Current Events: Awakening Threat, kinda... illogical

The Datapad says:

Site research on a previously unattacked location allowed recovery of non-Awakened material from the original portal systems. Analysis (see attached data) lead to the following conclusions: the observed Awakened forces were those in transit immediately prior to the facility's destruction.The collapse of portal integrity, in the abscence of a stable endpoint, caused a phenomena inversion, obliterating the Awakened and trapping their remnants in an interstitial state. See related studies attached [clearance check].

But for me these seem to be the normal asura gates which have been used in Rata Primus. And the wiki says:

Asura gates are a method of transportation developed by the asura. They provide instantaneous transport between two points of space. Users step into the gate at one end and immediately emerge from the other end.

So how could anyone get stuck when there is no in between? You are teleported instantly, as it says. So either I step through the portal and the portal gets destroyed, then I am already at the endpoint. Or the portal gets destroyed before I step through, where I am dead and can't travel anymore.

The base got destroyed and shut off while there were still awakened teleporting. It's not instant in that sense but there should be a few seconds of "travel time".

Either way, it's simply so that the event can continue even throughout later episodes, similar to how other current events also transition into permanent ones in a slightly different form.

The Rata Primus gates were experimental, so the rules of the old gates may or may not hold true for them as well, especially the instantaneous stuff.

Even then, it's never exactly clear that it is perfectly instantaneous. That wording comes from Ghosts of Ascalon's description of Dougal Keane going through an asura gate which it describes as instant from his perspective. It is possible that there is a delay (it would be nigh impossible to tell with that level of technology given that the asura gates remained the fastest means of communication and transportation so everything else would be slower - e.g., it'd be like trying to confirm the speed of light using devices that cap at the speed of sound), but more importantly, Shattered Observatory Fractal had introduced the notion that people going through a gate would not sense what happens while traveling, be that travel instantaneous or not.

Dessa: Oh, thank the Alchemy you're alive.Dessa: Something changed in the teleportation algorithm—you were lost in a sort of...void.Dessa: My assistant Yokko pinpointed the error, but it still took us days before we were able to bring you back.

Yet to us players, it was mere seconds. Granted, the whole thing is a fractal so there's room for interpretation error.

It's also possible that the immense distance of going from Elona to Central Tyria results in a time lag, while going from Divinity's Reach to Lion's Arch (the aforementioned asura gate description of GoA) is barely a millesecond; maybe going from Rata Sum to Ebonhawke takes 5 seconds, while going from Rata Primus to Gendarran Fields takes 30 seconds. It's just that last invasion that got trapped (and redirected to Southsun), not seven different ones, after all. And we destroyed the gates while Awakened were piling through still.

Furthermore, the Rata Primus gates seem to be able to send folks to places without an end gate due to utilizing the Mists, which connects to all times and places. This is why we end up on a rock in space for a brief moment in The Charge, and is also why the anomaly results in a fractal-like state. The very fact these gates seemed to run on a fundamentally different principle could mean that even if the end-portal was 10 feet away, it'd still take a minute to transport the test subjects.

A very detailed answer, much thanks for that :)

But let's say it is not instant transportation, what would happen, if I stick my arm into a portal and try to pull it out again in the next split second? If not instant, that would mean, my arm is gone.

In the book Edge of Destiny it is written:

Just now the arched gate flickered and, in that flicker, gave a vision of another marketplace in a port city.which means you actually see the endpoint. AndThe attendant crouched beside an array of powerstones, and a stone in his hand sent sparks leaping into the other crystals. The flickering scene in the arch changed to a rocky desert, a mountain lake, a golden meadow. At last, it showed a brief glimpse of what looked like three massive pyramids.which means the normal Asura gates endpoints can also change and then showing the scenery where the endpoint is passing by.

Regarding the arm, there'd be two likely probabilities.1) Time-space conundrum where your arm would exist in two places at once for a few seconds/milliseconds.2) Nothing is actually transported until what's entering has fully entered (so no having a line of rope from one end to another).I'd place my wager on #1.

As for seeing the end point: Yes, we can see the end-point in Fahranur's and the opened portals too. It's been long established that the asura gates can change their destination. The thing is, however, the end point for normal asura gates must be to another asura gate of some form or another - while with Rata Primus, no device on the end is required. Not sure you're what you're trying to get at there.

Seeing the end point does not mean there is no leap of time of your transportation. Maybe even the visuals you see is delayed, and you're either witnessing a few seconds in past, or a few seconds in the future.