"Then how do you know all this? In fact, how did Washington and Franklin gain this knowledge? We must have someone on our side who's been beyond such a portal."
"I know what I know because I have been taught by those who came before me. It's been almost several hundred years since the first Roanoke colony after all. I have been present when others demonstrated the calling up of doorways, and I have seen what happens when they fail. But no, none of us has been through and truly come back. Instead of magic think of this as a different form of science, one whose practical use involves making the universe around you do your bidding by force of will. It has rules we don't understand yet. To open a door you need the directions for where its going. If I simply try doing it from written instructions I could be opening one anywhere, even between worlds. The door will adapt you to whatever place you will arrive at, but once that happens there's no going home. You need the proper instructions to go back because they will contain the knowledge to adapt you again to your old home. But the ones who go outside...they're at the mercy of the enemy, and molded to it's purpose. They can cross from the outside to their old home only with absolute difficulty, and all but the most experienced manifest as insubstantial phantoms. But that doesn't make them any less dangerous. I myself avoid using what the others still insist on referring to as magic because they haven't found a better term. It corrupts. It's use is meant for beings far different than ourselves and we use a weak, imperfect version of it. A pale shadow of what it truly is. But consistent use changes you. It makes you less human. Less able to identify with us, easier to identify with the enemy. It is for that reason you shouldn't ever completely trust the others. Men before Franklin thought they knew enough to control what they were using, and they were put down by their students, who were later put down by their students. I hope to break that chain, and prevent a repeating of the usual cycle."