Editing List of Shards (section)

==Cross/Mein Shard==
===Known hosts===
*Mr. Stodt (Idle)
*[[Eric Stodt]]

===True Use===
Tool kit shard that lets the entity switch rapidly between different sets of tools for a given problem.<ref name=SB2/>

Possibly a dead shard.<ref name="R1">Many breakers can go permanent breaker. [...] But it's still bad times for those who go that route, because they're forced to or because they prefer life in the breaker state to their ordinary life. Breakers have a closer connection to their passenger than any [other] cape, and in the course of diving deeper into their breaker state and not, for lack of a better phrasing, surfacing for air, they begin to lose themselves and the shard gets more of a say. This is, very obviously, not a good thing. We see this sort of mentality in [[Khepri]], and we can assume something like it in [[Night Hag]].<br>[...]<br>The breaker document includes some examples (the Atropos breaker, the consequences for death breakers in general) of ways the passenger might seep in or that life might suddenly get harder, when one lapses fully into a breaker state.<br><br>So just wanted to point out that this is a thing that happens - and ego death often goes hand in hand with it. By the flip side of that same coin, to finally get around to answering your question - ego death, momentary, partial, or permanent, would destroy the Self and insert more Breakerness into the void that's left behind.<br><br>Most of the time they rampage - Ash Beast and Night Hag and the like. But if the shard isn't equipped to take advantage of the opportunity (Cauldron shards, Eden shards in general), maybe the self comes back and you get a Grumman. - [https://redd.it/6evzmd Wildbow on Breakers on Reddit]</ref>

===Possible powers===
Powers known to be granted by this shard include:
*2 form breaker - an immobile "living artillery platform" and an Alexandria package "living bullet".<ref name="SB2">Keep in mind, also, that one shard gives different abilities based on the nature of the trigger and the individual.<br><br>Example: Shard 'Cross'. For the entities, it's a toolkit, a low-energy response to general hazards, allowing the entity to quickly switch swathes of shards to new tasks to deal with environmental hazards. The entity hasn't devoted much attention to it, beyond a few safeguards, so it finds a high crisis area & time with a 'glance' of its power and looses the shard, plotting for its arrival time & location.<br><br>Shard Mien reaches a host. It then travels to a new, younger, host, developmentally disabled Eric Stodt. It locks on, it gets a grasp on who the host is, and it summarily lets that part of itself die off, burning out to form the corona pollentia. Sit dormant for some time, if the arrival of shard to host didn't coincide with the trigger time. The trigger event happens, the shard recognizes the event from the state of the host and from context, the flood of stress responses, and so on. A now-twenty year old Eric is in the lake, his father shouting at him to swim, refusing to let him climb the ladder back up onto the dock. Eric is screaming incoherently, panicking, and every time his father pries his fingers off the ladder, he really thinks he's going to die. His father isn't even recognizable at this point, in the anger and midst of the danger.<br><br>The trigger reads Eric. Who is he? How does he generally respond to situations?<br>The trigger reads the situation. What form does the danger take? It's partially environmental, it's driven by a desire to escape, his life is threatened by a distinct enemy.<br><br>The shard then discards everything it doesn't need, distilling things down to one efficient task, suited to Eric. Where it wasn't already programmed with inherent safeties (Manton effect) and limitations, it uses Eric's stored knowledge to generate a kind of grasp of what it needs to do.<br><br>Eric becomes a breaker, transitioning between two forms. Because of the nature of the problem and of Eric himself, he doesn't get a form that returns him entirely to normal. He has one form where he's essentially a living artillery platform, unable to move, but capable of devastating firepower, and one form where he flies at stunning speeds, capable of turning on a dime, durable. A living bullet.<br><br>And one man in a bad situation is left standing on the beach by his family's cottage, steaming as the water is burned off his skin, having flown to freedom and obliterated his father, realizing what he's done.<br><br>If the shard hadn't left Eric's father to go to Eric, however, what might have happened? Eric's father might have triggered in another 'between a rock and a hard place' scenario, probably would have been a breaker, but might have picked up a breaker power that turned him into a living focal point capable of refocusing heat and cold over large areas (another environmental hazard the shard was tasked with facing), another form where he could manipulate gases on a similar level, and a third, clearer self identity might have left him with another form where he was more clearly human. Because the answers to the trigger question and to 'who is Mr. Stodt' is different from 'who is Eric Stodt'.[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/12851263 Comment by Wildbow on Spacebattles (scrolldown)]</ref>
*3 form Breaker - a "living focal point" with long-range temperature manipulation, another form with long-range gas manipulation, and human form.<ref name=SB2>Keep in mind, also, that one shard gives different abilities based on the nature of the trigger and the individual.<br><br>Example: Shard 'Cross'. For the entities, it's a toolkit, a low-energy response to general hazards, allowing the entity to quickly switch swathes of shards to new tasks to deal with environmental hazards. The entity hasn't devoted much attention to it, beyond a few safeguards, so it finds a high crisis area & time with a 'glance' of its power and looses the shard, plotting for its arrival time & location.<br><br>Shard Mien reaches a host. It then travels to a new, younger, host, developmentally disabled Eric Stodt. It locks on, it gets a grasp on who the host is, and it summarily lets that part of itself die off, burning out to form the corona pollentia. Sit dormant for some time, if the arrival of shard to host didn't coincide with the trigger time. The trigger event happens, the shard recognizes the event from the state of the host and from context, the flood of stress responses, and so on. A now-twenty year old Eric is in the lake, his father shouting at him to swim, refusing to let him climb the ladder back up onto the dock. Eric is screaming incoherently, panicking, and every time his father pries his fingers off the ladder, he really thinks he's going to die. His father isn't even recognizable at this point, in the anger and midst of the danger.<br><br>The trigger reads Eric. Who is he? How does he generally respond to situations?<br>The trigger reads the situation. What form does the danger take? It's partially environmental, it's driven by a desire to escape, his life is threatened by a distinct enemy.<br><br>The shard then discards everything it doesn't need, distilling things down to one efficient task, suited to Eric. Where it wasn't already programmed with inherent safeties (Manton effect) and limitations, it uses Eric's stored knowledge to generate a kind of grasp of what it needs to do.<br><br>Eric becomes a breaker, transitioning between two forms. Because of the nature of the problem and of Eric himself, he doesn't get a form that returns him entirely to normal. He has one form where he's essentially a living artillery platform, unable to move, but capable of devastating firepower, and one form where he flies at stunning speeds, capable of turning on a dime, durable. A living bullet.<br><br>And one man in a bad situation is left standing on the beach by his family's cottage, steaming as the water is burned off his skin, having flown to freedom and obliterated his father, realizing what he's done.<br><br>If the shard hadn't left Eric's father to go to Eric, however, what might have happened? Eric's father might have triggered in another 'between a rock and a hard place' scenario, probably would have been a breaker, but might have picked up a breaker power that turned him into a living focal point capable of refocusing heat and cold over large areas (another environmental hazard the shard was tasked with facing), another form where he could manipulate gases on a similar level, and a third, clearer self identity might have left him with another form where he was more clearly human. Because the answers to the trigger question and to 'who is Mr. Stodt' is different from 'who is Eric Stodt'.[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/12851263 Comment by Wildbow on Spacebattles (scrolldown)]</ref>