- "There's no way I'm going through the teleporter again. I still got this tingle in the back of my... look, dude, I'm just not going back through the teleporter, okay?"
- —Tucker in Nine Tenths of the Law
In Red vs. Blue, Teleporters are a fairly common device which allows the user to be transported from one location to another. It is usually represented by glowing green aura contained in a doorway. Early on in the series, teleporters served as a means of forwarding the plot, notably the departure from Blood Gulch. Although after the switch to Halo 2, the teleporters were used considerably less often.
Role in Plot[]
Origins[]
Atop both Blood Gulch bases are teleporters that lead to a point somewhere in the canyon. The first one shown to be used was atop Blue Base, where Church forced Tucker to go through it by threatening him with an assault rifle to chase after Donut, whom at the time had their flag. Tucker was at first hesitant to go, due to being "afraid of black stuff" that covered the rocks they had sent through earlier. When Church eventually forced him through Tucker didn't reappear, which caused Church to reconsider taking the teleporter.
Tucker later appeared out of the teleporter covered in black stuff during the middle of a conversation between Donut and Church. Due to the timing of his appearance, Tucker was under the impression the teleporter had sent him back in time. By the time Church explained the situation to him, the Warthog appeared and began to attack them. The teleporter became important again later in the season when Church decided to use it to make Tucker and Caboose appear as Freelancers so they could free Tex from the Reds by covering their armor in black stuff. The plan worked, and Tex was freed.
Sabotage[]
When Lopez escapes, along with Church's new body, Church orders Caboose and Tucker to cut him off through the teleporter. This time Tucker doesn't listen, and instead throws a grenade through it, distracting Church with an explosion by accident. The untimely attack of the Reds however caused Lopez to join Blue Team anyway. When O'Malley forced an infected Doc to kidnap Lopez and escape with him to rule the world, he left through the Red Base's reprogrammed teleporter. Simmons, Grif, Sarge, Church, and Caboose left through the teleporter after him, but due to O'Malley's sabotage of the equipment, they all ended up in inconvenient places away from O'Malley.
Separation[]
The Teleporter Nexus
While no longer in Blood Gulch, Simmons ended up in either a central hub filled with teleporters that could take him anywhere in the universe, or just a janitor's closet. The teleporters were later found to indeed lead anywhere in the universe, and Simmons used one to contact Sarge and Caboose at Battle Creek. In Battle Creek, after the attack of the Grunts, Caboose and Sarge managed to get into contact with Simmons and reach him through a teleporter he reprogrammed. While explaining how the teleporters worked to an incompetent Sarge and Caboose, Simmons ended up saving a lot of time by saying that they worked by magic.
After a quick recovery, Tucker, along with Donut and Tex prepared to leave Blood Gulch for Sidewinder after Donut reprogrammed the teleporter under Simmons' instructions. Sarge, Caboose, and Simmons arrived first, waiting to greet the others. Donut, Tex, and Tucker all arrived, Tucker being the only one in pain and covered with black stuff. Caboose offered to clean him, by rubbing him all over. In the last moments of a climactic battle between O'Malley and the Blood Gulch soldiers, Simmons activated a teleporter to bring in the Grunts from Battle Creek, whom proceeded to take down and repeatedly teabag O'Malley.
During Church's many time traveling incidents, it was shown that Tucker and Church had indeed tested the teleporter by throwing rocks through it (an event mentioned in an earlier conversation) and that both Church and Tucker doubted that a grenade could go through.
Later Adventures[]
After Season 3, the teleporter had far less appearances and was no longer as important in the series. In Out of Mind, after York unlocked a holographic lock on a door for Tex to confront O'Malley, they both went through, leading them through a teleporter and straight into enemy fire. The teleporter then returned in Revelation at the Freelancer Offsite Storage Facility, as Epsilon-Tex frequently uses the teleporters to her advantage when fighting Grif, Simmons, Sarge, and Tucker in This One Goes to Eleven. In Season 10, it's revealed that the Director was hiding at the same storage facility, but was in an area that could only be accessed through a specific teleporter. Upon going through the portal, the Reds, Blues, and Carolina had to fight hundreds of Tex-drones before reaching the Director himself.
Traits[]
- The teleporter often has a delayed reaction, the thing or person being sent through is often delayed from coming out the other end.
- Possibly due to the heating, people who go through he teleporter often undergo extreme pain. This is clear from Caboose's comment: "Owwwweeeee! ...You lied to me." Tucker has been known to scream in pain coming out of a teleporter.
- Whatever goes through the teleporter may become covered in "black stuff", which may be soot related to the heating. Both Tucker and Caboose note that it "does not come off easy." The reason for the "black stuff" as a result of using the teleporters has never been addressed.
- It should be noted that not all of these traits apply every time the teleporter is used. For instance, Tucker was the only one affected when he, Donut, and Tex went through the teleporter to Sidewinder and when he, Sarge, Grif, and Simmons were fighting Epsilon-Tex.
Trivia[]
- Burnie noted in the Season 1 commentary that the teleporter was one of the things that they gave the most personality, due to its various oddities and traits.
- Simmons' control over teleporters is never explained on screen, although it is mentioned in the Season 3 commentary that it was planned to be explained as having something to do with him being a cyborg.