So y’all, I have bad memory and although I LOVE this game, there’s just too much info for me to remember so I humbly ask of you who are more mentally capable than me… What are the theories (or confirmed) about MCs powers? Cause we saw each telepath has a certain “theme” (mc is the puppeteer, HG is the web spreader, I don’t remember if Lotus [Locus?] had one), they can all dive into other’s mind’s but can’t do what the other does - lack of skill in that particular topic maybe? Anyway. Mc’s telepathy came from the drug they fed Sidestep in the farm, BUT I don’t remember Sidestep mentioning having the ability to puppet a person in the old times - it happened only with Argent and Ace until now, both after Heartbreak. Is it only bcs MC is mentally tired or because the thing that’s now in the other body is actually the real puppeteer? Is it the Void? If so, and it ended up in Ace’s body… What even are the Ace’s numbers 1-4 we can choose when we create a character? His behaviour, yes, but what each one entails? OR was OUR consciousness split and if we thought Ace was a person, the part of us who stayed there thinks we are Ace’s true self (just a puppet/something in the middle)?
Idk if I’m making sense anymore, I just want to hear y’all’s opinions
I think their possession power comes from Void but they figured it out after Heartbreak.
As for this ‘puppet waking up’ thing, I have no idea. I don’t understand how is it supposed to work. Are 1-4 different “personalities” and depending on the stats, we’ll get one of them? A mix of them? 
If I remember correctly, one of the numbers was crazy and aggressive. The other two were frightened of Sidestep, and the last one… yup, there was that split personality vibe.
Puppets
As far as I understand it, the Void sorta helped Sidestep understand the concept of space differently. Whether that is because Sidestep drank the blood and thus gained a second power or because the entire thing with the Void helped Sidestep gain a different perspective is up for debate. Either way, that is when she got the “step into someone else’s body” thing.
However Sidestep didn’t really use it before Heartbreak. Because it is both hard and incredibly immoral presumably. But after Heartbreak, when they were at the Farm they started to practice this until they got good at it. That’s probably how they escaped the second time.
I would also say that is how I would descibe Sidestep’s telepathy theme: She is an outsider, so she is able to look at things from a different perspective. That of course means out of the eyes of another person but also she can connect with animals, nanovores, dampeners(with a high enough force) and it is what allowed her to survive the Void. An outsider looking in couldn’t be trapped in a pit made for humans and her nonhuman nature meant that the unimaginable pain backup didn’t work either
The Imposter
When it comes to the imposters, my guess is that when Sidestep uses her telepathy it is like opening the metaphorical door to someone’s mind. And anyone can walk though an open door. So people did. The Void, Heartbreak, Anathema and even what remained of Ace.
Like Sidestep’s hallucination of Anathema says “Nothing can really be dead if it is remembered.” And because these people were in Sidestep’s brain when they died they left an imprint. Not the entire person, but what was there at the end. Their memories and feelings. But a footprint does not look like a boot.
So my guess is that the imposters are all of these imprints. None of them entirely who they were or even an entire person, the footprints not the boots. But all of them together is just enough to make one person. One very fractured and confused person. And which number of imposter you have is more of a “is the memory of Heartbreak or Ace more in control” thing.
Wild speculations about why and how it happened
As for why it happened and why Sidestep can’t go back? She doesn’t want to. She has been using her powers to cut these memories out, compartmentalize parts of her brain and stick all the bad memories in there before locking the compartment and throwing away the key. But it was not enough. These things are still there and affecting her. Especially at night. And because these things keep pushing at her brain they cause damage, scars.
It is not Sidestep who is the puppetmaster, that is how the Void saw the world. Nor is she hungry for life or obsessed with fate(aka precognition), that is just Anathema and Ace influencing her. Ok. Maybe she still those things, but after Parkfield the intensity of her scars just vanish. Suddenly Sidestep is joking about Heartbreak, willing to trust the Rangers enough to show her skin and able to think about her past traumas without blacking out and giving everyone in a 300 meter radius a panic attack.
My theory is that she just did what she always does and shoved all of these imprints somewhere they could not hurt her. Whichever body she feels less comfortable in. And going back to the body with all that pain would simply hurt too much so her subconscious does not let her.
They couldn’t do much more to Sidestep than give her bad dreams or make her strongly feel and want things that she already slightly did. But now all these imprints have no mind to fight, no one to stop them from taking control of the body and walking it to Mortum’s lab.
I’ve been following this saga for a long time and never witnessed the MC breaking through those mental portals. I only recently learned about it when I played the available demo and noticed this topic in the area where you mark your choices from previous games. So, what are these moments where strange things happen around the MC? I’ve never noticed a character acting strangely.
It usually stuff like if you go to the shrink and have a panic attack, she will also have one. If you snap and are angry at Steel when he takes you out for a drink, everyone in that bar starts getting angry as well. Also things like particularly bad nightmares and not trying to save yourself when Blaze tackles you out the window.
I’ll give you some examples of gate-breakage from an in game perspective:
Possessing Argent on the bridge. (Not a good telepath version)
#I use the thread to guide me inside, trying to possess her again.
It has to be fast.
Too fast. No safety net.
Leaving your body behind, you trust it to be safe for the few short seconds you need. You doubt the Handyman would be able to do anything this quick, even if he did realize it was a trick.
