Editing Shard (section)

===Size===
According to [[parahumans]] after [[Gold Morning]] who had good glimpses at their shards and could still remember these glimpses, shards are mountain- or island-sized, though some might be continent-sized.<ref>I built on her statement.  No use denying it.  “There were people who had good glimpses and who remembered them, after Gold Morning.  Mountain sized, island sized.  Maybe continent-spanning.”<br><br>“And they’re like computers.  They’re limited but they aren’t stupid.”<br><br>I shook my head.  “Not stupid, but not genius either.  It’s a specific kind of intelligence and focus.  They make mistakes or miscalculate.  There are capes who do nothing wrong who get screwed over by their power-”<br><br>“Ashley.  Me.  Chris, maybe.”<br><br>“And capes who, if the agent had more sense, wouldn’t have been allowed to operate like they did.  Khepri.  Though Khepri was a special case.”<br>[...]<br>They did follow after, though they didn’t take root.  I gathered my thoughts again.  “They are intimidating enemies, but they aren’t perfect.  If you want this, and I think you do, then maybe it’s worth going down that road.” - [[Polarize 10.2]]</ref> [[Wildbow]] estimates that a typical shard is roughly the size of a big glacier, though some could be continent-sized.<ref>You know how the shards are kinda there, lurking in alternate realms? Big glacier or even continent sized bio-machines capable of managing and tapping complex manifestations of power? They provide the heat and laserstuff for a blaster cape, who just opens the door to let that stuff through. Or they manage the transformation and provide the mass and material for changer transformations, pushing it through portals. The corona pollentia lets the cape have some say over the management of these processes.<br><br>Well, in the abstracted down, simplified version, those big shards of alien lifeform are producing an extension cord that reaches to the border of their alt reality, the tinker extends their end of the extension cord to the border of reality, and the power thus flows.<br><br>In reality it's a lot more fine tuned and it's more than an extension cord, but also monitoring and little tweaks and balances, stabilizing fusion cores that would otherwise just blow up, etc. The tech plugs into that and the cape gets the know-how to be able to reach out to the shard, though they almost never really ''get'' that that's what they're doing, and they do get the adjustments they can make on their side like it's common sense.<br><br>Of course, this varies by tinker and some build very little in the way of extension cords, doing more on their side, with the shard steering their awareness, and others have more of a fugue state and 'black out' moment between when they start building and when they end up with tech (that they might not even know how to use - like Bakuda not knowing what all her bombs do).<br><br>Most of the issues with non-tinkers being unable to build tinker stuff is explained away by the tinker as micro-errors and lack of common sense. - Comment by Wildbow on Reddit, archived on Spacebattles</ref><!-- https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/77072680 -->