Inter dimensional Portals: Doors to parallel universes

“Fortunately General Grimm and the brave soldiers of the Green Army have been successful in locating and destroying these dangerous portals as they mysteriously appear across the land” – Vikki Grimm during the Green Army News in Sarge’s Heroes 2 events

Portals function as gateways between the Plastic World and the Real World (at first), but later as well as for the rest of the worlds.

Portals have always been doors to other worlds, parallel dimensions, and doors to cover long distances faster. But after so much time and research between, now the power of portals maybe can be expanded: they can transport to the future or the past, and even to mirror universes where events were very different than those we know.

In fact it is possible that the Real World the Army Men traveled all this time, were not always the same Real World. It is possible that they were not traveling to contiguous and contemporary universes, but to parallel realities one after the other.

Green Nation Top Secret

At first the Portals were a state secret known only to a few authorities and special troops. Even Sergeant Hawk at the beginning did not know of the existence of the portals, although he was aware of the anomalies found that pointed towards them. The reason historians assume for this was that its public knowledge would sow fear and uncertainty in the society of the Green Nation. But although the Green President and military leaders like Colonel Grimm and Major Gooding tried to keep the secret at all cost, sooner than later the entire Green Nation found out, thanks to the Super Weapons used by Plastro that came from the Real World. So from then on the “threat of the portals” was used as a propaganda tool to get the nation to support the war.

The Portal threat: Are Portals dangerous?

The Green government has probably hidden the portals to its nation to prevent collective panic. The portals followed a resounding change in the understanding of reality in which Army men live, and this could have had a catastrophic effect on many levels. But luckily during the events of Sarge’s Heroes this does not happen, given the way this information was released, having Sgt. Hawk and other heroes to inspire the population.

One of the first weapons of mass destruction General Plastro’s forces bring back was a giant magnifying glass. But one of the deadliest weapons of Plastro’s Army was the V-Bot, which is a toy robot that comes to life once it was brought back from “Big World” into “Their World”. Any inanimate plastic object brought from the Real World into the Plastic World using Portals, becomes animated for some reason onlt the Tan Army knows. But only for a period of time, until the Plastic World deactivated most of the equipment.

It was stated during Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes events that this Portals are dangerous for the Green Nation and that they mysteriously appears from time to time across the land. The Green Army have been successful in locating and destroying this Portals starting in 1999 and the 2000, but later they were saved and guarded by entire armies, starting the Plastic World’s Portals War, which years later evolved into the Portal War, an extension of the first conflict, but to all the worlds connected to this network of Portals.

How Portals work

Portals are doors or gates that transport individuals to parallel dimensions or simply cover large distances within the same world. Although with respecting the first theory, it is not known if they are actually universes outside the reality of the Plastic World, or if they are simply different places that are very far from the Army Men portion of the Plastic World. This means that this are within the same reality.

Regarding functioning properties, most of the time a portal joins another portal, like round-trip entrance doors.

Investigations of records left by Humans in the Real World shed light on the possible functioning of Portals: It is called “teleportation” or “teletransportation”, and in the records of the Human’s trips to space it can be seen how they are positioned in a kind of Portal disk on the floor of a special machine, which then “decomposes” the human beings into information and recomposes their bodies into another portal of the same type, or simply in another place without the need for another portal. Apparently they used this to get from one place to another faster, but there were certain implications or resource costs that apparently did not allow their entire society to use it. Only to space explorers, according to their “historical documents”.

The brief explanations given by these records say that these teleporters decompose matter into digital information using a beam of light, which records the coordinates of each particle of the user, and reassembles it using that information from the other side. The problem is, apparently, that it is not known if the one that appears on the other side is the original, or a copy. Which means the original is destroyed. Another reason for they entire society to not use it

But on the other hand, according to the records long documented with the naked eye, when entering a Portal you cross a kind of conduit of light and some type of moving matter, which according to the records of the great human scientist “Einstein”, this could be a “wormhole”, which in theory connects one point to another, shortening large distances. It is for this last reason that a probable theory about the other worlds is that they really are within the same reality, and not in a separate and disconnected place that cannot be reached in any other way.

Usually when entering through a portal one exits through another portal, located in the other place to which one is going. But in some cases (like the first portal in Army Men & Army Men 2) the portals simply leave the user in a different place, sometimes with no portal and no way to return. Although sometimes standing in the same place where one appeared can take you back to the starting point.

This may have happened because the portal at the arrival site was destroyed, leaving the user unable to return to the original departure point. It may also be that this “exit only” effect it’s a remnant of the working power of that destroyed Portal, and gradually dissipates, leaving the arrival point without a portal to function no longer. The remaining portal sometimes turns off completely, but other times it doesn’t stop working and may end up connecting to a different portal in a different location. But the usual thing, in theory, is that the Portals are simply conceived this way (regardless of the way in which they are created, naturally or not).

Beyond these documented effects, it has also been documented, especially towards the end of Plastro’s life, that portals can also open in certain places without the need for a physical Portal on the other side, and can even the exits can be opened in a desired place. But like the aforementioned, this effect does not last long. This happened during Plastro’s final attack on Greentown in 2004. But only Plastro could do this and unfortunately he took the secret to the grave after being killed by Malice in the attack on the peace treaty in Greentown.

