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While watching Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, it's clear that Ego can fly people with him in the airship and host them on the planet for indefinite amount of time.

So why did he leave Meredith on Earth instead of taking her to his planet, to live happy life and have his child there?

And this way he wouldn't have had to kill her, which if he really loved her, was very painful to him.

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tl;dr Ego's main objective is to carry out his plan, his "purpose", everything else was secondary and a distraction to him.

Ego is the Sailor

In the scene just after Gamora has a small argument with Peter, and she storms out, Peter is lying down on the couch and listening to Brandy by Looking Glass

Ego enters and exclaims to Peter that this is

one of Earth's greatest musical compositions, if not the greatest
-Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2. [paraphrased from memory]

And sings along to certain parts of it:

He [the sailor] came on a summer's day
Bringing gifts from far away
But he made it clear he couldn't stay
No harbor was his home.

...

Brandy, you're a fine girl
What a good wife you would be
Your eyes could steal a sailor
From the sea.

He then comments to Peter:

You know Peter, we are the Sailor

This is where it starts to unravel, by saying that he is the sailor, Meredith is essentially "Brandy" and the "sea" is the Cosmos and his "purpose" within it.

But my life, my lover, my lady is the sea

Given all of this, let's have a look at the rest of the lyrics to the song:

Brandy, you're a fine girl,
What a good wife you would be
But my life, my love and my lady is the sea.

Ego tells Peter that he first encountered love when he met Meredith, and I believe him. He truly loved Meredith:

My Riverlily who knew all the words to every song that came on the radio

And he truly did consider making her his wife. But unfortunately, he felt that his connection to her was going to be distracting from his true purpose, his seeding and re-aligning of the universe.

He says clearly that his attraction to her was pulling him away from his mission and he couldn't bear to be around her (which I assume applies to whether they're on Earth or on his planet). So he

planted that tumour in her head

Logistics man, logistics

I have my own understanding for the reasons that Ego may not have taken Meredith to his planet (or anywhere else with him):

  • What if the child didn't carry the Celestial genes?
    Ego is shown to have clearly disposed of his "failed" offspring. Was he going to do that in front of Meredith if Peter didn't have the genes?
  • What if the child did carry the Celestial genes?
    Once Ego realised that Peter did carry the Celestial genes needed to help him power his universe-overtaking-smog-seed-thing, he enacted this plan which involved him basically harvesting Peter's energy force. Would he have done that in front of Meredith?

  • Meredith belonged to Earth
    It made her, as she made it. Ego fell in love or whatever he felt with Meredith on Earth; his whole experience with the driving around, listening to music and whatever other 80s things they did, was what made him feel that connection to her. In fact, he even said that he

    couldn't bear to visit an Earth where Meredith Quill didn't exist

    He simply may not have loved or cared for her anymore if the experience had changed; then what, dump her anyway?

  • He is a god, these things are beneath him
    Ego is (get ready for it) egotistical. When Peter questioned him about his "friends", Ego responded:

    we're gods Peter, these things are beneath us

    Clearly showing that he held no regard for long-term sustained relationships, as they would eventually fade away. Hence, when it came down to choosing Meredith Quill, or fulfilling his purpose, he chose his purpose.

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    Now that is an answer I totally agree with. Awesome work!
    – Shadow The GPT Wizard
    May 12, 2017 at 10:24
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Ego was so smitten with Meredith that he himself admits that if he had gone back to Earth once more he would never have left.

Simply put, had Meredith kept living, Ego would have given up his plan to reshape the Universe, which he couldn't allow, as it was the only thing that gave him purpose.

Furthermore, by killing her, he could take Peter away without breaking Meredith's heart, which seemed to be important to him.

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  • He could just wait until she died of old age, max of 100 years or so. The reason he didn't stay on Earth those 100 years, as he explained in the movie, is that he had to return to his core to keep the human form. For an eternal immortal entity who lived millions of years already, that's really nothing. Sorry, I don't accept your theory.
    – Shadow The GPT Wizard
    May 9, 2017 at 12:54
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    @ShadowWizard While Ego doesn't confirm this, it seems like he would have an easier time convincing children to go along with his schemes than an adult, plus it gives him a longer time to train them to see if they prove useful. We only see one result of what happens when someone with a fraction of Ego's power as an adult disobeys him, but clearly it doesn't go well.
    – SGR
    May 9, 2017 at 12:57
  • He was able to convince Peter easily. The single thing that stopped Peter is knowing he killed his mother, otherwise it's clear, at least to me, that he would have just go ahead and join forces with his beloved father. So yet again, I disagree with your argument. (That it's harder to convince adults.) Also, pretty sure that as a kid, Peter lacked any powers, so Ego would have waited anyway until he became adult.
    – Shadow The GPT Wizard
    May 9, 2017 at 13:01
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    I think you also missed the part where Ego is a self-centered a-hole who didn't really care about anything but his plan. He claims he loved Meredith, but IMO it's obvious that once she got pregnant she was an obstacle more than a companion
    – KutuluMike
    May 9, 2017 at 19:45

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