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Backstory

In around modern time in the United States there was a super secret science project, unknown to the general public. They invented an experimental portal system, allowing to teleport people and goods between one super secret underground military base to another. First they tested the system with two portals, and it worked well. Then they added a third portal to the system, and then they were able to move people and goods between those three different locations, by selecting the destination portal from a computer. It all worked flawlessly, even teleporting between different states.

However when they tried to added a fourth portal, to extend their portal system, a certain accident happened. Apparently they were able to power on the fourth portal and connect it to their existing portal system successfully, or so they thought. An employee stepped onto one of their already existing portals, in order to be teleported to the newly installed portal. The technicians set the destination portal on the computer, and then pulled the level. The man disappeared, and did not appear on the other destination portal. Furthermore, ever since the fourth portal was activated, any people or goods that were sent from any already existing portal to any other portal were sent, but they never reappeared on the other side. Even if both the sending portal and the destination portal were among the former three portals which previously worked. At the same time strange vases and pots began getting received on their portals, which they clearly hadn't sent.

Little did they know, when they activated the fourth portal and connected it to their already existing portal system, their portal system got connected with an already existing portal system in a parallel universe. In that parallel universe, ancient East Asian civilizations had discovered magic/psychic powers, and after integrating such powers with technology they created many science fiction type inventions, one of which was a planet spanning portal system with thousands of gates on the alternate Earth.

Since the Area 52 portal system got connected with the parallel Earth's portal system, anything that they would send would be received in some portal on the parallel Earth, instead of going to the intended destination. Any people or cargo that they transported would eventually be arrested by the parallel Earth's authorities. Furthermore, occasionally something would come into one of the Area 52 portals.

Question

In order for this plot to work, I have to explain why adding a fourth portal caused their already existing portal system (which worked fine with three portals) to connect with a portal system from that parallel universe. Why the number 4? What would be the quirks and features of that portal system for it to get connected like that?

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    $\begingroup$ Bandwidth is limited up to 3, the fourth overlaps the 3 with unusable 4, as what exactly is this bandwidth will be your homework ;D I like ur question btw. $\endgroup$
    – user6760
    Commented Jan 16, 2021 at 5:18
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    $\begingroup$ Upvote if instead of unknown, the project can be unbeknownst. $\endgroup$
    – Willk
    Commented Jan 16, 2021 at 18:44
  • $\begingroup$ Obligatory Simpsons joke: Tibor did it. $\endgroup$
    – user535733
    Commented Jan 17, 2021 at 4:08

6 Answers 6

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Each Portal Has a Unique Frequency:

The portals on Our Earth are operating differently than the portals in the parallel universe. It's a little like the portal system in Stargate, where the Earth portal has a human-made controller that operates slightly different from the rest.

Since your people are able to "Dial up" portal locations, there must be something unique about each portal - a coordinate system of some kind. The fact it was the fourth portal, and not the first/second/third is a coincidence. Something about the fourth portal had a coordinate system that was close enough to the ones in the parallel universe so they intermeshed. But while the coordinates used by the system in the parallel universe have additional numerics/symbols/mystic components that give them specificity to their own portals, OUR system operates with different coding, and is only partially compatible.

So once the fourth portal engaged the parallel universe one, our incompatible system intermeshed with theirs - badly. It started to cause malfunctions in the parallel universe, resulting in those random pots and things showing up here. The sheer volume of destinations in the parallel universe might cripple our portal system.

The real question is, what would happen if you disable the fourth portal? Would you be able to "disengage" from the parallel universe and start over, or Is there a higher-dimensional network which is now intertwined? In the first case, you could disconnect and solve the problem short-term, but run the risk of reconnecting to this or other parallel universes in the future (unless you can somehow figure out why the parallel universe portals weren't having this problem before, and copy it to create a separate network).

In the second case, the only "fix" would be to either shut down the whole thing or try to integrate better with the parallel portals. You might be able to stabilize and separate the portals by figuring out and copying their coordinate system. Then, our portals wouldn't send to theirs, and theirs wouldn't send to ours. It IS likely, however, that scientists/Enchanters on both sides would be working on figuring out what was going on. We could always use the "bad" coordinate system to tap into theirs, and eventually THEY would probably figure out what was going on and tap into ours.

At that point, the real fun of storytelling starts.

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  • $\begingroup$ The pots showing up in OUR portals aren't due to sporadic malfunctions in the parallel universe, rather they are cargo shipments that somehow got redirected to our portal system instead of their intended destination in the parallel universe. Large ceramic pots are their version of cardboard boxes. $\endgroup$
    – Galaxy
    Commented Jan 16, 2021 at 21:18
  • $\begingroup$ I'm thinking if the fourth portal would be disengaged, both the portal systems are already intertwined, so the other already existing portals would also have their destinations set to the parallel universe's portal network. The only short term solution to get rid of this connection would be to disengage all the portals, but again as you said if they attempt to bring those four portals back up they would maybe get connected to a different parallel universe's portal system. $\endgroup$
    – Galaxy
    Commented Jan 16, 2021 at 22:01
  • $\begingroup$ Probably the parallel universe's scientists/Enchanters would be more experienced with portal technology to find out what was going on. From that point in time they would be interested in learning about our Earth. $\endgroup$
    – Galaxy
    Commented Jan 16, 2021 at 22:02
  • $\begingroup$ I will use your answer, with also elements of other answers. $\endgroup$
    – Galaxy
    Commented Jan 17, 2021 at 18:08
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The answer will be technobabble ...

