Timeline is confusing [SPOILERS]

[WereElf]

Don't read this, if you don't want any spoilers.

Anyways... does anyone have a more solid idea about the timeline of the events that took place prior to the timeline of the game?
Because The Emperor is revealed to be Balduran - the founder of Baldur's Gate. And the city is what? 500 years old?
So he has disappeared between 500 years ago and 1 year ago. But I highly doubt that it was something recent... if I had to guess, he disappeared 450 years ago. And according to him, he got infected by a tadpole at Moonrise Towers.
Meanwhile, there is a skeleton at the House of Hope, talking about how he built Moonrise Towers while serving under Ketheric Thorm.
I suppose that this is possible, as he's an elf and they tend to live longer. So he could as well have been alive 450 years ago.
But why the hell would there be a mindflayer colony at Moonrise THEN? He must've still been a follower of Selune, so I highly doubt that they just coexisted...
It would've made more sense if Balduran was infected AFTER the fall of Ketheric. But that happened way too "recently" in the grand scheme of things - just 100 years prior to the current time of the game.
And in his flashback of being infected, Moonrise indeed looks "bright" and not shadowcursed.
But the presence of a mindflayer colony there makes no sense to me...
Can anyone shed some light on this issue?

[seeker1]

Yes, Personally, I think Larian pulled a retcon on this. Because you put a spoiler warning on the whole thread ... I won't mark/tag.

There is a timeline problem with the Emperor being Balduran. There seems to be about 3 centuries or so between when he apparently shipwrecked (you find the wrecked ship in Tales of the Sword Coast) and when he is supposedly being tadpoled at Moonrise. There also is no explanation of how he got off the island where he was shipwrecked, but besides that.

So I think Larian realized this was an issue, and they knew it only worked if Balduran was an elf instead of being human, giving him more longevity. Hence, you find a mural of Balduran with Ansur that depicts Balduran as an elf.

Well, thing is, Ed Greenwood, basically the creator of the Forgotten Realms and creator of the character, says Balduran in his stories and all the lore was human. Most of the pre-BG3 lore there is about him (less than you would expect) says Balduran was human.

I think Larian is seizing on the fact that in Tales of the Sword Coast you never find him on the island live or dead. His fate is "unknown". Boom. BTW, there is all kinds of callbacks in the Emperor's lair to objects related to Balduran. They left foreshadowing for some folks who might notice it.

One great example ... in the TotSC shipwreck, you find Balduran's butter knife, a magic dagger. What's in the Emperor's Lair is the Emperor's butter FORK. I doubt this is coincidence. The Emperor's sword has the same bonus against shapeshifters that the Sword of Balduran has in TotSC. Etc. Etc.

But to get him to live long enough to be tadpoled he has to be an elf ... whereas pretty much the character's creator, Ed Greenwood, says he was human.

As for the Emperor's true nature ... IMHO, it is finally glimpsed when you violent reject his seduction ... you can trigger dialogue where he straight up tells you, "Let's make this clear. I could have psionically dominated and disabled you the way I did to Duke Stellmane. Consider yourself lucky I didn't. But still realize, YOU ARE MY PUPPET." That scene dispels all his ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and pretense about being or wanting to be closer to you, or that he considers you a friend and ally.

Maybe he WAS Balduran at some point, but he is a full on mindflayer with none of his qualities anymore. Or, as some suspect, maybe he's just LYING. (That said, Ansur confirms it, so. Ansur is Larian's creation, no previous lore about BG city talked about a bronze dragon by that name living underneath the city.)

[Mithcoriel]

Oh yes, the Emperor even says the butter knife of his cutlery set is missing.

As for his longevity: might just be a handwave. Minsc should be dead by now too, but he was turned to stone for some time and that's why he's still alive in BG3. Elminster? Apparently he's still alive cause Mystra likes him or something. Volo? He's so crazy who knows. If half the fabulous tales about how awesome Balduran supposedly was are true, he might have cleverly tricked himself out of that problem too.

What would make the most sense to me would be if Balduran was turned into a mind flayer 450 years ago or so by a random mind flayer colony, not the Absolute, and was later simply enslaved by the Absolute. That maybe he was just lying when he told the player it was in Moonrise towers and by the Absolute that he was enslaved the first time, cause he wanted the player to feel more kinship to him.

Or maybe there was an illithid colony in moonrise towers back then, which disappeared again when Ketheric lived there, and later the new illithid colony was there.
Or maybe it really was the same mind flayer colony who turned Balduran, maybe the Elder brain was always named "The Absolute", but it was only much later that it was enslaved by Ketheric et al.

I doubt he was lying about being Balduran. As you said, Ansur confirmed it. And the Emperor wasn't keen on you finding out in the first place. When you enter the dragon's lair, the Emperor makes excuses trying to get you to leave. And after the fight with the dragon, if you say you are not interested in his history, he says he is glad about that, because it's not relevant.
Note Ansur doesn't confirm Balduran was turned in Moonrise towers. That part of the conversation happens after the battle, when the dragon is silent again.

