Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Theory- We are a doppelganger

I was thinking as playing the game again, and it occurred to me, an explanation for why the characters are supposed to be 'experienced' heroes yet they are level 1, and why the tadpole does not kill us. The idea came to me after watching scortch trials for maze runner. The entire campaign by the mind flayer is set up from the get go- everything from the ship crashing to your companions. A doppler can impersonate any living thing, its abilities, and its likeness. Laz hints in game that mindflayers used to create assassins by twisting the minds of their victims.

Our original MC, was somehow captured and psy magic was used to create a perfect replica and the originals are killed. Us [the doppler] can not directly return to our lives in Baulder's gate, we would be recognized. Therefore, we are traveling and then we 'crash' somewhere far away in the middle of nowhere. The mindflayer's want us to grow organically and become stronger while allowing time to pass.

1) Shadowheart- her memory is altered to become a follower of shar. She is told to bring the relic to baulder's gate. It both controls the parrasite [calls itself the absolute]. Force us to kill whatever when we are commanded.

2) Gale- doppler cant fully clone his abilities, creates a telepathic shield [makes it impossible to use detect thoughts on him], and keeps him alive as the doppler is magically kept alive by the caster. Unlike the others, is not on the ship. He is intercepted by Raphael and forced to do his bidding. Gale invites raphael into the camp [devils like vampires can not enter dwellings without invitation]. Raphael hence knows about mindflayer and tells gale about catamorphisis.

3) Astarion: a "vampire" except he is not burned by sunlight, does not die if not feeding on blood. Convinced by mind flayers its because he is not a true vampire. In reality he is not a vampire at all, the doppler mimicks a vampire improperly

4) Lazael: designed to trick the MC into going onto a quest, she is on the ship, and disguised as an enemy of the mindflayers. A perfect form of misdirection. The laz leads us to the creshe, and almost forces us into an encounter. As the mindflayer that created the doppler is trying to kill its enemies. Laz is all about slaughtering her enemies, fits perfectly.

5) Demon hunters hunting the blood hunter. They are working for Raphael in Avernus. They trick you to kill her, and keep Raphael plan with Gale concealed. Her hostility towards you would make sense, as regular dopplers can be seen by bloodhunters, as they where developed specifically for this task, hence she is naturally afraid [can be convinced your no threat]

6) MC is the main center of the universe. Time does not advance until you are ready- as the mindflayer is forcing every companion in your group to follow your directive. Your the head doppler. You can always look into all their minds, but they can never do so to you. The MC is always who you pick.

7) we gain new abilities only when we 'camp'. To hide from a unknowing doppler that they are one, their 'upgraded' while asleep. Our minds see these as dreams. Everyone in camp sees them for same reason. They are all dopplers.


Let me know what you all think. How reasonable is this theory.

It's seems like a stretch to try to cover Larian's poor writing and implementation, I'm afraid...

The relic is gith in design, and if it were in the control of the mindflayer that grabbed us, knowingly, and that mindflayer had access to several individuals it could use against us as plants, and the relic was destined for Baldur's Gate.... this it would far more easily have just been able to drop on such individual off with the device when it grabbed us from there. The idea of giving the relic to a test subject and abandoning them in the wilds, to get them to bring it back to a place you already were, is loopy.

Devils do not require any kind of invitation to enter a home or location, that's Vampires, and only really vampires.

If the others are various plants designed to guide, railroad or trick us into doing certain things... why? What sense can that possibly make, if they're all dopplegangers, and we are as well, and we're all made and sent by the same entity - we're literally on the same team, there is zero reason to keep that from any of us or to use some against the others to guide them when they are a like-made cell of individuals.

The fallen paladins are getting their juice from Zariel, and you can confirm this with some speak with dead.

Others can look into our MC's mind, and indeed they seem to have better control over doing so than we ever do. They automatically know everything we say or do, and what choices we make, or tell others, as well as the contents of our dreams.. but we never know what they are thinking or doing, or the contents of their dreams. They are able to lie and deceive us at numerous turns, and we are not able to see through this - we aren't even presented with normal insight checks to doubt or mistrust them, and are simply treated like a fall-person for the sake of their deceptions or self-aggrandisement.

Lastly, why dopplegangers, from the illithid perspective? Why that at all - what do they gain, in their plans, from making dopplegangers, and where did they get these dopplegangers from - they are sentient, sapient creatures and a living species of people unto themselves after all, not grown tools, like intellect devourers are. What is the purpose in a) capturing a group of dopplegangers, b) coercing or breaking them into servitude, c) capturing another set of individuals, d) getting your dopplegangers to mimic those new people, e) sending them on a mission without telling them anything about it, and getting them to imitate those various random people you pulled off the street while doing so.... instead of a) capturing a group of people, b) breaking or coercing them, c) sending them on the mission as themselves, able to blend back into their old lives as necessary to do the job. I'm not sure what adding dopplegangers into this equation buys them.

Within every race or organization there are those who would seek power and create dissent. Perhaps there is a group of mindflayers who we do not know in yet. By capturing the remaining dopplers from BG2 and forcing them to work as sleeper agents, said group could kill both factions without being detected. We destroyed them in BG2, but its implied a few of them survived. A greater doppler can explain why our mindflayer is stronger then those of others. Dopplers can already use psychic abilities to read minds, it would make sense a mind flayer tadpoll would make them stronger. Likewise, dopplers as shapeshifters may be immune to the catamaorphisis.

Its true we are tricked several times. But that may be a by-product of a doppler not knowing they are one, and hence thinking in lines of a humanoid. Humanoids are imperfect and their limitations of the original still pass on to the doppler. It makes sense that one that is experimental, this would apply more to.

Regarding zarial yes, your right. I meant more in the lines that Raphael may want to become a full devil right. We are told he may want them for more power, as his human side is fallible. He already shown to change his looks to one that looks human. Would not surprise me, if the paladins think they are working for zarial, but are not actually. Could maybe argue that Mephalis, would want Zarial gone. For all we know, mephalis may be raphael as he is known for tricking people. Pathfinder did this in wotr as well where mephalis pretends to be a lower lvl devil.

If you are meaning mephistopheles, lord of the hells, then recall that Zariel is a point of pride for him - an angel and divine champion that he brought the fall to personally. He does not want her gone - he wants her right where she is, serving him and on display for others to see at the same time.

Thing about mephalis is he is shown to have fits of rage and seek to destroy things when he grows bored. He is well known for killing his allies and servants. Its possible, albeit unlikely, he saw her as a threat or just decided to toy with her and intervene for the fun of it. Devil's by their nature are entities of curiosity. He detects mindflayers experimenting with dopplers. He is curious. He toys with us ... "go shop around" "i will be there when it ends".

However, as you stated above, it could just be looking to closely to explain bad writing. We will need to see more of act 1 to know lol.

Interesting theory but not new. Durlag's Tower was also infiltrated and taken by Doppelgangers on behalf of the Illithids. It would be a bit lame to simply copy this aspect for BG 3... Apart from that, I don't want to be a Doppelganger, because that can also be a stupid obstacle for a BG 4, at least if the MC from BG 3 is to be continued and there would be no new setting...

The simpliest answer: we are level one bc the game starts at level one, background is flavor text.

Maybe just maybe we are a doppelganger in the EA version of the game but in final release we unfortunate souls and Gale is the Doppel

Interesting theory, but there isn't really a reason why the absolute would benefit from us being doppelgängers. The closest thing I can think of would be to fool the artefact, but that is clearly not necessary since they managed to secure it on the ship. A "plan B" in case of attack would make more sense if we all believed like Shadowheart, to be Sharrans needing to deliver the artefact.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.