Suddenly curious about the implications of Rift/Limbo

[TARINunit9]

So I was bored on the train today and suddenly started asking myself some questions of just how the Rift is supposed to work

On the surface, the Rift is an alternate plane of reality that Limbo can visit and drag people to. The environment is still there in this alternate plane, because you need a floor to stand on and walls to keep you from going out of bounds. And although enemies can't damage things that are on the other side of the Rift, they can still bodyblock you, because we don't want you getting stuck inside them. A little video gamey but it's a reason better than the alternative

(TANGENT WARNING: Because honestly, if it had a lore reason why you could still be bodyblocked it would start bringing up a LOT of questions about momentum and inertia. Like, when the bullets hit Rift Limbo, they stop suddenly. But stop against what? What are they losing kinetic energy to? Can't be Rift Limbo, he's not taking any damage)

However, enemies can still SEE you on the other side of the Rift. And you can still see them if you Banish them but stay in realspace. So photons exist on both sides of the Rift, fair enough. But... doesn't that mean that lasers should be able to hit things on both sides of the Rift? Except Flux Rifles can't, and the lore confirms yes, they do use lasers. And Limbo can walk though laser tripwires without penalty, especially in Spy vault tripwires pass right through Rift Limbo, while Flux Rifle lasers are... blocked by Limbo? Is it a wavelength thing?

Another big question is why Rift Limbo can't hack, even though the Terminal he's trying to hack has to exist on both sides. I mean Rift Limbo can stand on it, so it exists in the Rift too. Do the Rift electrons just not flow through the Rift silicon, i.e. Is it a dead circuit in the Rift and a live circuit in realspace? Or does the holographic keypad just not register collisions with Rift Limbo (similar to Spy tripwires), so he simply can't type?

Lastly there's the idea that Rifting things can damage enemies but not teammates. Normally this would fall under the Warframe Friendly Fire Law, except Limbo's quest has him killing himself by attempting to Rift walk "too far". So, apparently Rifting doesn't actually fall under the Friendly Fire Law? It's just Limbo jumping shorter, safer distances that don't hurt himself. Alright. But... when you Banish enemies to the Rift they take damage; so they end up in the same place but travel further and that's why they take damage? Does... do Tenno in realspace exist closer to the Rift than enemies in realspace do?

My first guess is that the Rift is less a definite plane or set of planes, and more a foggy spectrum with a cutoff point that designates realspace. That would mean Rift Walk/Banish On Allies puts Limbo/Allies right on the other side of the cutoff point -- a short undamaging jump -- while Banish On Enemies puts them a lot further away from realspace

I dunno, I'm just typing this out to see if anyone will actually read it

[junyynyyn]

One other thing you forgot to mention is the fact that Warframe powers transcend the rift plane and real plane, and are able to hit enemies in both planes.

[SenorClipClop]

11 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

there's the idea that Rifting things can damage enemies but not teammates. Normally this would fall under the Warframe Friendly Fire Law, except Limbo's quest has him killing himself by attempting to Rift walk "too far". So, apparently Rifting doesn't actually fall under the Friendly Fire Law?

The Friendly Fire Law is a gameplay rule, and so Lore doesn't need to apply, I think. It would be cool if it did, but ultimately the important thing is you can't shoot your allies and the game is playable with strangers on the internet thanks to this rule.

13 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

when you Banish enemies to the Rift they take damage; so they end up in the same place but travel further and that's why they take damage?

The way I see it, it's like the difference between a handshake and trying to crush someone else's hand. I think that crossing the Rift is the same event for enemies and allies alike, it's just that Limbo's gentler with his friends. He may have ripped himself apart trying to get the knack for non-lethal Riftwalking, and that'd be why we have to track down his pieces.

[NinthAria]

I always just assumed this was one of those things that's best explained by remembering that the Void (and the powers that spring from it) defies universal laws. Past that, it's probably best not to think about it too hard.

[Evanescent]

53 minutes ago, TARINunit9 said:

So I was bored on the train today and suddenly started asking myself some questions of just how the Rift is supposed to work

On the surface, the Rift is an alternate plane of reality that Limbo can visit and drag people to. The environment is still there in this alternate plane, because you need a floor to stand on and walls to keep you from going out of bounds. And although enemies can't damage things that are on the other side of the Rift, they can still bodyblock you, because we don't want you getting stuck inside them. A little video gamey but it's a reason better than the alternative

(TANGENT WARNING: Because honestly, if it had a lore reason why you could still be bodyblocked it would start bringing up a LOT of questions about momentum and inertia. Like, when the bullets hit Rift Limbo, they stop suddenly. But stop against what? What are they losing kinetic energy to? Can't be Rift Limbo, he's not taking any damage)

However, enemies can still SEE you on the other side of the Rift. And you can still see them if you Banish them but stay in realspace. So photons exist on both sides of the Rift, fair enough. But... doesn't that mean that lasers should be able to hit things on both sides of the Rift? Except Flux Rifles can't, and the lore confirms yes, they do use lasers. And Limbo can walk though laser tripwires without penalty, especially in Spy vault tripwires pass right through Rift Limbo, while Flux Rifle lasers are... blocked by Limbo? Is it a wavelength thing?

