when Ben threw up after "appearing" in the desert, i thought of the last one or two Dark Tower books when they go through the man made door and they all vomit from the harsh journey.

the "magic" doors didn't make them throw up, but the man made ones did.

are we dealing with Dark Tower style transport here?

The teleporting in the Dark Tower series was inter-dimensional and sustained by Magic. It also contained an interval dimension filled with monsters and evil which had to be avoided.

I'm pretty sure they were all magic doors. Just some of them were reinforced by North Positronics technology. These were falling apart/unstable and so made the heroes throw up. The doors aren't the important thing as the heroes manage travel without them.

Regardless of the difference between Magic doors and a Casimir effect the attempts to travel through time/dimensions to fix many problems are quite similar.

Nozz-A-La Cola?