
In the end it was a combination of KMS and disabling the laptops panel with the kernel parameter that worked for me. My main goal was just getting grub and my LUKS unlock visible on my external displays as I used the laptop like a desktop.

The rest was probably the video bios that the Intel driver loaded telling where to output video. Kernel parameters make no difference here, probably just a thing the laptop supports or doesn’t. If the lid was open it would still use the built in panel for the bios.

Most likely the laptop saw the lid closed, and since there was external displays, it used that instead of the built in panel.