Another big question is why Rift Limbo can't hack, even though the Terminal he's trying to hack has to exist on both sides. I mean Rift Limbo can stand on it, so it exists in the Rift too. Do the Rift electrons just not flow through the Rift silicon, i.e. Is it a dead circuit in the Rift and a live circuit in realspace? Or does the holographic keypad just not register collisions with Rift Limbo (similar to Spy tripwires), so he simply can't type?

Lastly there's the idea that Rifting things can damage enemies but not teammates. Normally this would fall under the Warframe Friendly Fire Law, except Limbo's quest has him killing himself by attempting to Rift walk "too far". So, apparently Rifting doesn't actually fall under the Friendly Fire Law? It's just Limbo jumping shorter, safer distances that don't hurt himself. Alright. But... when you Banish enemies to the Rift they take damage; so they end up in the same place but travel further and that's why they take damage? Does... do Tenno in realspace exist closer to the Rift than enemies in realspace do?

My first guess is that the Rift is less a definite plane or set of planes, and more a foggy spectrum with a cutoff point that designates realspace. That would mean Rift Walk/Banish On Allies puts Limbo/Allies right on the other side of the cutoff point -- a short undamaging jump -- while Banish On Enemies puts them a lot further away from realspace

I dunno, I'm just typing this out to see if anyone will actually read it

The rift plane could act like the tel'aran'rhiod, or the world of dreams in the wheel of time series. It exists as a sort of image or pale reflection of reality. So while things in the real plane are also represented there, they aren't really there. To bring changes in the plane one has to physically traverse into it and so begin to exert influence. The laws of reality can bend to the will if there are means to harness them. Perhaps the rules simply become more liquid in the rift. It is called the rift, a gap between two places, or in this case, two worlds.  

One other thing-bringing the rift into the real plane or vice versa destabilises the rift, resulting in the cataclysm. One could conclude that the rift plane and the real plane cancel each other out, like particles and antiparticles.

Most likely the actual reasons are for game balance. Nothing in the real plane should affect Limbo, but that would have been OP so they added some gamey elements for the sale of making it work.

40 minutes ago, junyynyyn said:

One other thing you forgot to mention is the fact that Warframe powers transcend the rift plane and real plane, and are able to hit enemies in both planes.

That's easily explained. The void twists and warps the laws of reality....in many ways our abilities are aberrations of the natural laws.

[HawkBlade94]

About a year ago a watched anime called "Dimension W". Last few episodes could give explanation of Banising enemies and allies.

Spoiler

It could be because bodies ( of Greenier, Corpus, Infested) can't withstand trasnfering from plain to plain. Tenno and Warframes can (maybe) withstand it because of VOID energy. For Rescue and Defense operatives and Syndicate operatives i have no clues why they don't take dmg (unless they are those who are in cryopods in defence missions in viod and in solar system) <-clue

BTW If you don't think about Rift as a whole new (read parallel) universe that have XYZ axis you might think it as just another plain of existance inside "standard" universe where when you are inside RIFT you obey the laws of e.g. WYZ instead of XYZ.

[Autongnosis]

1 hour ago, TARINunit9 said:

[1] However, enemies can still SEE you on the other side of the Rift. And you can still see them if you Banish them but stay in realspace. So photons exist on both sides of the Rift, fair enough. But... doesn't that mean that lasers should be able to hit things on both sides of the Rift? Except Flux Rifles can't, and the lore confirms yes, they do use lasers. And Limbo can walk though laser tripwires without penalty, especially in Spy vault tripwires pass right through Rift Limbo, while Flux Rifle lasers are... blocked by Limbo? Is it a wavelength thing?

[2] Another big question is why Rift Limbo can't hack, even though the Terminal he's trying to hack has to exist on both sides. I mean Rift Limbo can stand on it, so it exists in the Rift too. Do the Rift electrons just not flow through the Rift silicon, i.e. Is it a dead circuit in the Rift and a live circuit in realspace? Or does the holographic keypad just not register collisions with Rift Limbo (similar to Spy tripwires), so he simply can't type?

[3] Lastly there's the idea that Rifting things can damage enemies but not teammates. Normally this would fall under the Warframe Friendly Fire Law, except Limbo's quest has him killing himself by attempting to Rift walk "too far". So, apparently Rifting doesn't actually fall under the Friendly Fire Law? It's just Limbo jumping shorter, safer distances that don't hurt himself. Alright. But... when you Banish enemies to the Rift they take damage; so they end up in the same place but travel further and that's why they take damage? Does... do Tenno in realspace exist closer to the Rift than enemies in realspace do?

