Quote Originally Posted by Jasdoif View Post
More importantly, only knowing of one Good mind flayer doesn't mean that there's only one mind flayer that is Good. Ignoring a data point because it doesn't conform to your hypothesis isn't science.
Yeah, but okay, let's imagine that 1% of Mind Flayers are noble self-sacrificing creatures that specifically restrict themselves to dining on the wicked whom they slew in just and proper combat. Let's say they save a hundred innocents every year for a hundred years before they eventually die in battle or commit ritual suicide when they can't find any more of the wicked to consume. The other 99% are regular Mind Flayers who need to eat at least one person a month, every year for 100 years. Let's say half of those are 'innocent'.

That's: 100 x 99 x 12 / 2 ~= 50,000 innocents slain, and 100 x 1 x 100 = 10,000 innocents saved, per 100 illithids per 100 years. From a brute mathematical standpoint, if you waved a magic wand and erased all illithids, you're... still saving a lot of lives.

I mean, in terms of life cycle they're pretty-much nextdoor to the Xenomorphs from the Aliens franchise. Nobody who'd seen their entire platoon, or most of their follow colonists, or their surrogate daughter, wiped out by chestbursting larvae is going to be especially sympathetic to the notion that a tiny minority of the creatures could be domesticated and harnessed for military purposes. They're going to start with the flamethrowers and work their way up to "Nuke 'em from orbit. It's the only way to be sure".