  • There is nothing special about four portals.
    There is something special about version 0.2.3 of the control software, which became necessary to replace a simple boolean switch (one of two other portals) with a list of destinations. Version 0.2.3 of the software happens to use a newer version of a java library, which fixes a bug in the old version, which affected the tuning of the portal. Basically the tuning compensated for the bug, now the bug is gone and the portal is out of tune.
    Of course the researchers tried a rollback to the previous portal configuration and software version 0.1.9. But due to a misconfiguration, the rollback did not undo the library update, which was just a maintenance release with the same major and minor version number.

  • There is nothing special about four portals.
    There is something special about the fourth portal, which differed from the previous three. Perhaps all four were handmade prototypes, or four was the first pre-production run, or something like that. The fourth portal produced some sort of static which interfered with portal calibration across the multiverse.
    This kind of problem is nothing new for the portal operators on the other world. Instead of discarding an expensive portal, they are able to re-sync their network and to compensate. Unfortunately they didn't know about our experimental network. They have more powerful portals, and also more of them, so their calibration process integrated all four of ours into their network. Anything we send, their (more powerful) receiver will snatch. A few of the things they send, our (less powerful) receivers will snatch. That happens only with their lesser, less well maintained portals, the sort used for low-value cargo.

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  • $\begingroup$ This is also a very good answer. Thank you. $\endgroup$
    – Galaxy
    Commented Jan 17, 2021 at 18:09
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Punching through

If you make a portal, you basically punch through some part of reality. A portal is open at two sides, so you're required to punch through twice.

If you open another portal it'll need an exit. The portal will automatically probe for weak points where it can establish the other portal. Nothing is weaker than an already punched hole, so a connection is easily made with preexisting holes. That's why they made two at the same time at first so you know where to expect the holes. If a parallel universe punches a hole, it has a good chance to find the existing portals of normal Earth. If it must be random, the energy used 5o punch holes might inadvertently weakened parts of the parallel universe, punching through on the fourth hole. This can conceivably be moticed by the parallel universe, so they might have been ready.

If you have several holes, you can go through and end up at any of them. If you calculate how to end up at hole x from hole y, your calculations will only be correct if you assume the right amount of holes. That's why they sometimes end up elsewhere from where they thought they would be.

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  • $\begingroup$ This is also a very good answer. Thank you. $\endgroup$
    – Galaxy
    Commented Jan 17, 2021 at 18:09
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They unknowingly stepped into a man in the middle type of attack to their system.

When they set the first two portals they were intercepted by the other civilization.

With the addition of the third portal they were triangulated in the multiverse foam and precisely located.

With the forth portal the stream between the portals was diverted to the attacker's destination. Each intercepted item is now being scrutinized to better assess the capabilities of our side and prepare countermeasures in case of an attempt of foul play.

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  • $\begingroup$ I originally intended for the connection between these two portal systems to be unintentional for both sides, but your man in the middle type of attack is an interesting plot twist that I will be considering. Thank you for suggesting this idea. $\endgroup$
    – Galaxy
    Commented Jan 16, 2021 at 5:06
  • $\begingroup$ @Galaxy, there is a short Sci-Fi story where, once Earth starts sending messages in space, they get a single reply: "be quiet, they are listening". This is inspired by that. $\endgroup$
    – L.Dutch ♦
    Commented Jan 16, 2021 at 5:40
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Connected to the mothership.

There is a big computer in the parallel universe that controls the endpoints of all the portals. Each portal has an identifier number, and when a new portal is created it is by default connected to Portal 0. Then the computer can be used to redirect the portal.

Now portals by default don't care about which universe they're in. When the fourth portal was created it was located by the central computer, which then located the other three, and defaulted them to end at Portal 0.

Portal 0 is of course in the parallel universe.

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The fourth portal happens to be in precisely the same place as one of the portals in the parallel universe.

However these portals work, the connection between them exists on a different plane. Unbeknownst to anyone in either universe, that plane is shared by both universes. The portal projects in both universes have been punching holes into a shared dimension, and so it was only a matter of time before the two collided.

If only one universe was doing portal stuff, they could build as many portals as they want with no problem.

By pure coincidence, our fourth portal was built in precisely the same position as one of the portals in the other universe, and so now the portal systems are linked.

Perhaps it's even possible that the two networks could be disconnected if either of the two overlapping portals were destroyed.

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