Editing Shard (section)

==Abilities==
Ever since they [[Entity#Origins|first evolved]] on their home world, Entities have been composed of clusters of Shards, each with different functions.

Different Shards tend to have different abilities, even if the powers they grant humans appear similar.<ref>Q: Are shards generally more likely to use more similar or more different mechanisms? For example, are two electricity controlling capes usually using the same method to control electricity, or different methods? Is someone like Panacea using a kind of precise telekinesis that could be used more generally and is used more generally in other shards, or is her shard using mechanisms that specifically work on biological materials?<br>A: Depends on the shards. Generally different. - [https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/13897766 Wildbow on SpaceBattles]</ref> Generally, they are not supposed to give a specific power; different hosts and trigger events produce different powers.<ref>[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/13897766 Wildbow on Spacebattles]</ref> Since it furthers the main purpose of [[The Cycle|Cycles]], which is recombination and search for possible applications of specific shards.<ref>[[Interlude 18]]</ref>In actuality, Shards have a vast range of applications and functions that their host will not have access to, all based on the primary ability the shard was made to enact.

There are general-purpose shards that will react to any potential [[Trigger event]] situation.<ref name="R88">''If a shard can give any power classification, depending on the trigger,''<br>Wildbow:For the record, some shards can, but not all. Some shards are almost always going to just trigger Master, for example, and you just won't trigger unless you're in a state of mind that lends itself into a frequency match for the scan-manton snap (as Bonesaw [[Interlude 11h|describes in 11.h]]). - [https://redd.it/6h99v0 Alternative powers.] [[Wildbow]], Reddit.com, 2017-06-??</ref>Some shards will only make a connection under specific types of trigger events, that synchronize with their specialization. For instance, "Administrator" shard will always grant its host some form of [[Master]] power, as it did by budding from [[Taylor Hebert]] to [[Aidan]] and producing almost equivalent Master power.<ref name="Ratman">In devising the actual trigger, we actually figure this out in a way like we would a Cauldron vial. We know what the shard does, and the key thing to figure out is how that shard expresses its power and how it manifests.<br>The QA shard specializes in coordinating control over large numbers of smaller lifeforms. We see it in Skitter (bugs), we see it in Aiden (birds) and we see it in Chitter (rats). - [https://redd.it/4ak6m0 What if Danny Triggered]</ref> They will also skip a potential host if there is a similar, but more prospective individual in their vicinity.<ref name="Ratman 2">In all three cases, he's liable to self destruct. The shard recognizes this, accepts it (in a way, the shard was sent to him by the entity for this reason), but then hops to a more viable host with a longer lifespan and more complex emotion. - [https://redd.it/4ak6m0 What if Danny Triggered]</ref><!-- cite taylor and aiesha Zion visions and such here also
<ref name="Ratman 2">[https://forums.spacebattles.com/posts/15024872 Comment by WildBow on Spacebattles]</ref>
You guys are too Skitter-centric. No. 'Skitter', if Taylor's even born, probably doesn't exist in the same sense. There's no graduation from small threat to big threat to fighting city destroying/world-ending entities here - you're jumping straight into the deep end, wherever you are, and there's no chance to learn. Given her personality and nature, and the chance she wouldn't have the initial support of the Undersiders, there's a very good chance she'd just die. More likely you have Danny having an excuse to trigger before his shard jumps ship to the more emotional teenage girl, and you have a rat man with a rage problem doing his best to get by, at the periphery of Marquis' camp.
-->
The common mechanisms within shards leads to certain commonalities in expressed powers,{{Ref|Our ability to fly comes from the waste common to most of our kind, because we had to fly to get to our destinations.  We had to fly to reach barren versions of this Earth, where we form our structures and our routines so we can conserve and distribute energy, process, and provide the mechanisms for ''power''.  For capabilities.|#Heavens 12.all}} thus the term Alexandria Package is used due to the prevalence of flying [[Brute]]s as well as flying in general.

===Power Source===
One Shard is capable of settling in a grouping of near-identical worlds, drawing energy from all of those worlds at once. Most of the alternate versions of Earth have been sealed off, partitioned to provide energy to the Shards operating in the inhabited worlds the entities have chosen to focus on.<ref name="I26">[[Interlude 26]]</ref> While this provides immeasurable power it is still essentially finite, especially for dead shards.{{cite}}<!--recent chapter talks about the warrior hub not being around turning every shard into a dead shard-->

Powers that seem to be 'fueled' by absorbing things like emotions, people, or similar will not generally be powered by the subject in question but instead will be due to the shard being allowed to expend power due to the conflict it creates.<ref>Some were time limits, like only being able to stay [[breaker]] for a set amount of time.  Some were internal batteries, a power supply that filled up over time before they had to turn human and absorb more.<br>[...]<br>Some had a need for something environmental, like a water breaker who needed a body of water to manipulate and absorb.<br>[...]<br>There were others.  The ones who needed people, the parasite-breakers and those who drank up emotion to fuel themselves.  Not that emotion was something so physical, but the thing that supplied the power liked and valued the emotions they churned up and the reactions those emotions got.  It would be the kind of thing they wanted to set up. - [https://www.parahumans.net/2019/02/02 Excerpt] from [[Blinding 11.11]]</ref>