Theory:Niki Sanders

Main Article Theories about Niki, Gina, and Jessica Sanders Main Discussion

The following fan theories are about Niki, Gina, and Jessica Sanders.

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Theories

Theory	Citations	Notes
Niki is still alive.	None.	+ Niki "died" in an explosion but her body showed no burns. - Embalmers use heavy makeup and restore the body. It wouldn't look nice if a kid went to a funeral and saw Uncle Steve with a bullet hole in his head. They fix imperfections and the like. - The other side of her face seemed to be burned + the explosion and Niki's "dead" body could all be props from the villians Mr. Petrelli leads in order to get Niki hypnotized to join them and then she could be the one in Mrs. Petrelli's dream. + The 'dead' Niki could always be Barbara. • Niki may in fact be dead but some plot twist might compel someone (probably Hiro) to travel back to the day Niki died and save her.
Niki, Tracy, Barbara, and possibly others are experiments created by Linderman through the Pinehearst Company. Each of the children created were given powers through use of the formula that Kaito entrusted to Hiro to protect.	Linderman claims to Niki that he has been guiding her entire life (The Hard Part) Dr. Zimmerman claims to Tracy that he created her (One of Us, One of Them)	+ Jessica and Tracy have different abilities. + Tracy told Nathan that she did some work at Pinehearst, and she is featured in a video on that company's website. - Angela claims that Primatech created Tracy, Niki, and Barbara. - Linderman operated Primatech, which seems to be Pinehearst's rival.
Jessica's ability isn't that of super strength but body insertion.	When Peter was stuck inside Jesse, the effects with mirrors were used to indicate that Peter was inside Jesse's body but that everyone saw and heard Jesse were exactly the same as the effects used to indicate Niki and Jessica "switching out". (One Of Us, One Of Them)	+ Peter was able to use Jesse's power while he was inside his body. This would provide an explanation for how Niki/Jessica works - Jessica uses Niki's super-strength.
The Company (or Bob) did something with Niki/Jessica so she'll do everything Mohinder tells her to do.	None.	+ There are other evolved humans who are slavish to someone who works for the company. - The "slavish" actions were because of Eden McCain's power of persuasion, but she committed suicide in Fallout and there have been no other confirmed cases of this power. + She may have been hypnotized/brainwashed by an unseen evolved human.
Jessica is a separate entity inside Niki, with the ability to transfer her consciousness or even her soul into others and control the host.	Jessica is able to take physical control of Niki and a symbol tattoo appears when she does so.	+ Jessica isn't just a alternate personality but is a remnant of Jessica's soul or consciousness inside Niki. Before she died she used her powers for the last time on her little sister Niki. She holds the ability of Enhanced strength because she is bound to Niki's physic. + Every time Jessica comes out the Helix appears. This doesn't happen to other personalities such as Gina. This means something is special with the alter ego, personality or even entity, Jessica. + In One Giant Leap Niki's mother-in-law makes a reference to "being at two places at once". + This is the reason Jessica knows what happened to Nicole and her as little kids. Including events with Niki being absent. + Future Peter may have used Jessica's ability to hide his brother inside Jesse Murphy. He could have absorbed Jessica's ability just before he exploded in the finale of Season One. • A new tattoo wasn't shown to appear on Jesse's body when Peter is in control. • Jesse has so many tattoo's already a new one could be hard to notice.
Jessica is a separate entity inside Niki, and was placed inside Niki by someone else using a body insertion ability so she could protect her sister.	None.	+ Every time Jessica comes out the Helix appears. This doesn't happen to other personalities such as Gina. This means something is special with the alter ego, personality or even entity, Jessica. + Jessica has appeared at times to want out of her sister's body. Not being able to control the means by which she was trapped inside it could explain why Jessica acted in the way she did. + The Company may have an agent or prisoner in their possession with this ability, and used it in order to extract Jessica from Niki's body when they agreed to help Niki. This could mean that Tracy Strauss or Barbara is really Jessica.
Gina was the one who attacked Bob in Fight or Flight, not Niki or Jessica.	None.	+ At the end of Season 1 Niki and Jessica integrated into one personality, so Jessica couldn't be the one who attacked Bob. + In Four Months Ago Gina is the current personality existing in Niki before she turns herself into The Company. + Gina, just like Jessica would be able to access Niki's super strength. - Maury was taunting Niki with nightmares, only on a motive to kill Bob, as indicated in Out of Time. + Niki attacked Bob before this. + Bob stated when Niki was in her room that dealing with a split personality disorder will be difficult to cure. • Sometimes, Bob is explaining his viewpoint in events like Niki's attacks on Bob. Either his motives on Niki were not enough explored throughout volume 2, or he wanted others like Mohinder to help Bob save himself from Maury. - Gina seems more focused on fun and hedonism rather than violence.
Niki is the descendant of Adam Monroe.	None.	+ Adam took the alias Richard Sanders. - Seeing as how Niki may have been adopted by Hal, then she is not of an actual Sanders bloodline descendant. + He had a wife in Los Angeles in 1958, this would be around the time that Hal Sanders, Niki's father, is conceived. - Adam didn't mention having any children with the ninth wife. - Adam killed her. If she was pregnant at the time then the baby died with her. + She may have given birth to Hal before 1958, leaving Hal as an orphan since she died. • Niki may be a descendant through another of the wives or out of wedlock. - If she was descended through out of wedlock then it's unlikely that "Sanders" would be the last name. • She may be descended from the Maria from Italy who had two sons. + The fact he took Richard Sanders as a name is very likely not to be a coincidence. • Even if Hiro never went back into the past, are they related?