Worth noting also: In the Steel Watch foundry, you find a book called "On Evading the Elder Brain" containing a transcript of Gortash's interrogation of the Emperor. In this, the Emperor claims he was under the brain's domination for 13 years before he broke free and escaped to Baldur's gate. But maybe he managed to lie during this interrogation despite his claim that that would be impossible due to the psionic control. After all, he also managed to keep secret the fact that it was Ansur who saved him.

My main question, really, is: was he alive as a humanoid all these centuries and only recently became a mind flayer, or was he alive as a mind flayer all these centuries?

And I agree with the claim about the Emperor's true nature. :( Felt very betrayed when I found out. He definitely lost some of those values Balduran had. Courage my ass: Watch him abandon you in the end when things turn slightly difficult. Insight my ass: look how wrong he was in his assumption that Orpheus wouldn't work with you. But there is one thing he kept: during the riddle where you catch the flying books to find Balduran's values, one of the books that seems to contain morals he approves of says that if a more powerful nation conquers you, you should give in to save yourself, even if it means eroding the rights of the citizens. And that's exactly what he does when he decides that being the Elder Brain's thrall is preferable to dying.

[WereElf]

The way I understood his story, he was "saved" from the Elder Brain almost immediately after being infected (less than a week). Then he killed Ansur and then he turned into a Mindflayer, and he didn't serve the Elder Brain after being turned whatsoever, until he was captured by Gortash.
Of course, this still contradicts some other parts of the story, but that's the impression I was left with.

[Mike Garrison]

It seems to me like Balduran was turned into a mindflayer centuries ago. He spent most of that time as regular garden variety illithid, dominated by an elder brain. Then, according to his story, he somehow broke free before the events of BG3. He did what illithids do and started scheming for power, running this Knights of the Shield group.

https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Balduran says that the illithid who used to be Balduran broke free of his domination a little more than 13 years after he had been turned, and was aided in doing so by his friend Ansur.

If so, he spent several hundred years during the time he tells us that "he sustained himself on criminals".

Then Gortash discovered and exposed him, bringing him back under the control of Gortash's dominated elder brain. Gortash then sent him out to get the Prism, because that was a threat to Gortash's plans. But once in the Prism he was able to resist the domination of the elder brain. So he hatched this plan to use the party as his proxies to fight Gortash, knowing that they had to do what he asked them to do or else he would withdraw his protection and just let them be transformed.

(Side note: Balurdan was originally written to be human. In BG3, he is depicted and described as an elf, but supposedly Ed Greenwood has confirmed that he was canonically human.)

[WereElf]

Yeah... this definitely doesn't explain why were there Mind Flayers are Moonrise Towers at that point of time. As well as why he looked like his untransformed self in his Ansur flashback (which supposedly happened after he had already transformed). And Ansur wanted to prevent him from turning.

[=M$= Oroberus]

Well ... time as a relevant factor is kind of irrelevant in pretty much all of DnD due to some very specific quirks of the IP itself:
1. Some races have demigodlike lifespans, even on the material plane, so that random Elf or Dwarf that banged your grand-grand-grand-grandmother might indeed put some-50 years on your human lifespan without you ever knowing
2. The Weave loves to ♥♥♥♥ with lifespans and time itself, ever wondered how many decades a mage using timestop might put on themselfs?
3. Planes ... bloody planes ... Time in the nine hells does not work like it does in the material plane, same goes for the astral plane, seconds can become decades, centuries might shrink down to days
4. Divine intervention, no matter if by banging some material dweller or making someone a chosen, the outcome will be severely prolonged lifespans to the point of actual immortality
5. Use of enchanted items are also a factor one needs to keep in mind and especially the canon stuff Balduran lugged around was "Though shall be healthy!" stuff

Combine those unclear factors with the point that no matter how old the host might have already been, the illithid lifespan starts with the ceramorphosis and Balduran might easily have been 130 years old before even getting infected by the tadpole
The AVERAGE illithid lifespan is around 125 years, so we're already at an 'easy' 250 years for Balduran without any vacation time within the Prism or chilling in the Astral Plane in other ways.

Orpheus is also still alive within the prism while we're already seeing Vlaakith CLVII ingame

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by WereElf:

Yeah... this definitely doesn't explain why were there Mind Flayers are Moonrise Towers at that point of time.

Illithids have hidden colonies all over the place.

There is a colony under Amn in BG2, for instance.

[Mike Garrison]

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

Orpheus is also still alive within the prism while we're already seeing Vlaakith CLVII ingame

Supposedly gith have natural lifespans of about 120 years, but they spend so long in the Astral Plane that they can have nearly infinite lifespans. It's not really that there is no time in the Astral Plane, just that people in it do not age (and have no need to eat). So as long as gith don't spend too much time in regular planes, they can live as long as they want.

Despite that, the current Vlaakith is undead. It's not clear to me if she became a lich to avoid death or just to gain more magical power.

[WereElf]

Originally posted by Mike Garrison:

Illithids have hidden colonies all over the place.

There is a colony under Amn in BG2, for instance.

Yeah, but... how hadn't Kethric or his family or his servants noticed anything? And one day a "stranger" comes to the towers, goes to the dungeon, or something, and never comes back. Wouldn't it raise suspicion?
Perhaps that's how Kethric found out about the Elder Brain beneath the towers, but in the flashback, where Balduran gets infected, the interior looks like he's within Moonrise towers, not in its dungeons.