We prove some $\ell $-independence results on local constancy of étale cohomology of rigid analytic varieties. As a result, we show that a closed subscheme of a proper scheme over an algebraically closed complete non-archimedean field has a small open neighbourhood in the analytic topology such that, for every prime number $\ell $ different from the residue characteristic, the closed subscheme and the open neighbourhood have the same étale cohomology with ${\mathbb Z}/\ell {\mathbb Z}$-coefficients. The existence of such an open neighbourhood for each $\ell $ was proved by Huber. A key ingredient in the proof is a uniform refinement of a theorem of Orgogozo on the compatibility of the nearby cycles over general bases with base change.

In this paper we prove the Rigidity Theorem for motives of rigid analytic varieties over a non-Archimedean valued field $K$. We prove this theorem both for motives with transfers and without transfers in a relative setting. Applications include the construction of étale realization functors, an upgrade of the known comparison between motives with and without transfers and an upgrade of the rigid analytic motivic tilting equivalence, extending them to $\mathbb{Z}[1/p]$-coefficients.

We show that, for certain types of rigid analytic varieties X and constructible l-adic sheaves (F$_n$)$_n$ on, one has H$^p_c$ (X,(F$_n$)$_n$) ${\stackrel{\sim}{\longrightarrow}} {\displaystyle\lim_{\stackrel{\scriptstyle{\longleftarrow}} {\scriptstyle{n}}}}$ H$^p_c$ (X,F$_n$). As an application we obtain that, for an algebraic variety X and associated rigid analytic variety X$^rig$, the l-adic cohomology of X and X$^rig$ agree.