Btw, can I get some more context around this first?
Essentially Red Matter, Redshift, and the Astral Plane are all correlated
In the players first encounter with red matter, Max (the teams captain), describes red matter to the player as "Solid Corruption." In gameplay you find it basically everywhere, but its presence is basically caused by corruption (redshift) , either brought by gates to the astral plane, chimeras, or both. Red matter appears as small, floating red crystals surrounded by red and black
The term redshift seems to carry two different contexts. The first, on people. Being the most used in the game, when redshift is used to refer to a person, it means corrupting them,
weakening their bodies and eventually
redshifting the person into an "aberration" which the database refers to every aberration as
"A human being whose corruption levels rose beyond the redshift threshold, transforming them into a mindless monster. Unfortunately, there is no way to change them back.
"Its arm has mutated into a [Insert Weapon. There are multiple things the arm can mutate to such as a claw, bow, sword, shield etc. Some also grow wings]"
Referring to the redshift of physical objects, redshift essentially means things turning into red matter given that its left behind by the presence of gates and chimeras.
Jena when encountered in the Astral Plane, kinda goes on a somewhat confusing dialogue, but I'll just lay out the whole thing here, the first part is kind of irrelevant though:
Hal: There's those shapes again... whatever they are
Jena: They were all human, once. Then they were brought [to the astral plane]. To be archived. Someday they'll return to earth to hunt and bring back others to make like them. As chimeras.
Hal: So this whole place is made of people?
Jena: How anthropocentric of you. Not only humans, but everything on earth comes here. The earth isn't being corrupted or whatever you might call it (It is, this is just semantics right here.) It's being brought here. Bit-by-bit. Or should I say brought BACK here. Think of this as a storage unit, kept by unknowable masters. Our extinction is merely their reorganization. When you think of it that way, it doesn't seem so bad doesn't it.
Basically the Astral Plane is made up of red matter which is essentially just regular, matter turned into crystalized data.
In file 6 where corruption levels grow insanely high in zone 09, massive crystal formations begin to rapidly appear around the area, and a portion sky turns into an identical background to the astral plane. Though this is the only time in game where corruption levels in an area get this visually extreme.
The Astral Plane's location file in the database also calls the material that forms its platforms/landscape "crystalized data"
The Astral Plane is a harsh place permeated by chimeric corruption and made up entirely of cubes of crystalized data. It is believed to be completely uninhabitable except to chimeras.
