Vortices & Weak Spots (Confused)

[JimmyRook]

I'm a little confused about the vortex in this last episode and the weak spots in both universes.

Okee... So the other side has had these weak spots before. We've seen them stop them from happening a few times. When the vortex was starting to appear in this last episode, it was considered a weak spot by Walter. It was connecting (or however you would say that) the two universes together.

So I guess my questions are...

Are these vortices and weak spots one in the same? ie, when a weak spot gets weak enough (sounds funny)... does a vortex form and our universes come together? or was a vortex forming just one event that can happen when a weak spot gets weak enough?

If they are one in the same, why haven't we been seeing the vortices on our side before? I know the other side has been containing them, but we saw them trying to stop this one just like the other ones.

And another side question, what would have happened on our side if the other fringe team would have ambered that spot on their side before we stopped the emotional quantum entanglement? (lol at that term)

[jophan]

And another side question, what would have happened on our side if the other fringe team would have ambered that spot on their side before we stopped the emotional quantum entanglement? (lol at that term)

Because Walter said distance is immaterial, I suppose that if Derek had been evacuated, he could have continued to see Alice wherever he went and would cause additional problems! If he were encased in the amber, he'd be sort-of conscious and could potentially still be part of the entanglement, but he'd be frozen in place and Alice might withdraw.

[ikkokusenkin]

Logically, I wanna go with this option:


Are these vortices and weak spots one in the same? ie, when a weak spot gets weak enough (sounds funny)... does a vortex form and our universes come together? but I remember this footage from the other side of a huge whirlpool in some lake (don't remember if it's Reiden Lake? It was in the episode where Alt-Broyles is in a pub and looks at the TV, and when he leaves, the bartender tells him his drink's on the house coz he's in Fringe division) when we have nothing happening here. So, this options seems to agree more with the show:
or was a vortex forming just one event that can happen when a weak spot gets weak enough?

[gambit84]

The suggestion is that the AU is interacting with more than one universe. Maybe they are in the middle of breaches between a few different universes.

[Ryan Trevisol]

The suggestion is that the AU is interacting with more than one universe. Maybe they are in the middle of breaches between a few different universes.

I think this makes the most sense.

While the difference between a soft spot, a crack, and a vortex have never been fully explained, I don't think a vortex necessarily a direct connetion, or tunnel to the other side as it might appear. That seems to be the definition of a Crack. A soft spot appears to be a place in which a crack can be opened.

Also, if matter is getting sucked into the vortex and it's directly connected to another universe, wouldn't matter (whether in recognizable form as water, boats, buildings, and people or not) be spewing into the other universe with which the Redverse is interacting?

Also, for clarification on the only confirmed vortex we've actually SEEN, that was in the East River "2 Decades ago", according to Entrada (look it up on a, uhm, wiki that I'm not allowed to link to). Which would've been 1990 based on the fact that Entrada presumably takes place in 2010. Interestingly, Walter was committed in 1991. And perhaps he was still working with Olivia, because 6b seems to suggest her uncontrollable pyrokinesis might have caused the death of his lab assistant?

Now, if that vortex was an interaction with the Blueverse, wouldn't it stand to reason that we'd at LEAST have a soft spot in that area?

I recently re-watched Season 1and and on the map Olivia makes, there appears to be a dot in a location that COULD be the East River. The Fringe event that takes place there isn't discussed, and it's next to the soft spot but it is not the soft-spot itself. So maybe the vortex on the Red side was from an interaction with the Yellowverse. Or possibly the dot on the screenshot corresponds to the Central Manhatan Sinkhole seen in Over There. (Second screenshot)

My understanding from Walter's explanation in 6B was that the Vortex was not an explicit linking of the two universes, but rather a by-product of their interacting. And that by-product is that, at least in one universe, space-time would unravel causing an expanding vortex of annihilation.

In 6B, a vortex is nearly caused by someone in the Blueverse (Alice) deliberately thinning the membrane between universes (and possibly, the cause of the vortex is the repeated thinning as well as the quantum entanglement). She did this for a while (months IIRC), but only once she had made the membrane thin enough to actually speak to Derek, did the Fringe team in the Redverse take notice. So while it may have caused a vortex on our side, it may only have been a soft spot or a crack on the other side. The Redverse Fringe team would've Ambered it, but only because they're quite trigger-happy with Amber.

Think about it, the Red Fringe Division Ambered the theater where Fauxlivia, Walter, and Peter crossed back over in Over There 2. But on our side, the Opera House isn't adversely affected. Or perhaps the crack, anomaly, whatever, exists in both universes, but the Blueverse doesn't have the ability to detect it. Maybe the cracks aren't as dangerous as Walternate has convinced the populace they are.

Something tells me that the Redverse is messed up not only because of Reiden Lake in 1985 but because of Walternate's experimenting trying to get Peter back, now that he knows where he is. Perhaps opened many more cracks have been opened in the Redverse (and perhaps cracks NOT connecting to the Blueverse). Of course if Walternate was experimenting with crossing over to the detriment of the Redverse, and then Ambered over his mistakes, he still comes out looking like the hero.

Let's take it one step further. In The Road Not Taken it seems that some kind of attack (and it's not a Vortex) has happened on Boston in whatever universe she seemed to be crossing over to (likely the Redverse; "He is Here" graffiti points to Bell). The city was burning, later in the episode Charlie talks about shooting suspects on sight, being in "lockdown quarrantine", and in later Over There episodes, we learn that a significant portion of Boston is in Amber.

The Blueverse doesn't have the capability to attack the Redverse (Jones & ZFT in the Blueverse struggled even to cross over), so if it was an attack and not just a massive Fringe Event, who did the attacking?