Talk:The Outsider/@comment-16533050-20180409102238/@comment-732225-20181231074354

What she said before that is important too:

"[The rifts] started shortly before the dissolution [...] Billie had her suspicions that the two events may well have been connected. Because what arcane rituals had the High Overseers and the High Oracle enacted within the walls of that sacred building, in their attempt to repair the damage that Billie herself had done?"

The two events here means the Rifts appearing and the dissolution. When the Outsider fell, the rifts didn't appear immediately after that, but 6 months later. Meaning the Abbey was doing something to delay it, only until something bad happened and they've gone mad, did Emily order the dissolution.