Editing Contessa (section)

===[[Shard]]===
Originally derived from [[Abaddon]] after he gave it to [[Eden]],<ref>She stood utterly alone and completely still. For all intents and purposes, she was the only one of her kind.<br><br>Before any of this, all of this, she had been the forward-looking eye of something greater and grander, a lonely being in and of itself. That great and grand thing had crossed paths with a pair of others.<br><br>''Take my eye'', it had said. ''Take my wings. Take my teeth. Take my ability to step between worlds''.<br><br>The pair, in turn, had made their own offerings, as much as they were in a hurry. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2019/12/21/interlude-18-z-radiation/ Excerpt] from [[Radiation 18.z]]</ref><ref>"Is there any insight about ''this''?" I asked, and I lifted a foot, stomping on the black crystal. The echo was loud and eerie, reverberating off the walls. "Why is this crystal black and not red?"<br>[...]<br>A creature that moved like Cradle's agent had, slithering in and out of space, parts of it distorting and seeming to exist apart from the broader entity, until it slithered further in our world. Like a great snake crossed with a whale, crossed with an optical illusion, writ in black crystal, and shedding a constant trail of dust behind it. It was only visible as it passed by a sun, and the edges of it caught the light of that sun.<br>[...]<br>"Show us the point in time this thing..." I stomped on the black crystal, "...encountered the thing that destroyed much of the world back in June of two thousand and thirteen."<br><br>We watched as two creatures, similar to the slithering black thing, things that ''had'' been depicted in the portraits and paintings that people had tried to draw from memory, slithered through space. They were larger than some moons and planets.<br><br>The 'view' followed the black thing, and the background of stars pulsed with images, abstract and vast. - [[Infrared 19.8]]</ref><ref>The pair continued to flow in and out of reality, swimming through space like a fish slipping in and out of air at the water's surface. They met with the black thing, which mashed itself into one of the two.<br><br>For lack of a better way of putting it, I would have said they limped away from the interaction, black bleeding into red and vice-versa.<br>[...]<br>The 'view' stayed with the red one that had absorbed some of the black.<br><br>Followed it to Earth, and it was obvious from the motion of planets that the scene was being sped up.<br><br>We watched as it tumbled into a rough crash landing on a barren version of our Earth. Everything went black.<br><br>"She's not a part of the rest of us?" I asked.<br><br>"There were a few like that, that stood out," Number Five said. "None were viable." - [[Infrared 19.8]]</ref> Contessa's power is the result of collecting [[List of Shards#The Eye|the Eye]] after Eden crash landed onto [[Earths#Eden's World|an Earth]].<ref name="II18.z eCrash"/> The [[Entities]] use the Eye as a defense mechanism<ref name="reddit eDefenseMechanism">Her shard is, on its own, a defense mechanism for world-destroying god-viruses. Scion, who has the same PtV, reacts to being shot at from behind while he's focused on another course of action.<br><br>Contessa is, by default, 'on'. This is why I said elsewhere that her being limited by human speed of thought is overstated. She is, by default, carrying out a course of action that sees her surviving until the end of the world, with criteria A through Z met, and her shard is gathering and utilizing information to see this through, at a rate that's best placed as 'unless you're unbeatable, it's probably faster' (see elsewhere in the thread). - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref><!--https://www.reddit.com/r/whowouldwin/comments/5jmo6d/comment/dbntw21 , https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/29824546--> to protect themselves from outside threats and problems.<ref name="reddit eOutsideContext">The answer is in-story in a roundabout way. Her power is direct from Eden (Entity #2) and is what the entities use to protect themselves from outside threats and obstacles. Unlike the vast majority of other powers, when it was collected (not given/handed out) it wasn't done so willingly, and thus wasn't given all of the weaknesses that keep powers from being used to interfere with the entities, shards, and life cycle. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref><!--https://www.reddit.com/r/whowouldwin/comments/5jmo6d/featured_character_contessa/dbnru59 , https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/29824546--> Because Eden did not willingly hand out this [[shard]], it was not originally given the weaknesses that prevent it from interfering with the Entities and the [[Cycle]].<ref name="reddit eOutsideContext"/> Thus, the Eye was helpless to stop Contessa from using it against Eden.<ref name="II18.z eCrash"/>

