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In Act 3 of Baldur's Gate 3, if you decide to free Orpheus the Emperor Mindflayer claims that "you leave me no option but to join the Netherbrain".

This seems extremely strange considering that his raison d'etre has always been self-preservation and freedom from the nether brain he was originally enthralled to, which is the entire reason he is helping you destroy it. To prove a point, he even goes as far as killing his best friend Ansur when the latter decided a mercy killing would free him from his fate as an illithid.

Even if there is notable bad blood between both races, Orpheus would know that they'd need an illithid to utilize the netherstones and the Emperor appears to be the logical choice rather than sacrificing someone else.

Why would he do something as out of character as deciding to become its thrall again?

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    Does the entire question need to sit behind the spoiler block? I've not yet played BG3 so I'm not 100% sure on how spoilery the question is, but can some of it be taken out?
    – fez
    Commented Sep 5, 2023 at 13:26
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    Hi Fez, unfortunately it is pretty late-game spoilery and related to some plot twists, hence I decided to put everything behind the spoiler block.
    – Twilight Sparkle
    Commented Sep 5, 2023 at 13:30
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    Most of your post is hidden under spoiler markup/protection. Could you consider editing your post to provide more context outside of the spoiler-hidden text? I suggest using spoiler markup sparingly, and only for the most spoilery parts of your post. Relevant meta post regarding spoiler protection.
    – galacticninja
    Commented Sep 5, 2023 at 14:13
  • Ok, I've edited it. It's unfortunate, but stack exchange's spoiler tagging is pretty poor and results in many new lines that don't flow as well. This is the best that can be done, as it is pretty late game spoilery. Unless we want to just remove the markup.
    – Twilight Sparkle
    Commented Sep 6, 2023 at 14:12
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    Fine, I’ll just remove the spoiler tags.
    – Twilight Sparkle
    Commented Sep 6, 2023 at 18:12

1 Answer 1

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He's playing a long game and his first choice is to control the brain - revealed in one of the not-so-happy-ending possibilities. So, if you're going in with Orpheus to wipe it all out in what seems to be a suicide mission, he's putting his bet on the elder brain wiping out everyone going against it, meaning The Emperor would survive to fight - and get a crack at dominating the brain - another day. He's immortal, so what is there to lose but a little bit of time? A few hundred years, and he's back in the game with some other well-researched scheme.

As for working with Orpheus, he knows that's a non-starter. The only Illithid Orpheus trusts is a dead one. If the players side with Orpheus, then The Emperor is as good as dead in that scenario. Therefore, drop back and go with Plan B - switch sides. Worked pretty well for Ketheric Thorm, didn't it?

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