Grand Design. However, this actually opens up a whole new batch of questions with unclear answers:
2a. The Netherbrain seems to be able to call upon Astral reinforcements of a considerable number of Nautiloids, but are those Nautiloids and their occupants already part of the Netherbrain's own colonial forces back when it was still just a standard Elder Brain, or are they being summoned from several different Illithid outposts or fleets which are the domain of other Elder Brains?
2b. Would other Elder Brains willingly assist the Netherbrain, a clearly anomalous entity which is visibly being manipulated by a magical artifact steered by Tav, under the philosophy that restoring the Illithid Empire is too tempting a prospect to ignore even if it comes at the cost of rallying behind an independent tyrant with their own personal desires? Or does the Netherbrain have to forcefully dominant every Illithid asset that they wish to 'conscript' as it were?
2c. If the other Elder Brains oppose the authority of Tav and the Netherbrain, does the Netherbrain have the capacity to dominate another Elder Brain? And is there a limit on how many Elder Brains at once it could directly puppeteer before imploding?
All pertinent speculations, as it seems to me like Tav would need either the support or the subservience of every other Elder Brain, and by extension Illithid in the universe to stand a shot of actually achieving something.