Lady Argent’s mind hits you like a cold slap in the face, more jellyfish than corpse, cloying and alien, and wow things have changed. The storm is more intense, waves grown larger and filled with…what?
You don’t dare to explore. Not now. Sticking your hands inside the scar left by the Sword of Damocles, you use that trace of your own essence to grab hold of her motor cortex.
She’s fighting you. Of course she is. There’s an eye in the sky sewn shut, but you have forced it open. Looking through it. Wearing her. Feeling her.
Not true possession. Tangled strings. Knotted. Tangled. Enough to make her walk. Walk and then run.
You can’t do this. Not long. The sky is lower. The sea is higher, and it’s boiling. Something’s there, and it’s coming for you. Coming for her. Not her? No. Friends? Not your friends.
There’s a bump, and you think Lady Argent stumbled into something while you were trying to make her run to the edge. Something. Something.
Something wet touches your foot, and everything smells of blood. Blood and memories.
Her memories.
You’re in the water, and you’re bleeding, and it hurts. It hurts like acid over bare skin, stripping away layers, rubbing boils until they crack, and it won’t stop. It won’t stop, and she’s screaming, and she’s stumbling, and you’re stumbling, and you’re screaming, and the sharks are everywhere.
So small. So familiar. A feel. A scent.
HUNGRY
It’s not thoughts anymore. It’s reflex that makes you tear yourself from her mind and stagger away. You need to flee. You know this. You recognize this, but you don’t understand it. Your brain is hurting worse than…
…not Heartbreak. That’s not it.
You smell the burning hair, and you run. You run because you don’t want to die. You run because you remember because you know you’re prey, for just a moment and…
…you fall.
There’s no more bridge.
No more ground.
No more consciousness.
You don’t feel your body hitting the water.
If you exhaust yourself by fucking around with the dampeners at the auction before the action kicks off you can (even with a nokill Sidestep) get this option:
#My hand twitches as I turn. Why aren’t they dead yet?
You can feel your hand twitch, almost involuntary.
Falling. You keep falling, the chaos around you reflecting the chaos within. Why aren’t they dead? They’ve suffered horrors…seen…things.
You’ve seen things.
They do too.
The first one screams and drops his gun, clawing at his eyes. Strong fingers. There’s blood. There’s…
The second one just freezes. Suit soiled. There’s nothing behind his eyes. Escape is the kinder solution…
Just fall…
Drugged and escaping from HG's basement (outsider scar variation)
#No time to be subtle. I’ll shut down their minds.
Your mind is still wrapped in drug-induced chains, but you’ve sworn nobody would ever do that to you again. Ever. Gritting your teeth, you drag strength from the deepest cores of your mind, outside looking in, but what if you smash the window? Biting your lip, you break the barriers between the three of you, their minds shutting down in horror like candles under an upturned glass.
You step gingerly over the bodies, helped by the Rat King. One of them is bleeding from the nose, but so are you. You can taste the blood in your mouth, the iron of broken chains. The headache has curled up at the back of your head like a friend.
The handle turns at your command, and you look out into the smog-filled Los Diablos air.
Wow, this adds more layers than I imagined! I’m going to replay the first games and explore more. Thanks for explaining!
A fair portion of the gate triggers are locked behind having +80 in either telepath stat, so it’s almost a “punishment” for being too powerful (“Punishment” in quotes because I don’t think Malin is punishing the players and also Bigger Number Better).
Relatedly, I do love that the gates option for the demos always maxes out at four with “I’m not doing well” when four is the absolute minimum gates I’ll open on a given playthrough. Number Big Good, Right?
I love this kind of speculation. I’ve said before that I think the puppet personality is less Ace and more our idea of Ace. Behaving how we subconsciously programmed them during possessions. I first brought up that possibility during the wip for the first game and nothing has changed my mind yet. The notstep personality I’m less sure about but these are good theories.
I don’t code dive so I’m not an expert but I think the vision on the bridge with Argent is her memory of the nano-surge. We know Ximena was partly devoured before a portion of the swarm switched and protected her. Her visible body is a nanite reconstruction protection over whatever is left. The official story I believe is a trauma induced boost. My personal theory is that this happened when sidestep disrupted the swarm. Cut from the hive mind this small batch somehow connected to Ximena. It makes sense for her tech powers to come from the nanites rather than control them. Especially since they seem to be a completely separate identity within her mind. Sharks!
Like I said I love speculation. So many possibilities. Until @malinryden shows their hand there are so many dark corners to explore.
Even knowing about the gates and how to trigger some.of them I have never been able to RP myself into a situation where I would encounter them. Even playing a generally self destructive MC
That’s about the one thing I don’t like about this series. There’s a lot of stuff that is hidden and often discovered by intentionally failing, so it can be very hard to figure out stuff without those parts.
A cheeky little peek at the playlist for what I am currently writing…
The last time I listened to Evanescence’s Bring Me to Life was when I was a teenager in emo phase 
Nice to hear this again. It’s good, although my music taste has totally changed since then.
Can’t wait the new demo. I guess it will contain some of the most exciting paths to me.
You can’t spell demo without emo, Adagio, come back to your roots!! /j
XD I can’t. I don’t feel emo anymore
Sidestep Emo Adagio is dead.
I felt the same way on a play test level; it would be really helpful to have some sort of, uhh, “last time on” summary/review at the start of the game to help players keep track of all the information/plotlines/important characters.