How and why the portals appear is unknown. But not only has the fortuitous appearance of portals been documented, but Portals have been reported to be found inside objects, such as mountains, structures, 8 balls, cookie jars, among others. Even buried underground. These portals, for obvious reasons, had been hidden in those objects for some time.

Other very old portals have been found, with plastic dating much earlier than even the Army Men. These ancient Portals open the possibility that they appeared or were created long before the Army Men, therefore the Army Men are not the first to exist in the Plastic World.

Portal effects on Toys

There is some factually documented history that demonstrates that in some particular cases and for now, without explanation, some toys or accessories change when entering a world different from the one they come from. But usually just the shape.

Composition is the proportion of the different constituents of the material (chemically and physically different). Structure refers to the spatial distribution, orientation and association of the constituents. Characterizing a material is determining the parameters necessary to identify and describe it. In simpler words, it is impossible for a world different from where a weapon comes from to transform its plastic into metal. But you can modify a X-shaped plastic weapon to an E-shaped one, always maintaining the same composition and proportion. The characteristics although can change radically to the point that, for example, a bow becomes a bayesta (which is almost the same, just seen different by the Army Men).

Different types of Portals

All kinds of portals have appeared through history, in different shapes, colors and functions, which transport their users to different worlds or simply to different locations within the same world. They connect points far from each other, which would otherwise be impossible to reach, especially other worlds which no one knows where they really are.

It has been theorized that colors may have some implications beyond visual aesthetics, but nothing has yet been proven.

Ancient Portals

The first type of portals found, the “Alpha Portals” which are also one of the oldest, of unknown origin.

In theory, Green Portals can transport users to the Medieval World. Purple Portals to the Space World. Yellow Portals go to the Prehistoric World. Finally, Blue Portals go to the Real World, but to the Plastic World too.

Some portals were found hidden inside giant objects that were discovered in the Plastic World, almost always vintage objects.

Army Men Bucket Portals

First found in the Real World, these mysterious portals appeared without warning in the Plastic World, always connecting to the Real World. It is theorized that these were created artificially.

Toy Box Portals

These portals are found in themed toy packaging, especially in toy stores and collectors’ homes. In these last places are where you can still find boxes of “Vintage” (old) toys with access to worlds that are difficult to reach in any other way, because they have been out of production for many years.
These portals are marked by different colors for each world and usually have an arrival point in both ancient or natural portals, as well as artificially constructed ones.

Space Portals

Videogame Console Portals

Only one is officially known, a “3DO Interactive Multiplayer” console that transported Tina & Sarge to Tina’s world, suspected to be the natural satellite of the Real World, the Moon. But there are stories and unverified reports of this console and other “portal consoles” in the past that transported Army Men to Videogames worlds.

The possibility is real, because it was proved that these portals can decompose matter, transform it into digital information and allow the user to interact in the digital worlds of video games. Then, like a 3D printer, the “portal console” translates that digital information back into the physical world, like a 3D printing process, allowing the user to return to the world they came from.

This system is similar to the teleportation of the Space Troopers, where the individual is decomposed into information instead of matter, to be quickly sent to a distant location, to be reconstructed again in a matter of seconds. But in this case only the information is sent to the digital world of the Videogame.

Artificial Portals

Other kinds of portals

In the Real World, dilutional whispers of mysterious portals connecting Santa’s North Pole HQ to toystores around the globe have persisted for generations. These portals, hidden in plain sight, allow Santa to oversee the creation and distribution of toys. Some even speculate that Santa might be the enigmatic force behind the creation of the Army Men, the one called “The Maker”, linking their existence to the mysteries of the Real World.

Other possible uses & powers of Portals

It still needs to be confirmed, but it is assumed that in addition to the other worlds there are alternative realities of each of them, therefore the rules of time travel and access to alternative realities using portals must be investigated. In theory this can be achieved using the Portals themselves, modifying them with technology or building artificial portals.

Currently, technological and scientific limitations do not allow us to prove conjectures, but there are stories about Sarge Hawk traveling in time, which is the reason why he was affected in some sort of way and did not end up very well at the end of his life. Therefore there can also be dangers when traveling in time.

Behind the scenes:

Some of the effects or rules of the Portals, explained

Explanations and details described outside of the Army Men’s perspective

To work or not to work, that is the question

Weapons will work in a very particular way in Army Men Revolution. They will work normally in the worlds they come from, but will stop working in other worlds, or will be nerfed. In this way we ensure that the seemingly weak plastic weapons can compete against the new metal weapons. And we also make sure that you must use swords, axes, hammers, bows and arrows in the Medieval World. So in every world you must behave “in-universe”.

Functionality and materiality, not composition

The materials composition are not modified, but the shapes of some objects are, as is the case of Vikki and her bow in Portal Runner. These unique and exceptional cases allow us to make visual skins that change depending on the universe being visited. But it’s not discarded that in some way the materials may also change in the future, or that some world may produce this effect.

Composition is the proportion of the different constituents of the material (chemically and physically different). Structure, on the other hand, refers to the spatial distribution, orientation and association of the constituents. Characterizing a material is determining the parameters necessary to identify and describe it. In simpler words, it is impossible for a world different from where a weapon comes from to transform its plastic into metal. But you can modify a banana-shaped plastic weapon to an apple-shaped one, always maintaining the same composition and proportion. The characteristics for the most part, although this can change radically to the point that, for example, a bow becomes a bayesta (which is almost the same, just seen differently by the Army Men).