[1] Most probably a wavelenght thing, or also an energy level. Or, depending on how much we agree with the idea that limbo is the master of the rift space and not just a guest, he might actually be controlling the barrier between rift space and realspace to only let through select things.

[2] Probably it's the lack of actual phisical contact that matters. that is further reinforced from the fact that Limbo also doesn't trigger pressure pads when in the rift.

[3] Well, this is easy. Imagine you want to carry someone to the bottom of a river. You can build a tunnel and have them descend in a controlled way, or just tie them to a monumental weight and have them sink without any kind of regards to their survival.
Same with Limbo. Probably when rifting himself or his allies, limbo creates a stable channel, while when he sends in enemies he just throws them across the planar boundary.

[SilvaDreams]

14 minutes ago, Autongnosis said:

[1] Most probably a wavelenght thing, or also an energy level. Or, depending on how much we agree with the idea that limbo is the master of the rift space and not just a guest, he might actually be controlling the barrier between rift space and realspace to only let through select things.

[2] Probably it's the lack of actual phisical contact that matters. that is further reinforced from the fact that Limbo also doesn't trigger pressure pads when in the rift.

[3] Well, this is easy. Imagine you want to carry someone to the bottom of a river. You can build a tunnel and have them descend in a controlled way, or just tie them to a monumental weight and have them sink without any kind of regards to their survival.
Same with Limbo. Probably when rifting himself or his allies, limbo creates a stable channel, while when he sends in enemies he just throws them across the planar boundary.

I have to agree with this.

Limbo's ability doesn't so much take him to a new dimension so much as a space between spaces.

Think of normal space as a sheet of paper and Void space as another pressing against one another, they seem to be touching but there is still a tiny boundary between the two and that is where Limbo goes which can also explain why he can be seen but can not physically interact with anything.

Essentially he is like a ghost he can be seen but nothing can directly interact with his physical form as it is out of phase with the normal realm, but a Nullifier can still disrupt that field of void energy that he controls that keeps friends and foes trapped between the two.

[(XBOX)ultimategamerjr]

I always thought of the rift as more a defensive enitity not another plane Limbo actually enters completely. Like the rift basically helps limbo by allowing him to go part way into the rift plane, but not get sucked in completely, so he isn't ever completely in the rift, which would also explain you can get body blocked. (This is just speculation, no real lore to help my theory, it just makes sense to me.)

[Crashen]

I like to think if the Rift Plane as the gradient or barrier between realspace and void. It is as the person above me said, the space where the two planes meet. 

Imagine a wall between an underwater room the ocean. The Rift is the space INSIDE the wall, but since Realspace is more... fixed and firm than the Void, the Rift is closer to Realspace. The condensation and leaks in the wall is the void bleeding through.

 

Now what really gets confusing is when Limbo is in a lua spy vault, in a different timeline, while in the Rift. That is like three steps removed from reality, and something like that is probably how he got torn apart.

Would be kind of cool if the original Limbo got destroyed by trying to Rift Walk to/from that fateful ceremony that saw the end of the Orokin.

[Nazrethim]

4 hours ago, Evanescent said:

That's easily explained. The void twists and warps the laws of reality....in many ways our abilities are aberrations of the natural laws.

"Your very existence is... cheating. Yes, that is the word. Simply by walking this earth, by living and breathing and acting, you warp the rules of the universe and bring them to their knees."

— Huey Laforet, Baccano!

 

[Evanescent]

3 minutes ago, Nazrethim said:

"Your very existence is... cheating. Yes, that is the word. Simply by walking this earth, by living and breathing and acting, you warp the rules of the universe and bring them to their knees."

— Huey Laforet, Baccano!

 

YES!

[VocalMagic]

Think of the void and the real planes as two pages in a book stacked on top of each other, then think of the rift plane as a piece of paper that weaves from below the real plane, out of the book, back into the book between the real and the void plane, out of the book again, and then back into the book on top of the void plane.

While in the rift, Limbo is a pin punching through all five layers, leaving a small hole that lets people follow him. The hole will repair itself.
The pin is special, it will not be ejected because the pin did not actually puncture the pages; there was a pulse of energy that opened the hole and let the pin insert itself in the hole.
Limbo is special, as he was made to be in the same time/space in 5 different places at once. Anything else will be ejected out into the Real Plane after a time.

When the cataclysm occurs, Limbo pressed all of these pages together, similar to putting a bowling ball on top of these pages, but instead of just putting them close together, the force keeping them together is enough to make all 5 locations in the same time/space one singular location. So instead of 1 person being in 5 places at the same time, 5 places are at 1 person at the same time.