Like Contessa, [[List of Shards#The Eye|the Eye]] also has issues with needing direction.<ref name="II18.z eQuick"/> The [[shard]] only started a plan to form a complete [[shard network]] and then end [[the Cycle]] early (i.e., scatter resulting offspring to other planets)<ref>"Let's assume they have clear goals. The Simurgh wants... ''that''. Whatever that was. Humanity under her sway, her with Titans, Endbringers, and an army of capes brought back from the dead to protect her. Titan Fortuna wants to bring about the end of our world so their species can try their hand at replicating. Both have similar endpoints. But those are just that. Endpoints. What happens after the end?"<br><br>"The world is enslaved, or the world blows up," Byron said.<br><br>"Immediately?"<br><br>"The slavery, it seems like. The world blowing up... don't know." - [[Infrared 19.10]]</ref><ref>This whole plan, the idea was to give them exactly what they wanted. The Simurgh wanted a fight, wanted conflict, everyone on the planet pushing themselves to the limit, testing a system she'd set in motion.<br><br>Well, she'd got that. Contained to this one facility. With ''her'' as our primary enemy, more than each other.<br><br>Now Fortuna wanted to end the world. We needed to help her do that. If we balked, if we stopped... we lost. Hesitation when parrying an incoming strike was death. My early sparring with Manpower had taught me that much. It was especially true when your opponent was a hundred times stronger than you, if not stronger. - [[Last 20.8]]</ref><ref name="II18.z ePlanning"/><ref>"It's Gimel's apocalypse," Antares said. "Everything the agents were set up to do after Scion won or rounded up this cycle, they're doing it now. Cast aside the humans, accumulate raw power, then use that power to blow it all up and cast fragments of themselves in every direction."<br>[...]<br>Antares cut in, "Nobody interrupted anything. We disrupted it. They're staggering forward instead of doing this in a clean way. Processes conflict, they can't organize, so they'll just steal energy and materials from ''us'', wiping us out, then destroy what's left when they try and probably fail to make a coordinated exit. We threw a wrench in the works, but the machine is still trudging forward, smoking and doing a lot of damage in the meantime." - [https://www.parahumans.net/2019/11/12/interlude-17-z-sundown/ Excerpt] from [[Interlude 17.z II]]</ref> after Contessa became a [[Titan]].<ref name="II18.z strength"/>

According to [[Scion]], Contessa's [[shard]] is not [[Shard#Dead & Damaged Shards|dead]].<ref name="26.x eNotDead">It looked at the female, and it saw a shard that wasn't its own, but wasn't dead.<br><br> Puzzling. - [[Interlude 26]]</ref> Indeed, [[List of Shards#The Eye|the Eye]] is alive and still somewhat connected to [[Abaddon]] even after [[Gold Morning]],<ref>Every other gift lay dead and disconnected, fruit on the branches of a dead tree, with little in the way of parting words or guidance. Every other connection to the Loner was gone. The Pair too distant to reach.<br><br>Even now, as she grows large enough to look from horizon to horizon, and reaches out to clasp hands with others, make promises and alliances, she is alone, the only one of her kind still truly alive and open-eyed.<br><br>The mightiest of all, perhaps. Faced with a seed of a dead fruit from a withered branch on a tree that no longer existed. A silver woman, tiny by comparison, wreathed in wings. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2019/12/21/interlude-18-z-radiation/ Excerpt] from [[Radiation 18.z]]</ref> presumably because [[Eden]] was in the process of integrating the shard before she crash-landed and lost it.<ref name="29.x"/>