Niki is an ex-wife of Adam, or is his eleventh wife but has simply tried to block him out of her memories.	None.	- Niki was married to D.L. Hawkins.
The Company lied to Niki when they diagnosed her as having multiple personality disorder. They really wanted to keep her under their control until she was needed.	Rather than treating her condition directly with therapy, as is usual practice in most cases where MPD is brought on by trauma (as it was in Niki's case), The Company just used medication to keep her heavily sedated. (Four Months Ago)	+ The Company is not above lying to people in the guise of trying to help when they are really more interested in controlling them. Most of their activities involving Peter are proof of that. (Four Months Ago) + For that matter, "The Haitian Pills" that Peter was given to neutralize his powers didn't seem to have the same sedative effects as the medication Niki was on. It seems unlikely, if the Company truly had the means to chemically neutralize a person's superpowers, that they would use such things on a time-bomb like Peter and not on someone who really had no desire to use her powers and just live a normal life like Niki... unless they had a use for Niki in mind.
Niki is a medium who has the ability to see, talk to and be taken over by dead people.	Matt heard Niki and Jessica as two distinct people having a conversation with his telepathy. (Run!) Granting that she was being mind-controlled at the time, Niki seemed far too comfortable with the idea of her dead husband talking to her and telling her what to do while she was being controlled by Maury Parkman. (Out of Time)	+ In the majority of dissociative personality disorder cases, the personalities are not aware of each other's existence. For better or worse, Jessica and Gina did know about Niki, though Niki was unaware of their existence at first. - The Company told Niki that it was not uncommon for powered individuals to develop mental problems, like multiple-personalities, to cope with their abilities and that super-strength was Niki's own ability. + Of course, the Company has lied in the past to keep people they wanted to manipulate under their control and to keep them from learning the truth about their abilities. - Gina did not seem to be a living or non-living person, but just an alias Niki adopted when she ran away as a teenager to Los Angeles. + We don't know yet if Gina was just an alias or actually someone who was close to Niki/someone who died near her.
There is a secret hibernated army of Niki clones.	None.	- This is a completely stupid theory. + There have been a secret army of Julien clones and an army of Evan clones in the past. - Julien and Evan's powers were to clone themselves; this is not Niki's power.
Tracy is actually Jessica that supposedly died as a little girl.	None.	- Niki and Tracy are indentical. Niki and Jessica do not seem identical. - According to Tracy and Niki's birth certificates, they were born in 1974. Jessica's tombstone stated she was born in 1976. + In Six Months Ago, Hal said he never killed anyone. This could be true and Jessica may have been given up or kidnapped leaving everyone to believe her dead. - Jessica had a funeral and a gravesite. + Linderman may have staged her death to put her on a course to be working in politics. - Dr. Zimmerman has stated that Niki, Tracy, and Barbara were triplets seperated at birth, Niki must have been adopted into the Sanders family, and there she became adoptive sisters with Jessica Sanders. - Tracy claims to have never heard about Niki Sanders before The Butterfly Effect.
Niki, Tracy and Barbara were created from the preserved sperm of deceased company founder Harry Fletcher and the eggs of deceased company founder Susan Amman.	None.	+ The majority of main characters on the show are descendants of Company founders (Arthur & Angela - Nathan, Peter, Sylar, Claire; Maury - Matt, Charles - Simone, Carlos - Isaac, Kaito - Hiro etc). Niki/Tracy are main character and the identities of their biological parents is a mystery. - Niki and Tracy's birth certificates read 1974. Harry and Susan are alive in a photo in which Kaito and Victoria are much older than they were in 1977.
The Jessica personality was simply created behind the scenes by Maury Parkman to further Linderman's agenda in Season One.	None.	+ In Season Two, it was revealed that Maury was working for Adam and that Linderman had been Adam's disciple. Maury tends to lend himself out to be the muscle for whoever the big bad is each season (Adam in season two, Arthur in season three). Due to Linderman's working with both Adam and Arthur it isn't hard to believe that Maury would work for Linderman too. + Linderman had been manipulating Niki's and DL's life from the very beginning and this was another example of that. + Maury has the capability to create the elaborate hallucinations that Niki has when arguing with Jessica and the ability to keep people trapped in their own minds much like he did to Molly Walker. - But Maury's power is incapable of making Niki do all those things that Jessica did. - It also seems unlikely due to Maury's character not being developed in the first season.
Niki's ability grants her super durability.	In Fallout, D.L. hits Jessica with a sledge hammer but she gets up straight after.	+ This would explain why Jessica was not hurt after being hit by D.L. + This would coinside along with the "The Rule Of Ted", or ability immunity, to protect her from braking her hand when she super punched something.
Niki was the one that killed Aron Malsky, not Jessica.	None.	+ She was wearing a different outfit to what Jessica had worn when she threw Matt out the window. - Matt heard Niki and Jessica arguing in the stairwell using telepathy, and Niki didn't want to go through with the plan.