Shard

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Shards are fragments of incomprehensibly immense Colony organisms that serve as the source of parahuman powers.

Description

Shards resemble crystalline structures folding and unfolding like hypercubes.<ref name="WoG1">Wildbow on Spacebattles</ref>

They travel along predetermined paths after being cast off by an Entity in space, "raining down" on the Earths over the course of decades. Once they landed, shards resided in other worlds, uninhabited worlds, and they remained cloaked and concealed in areas humans were unlikely to explore. <ref name="I26">Interlude 26</ref>

When two entities collide, rubbing against each other, their shards can be damaged or destroyed by the friction and pressure.<ref name="I26">Interlude 26</ref>

Abilities

Ever since they first evolved on their homeworld, Entities have been composed of "clusters" of shards, each with different functions.

Living Shards

Entities can "tune" their shards to perform different functions, or combine different shards to create new ones with new functions.<ref name="I26">Interlude 26</ref>

Dead Shards

Many dead shards were also damaged. Vikare's shard was dead.<ref name="I26">Interlude 26</ref>

The large numbers of dead Eden shards meant there were more parahumans than the entities had intended, leading conflict to spiral out of control.<ref name="I26">Interlude 26</ref>

Damaged Shards

Many of Eden's shards were damaged and corrupt, rendering them useless to the cycle. Scion would destroy them on sight as he saw them falling.<ref name="I26">Interlude 26</ref>

Vikare's shard was damaged, but still able to grow properly as long as he was alive.<ref name="I26">Interlude 26</ref>

Vital Shards

Some shards were vital to an Entity, and not intended to be given out. If their vital processes were separated, they could die. Scion saw some of Eden's vital shards seemingly falling and being sent to hosts after she crashed.<ref name="I26">Interlude 26</ref>

Power Source

One shard is capable of settling in a grouping of near-identical worlds, drawing energy from all of those worlds at once.<ref name="I26">Interlude 26</ref>

Breadth & Depth

Shards "take root" in humans.<ref name="I26">Interlude 26</ref>

The effects that Shards have on their hosts are dependent on several factors, including but not limited to: age of the host, the host's personality, the host's trigger event, how much the host embraces the Shard's need for conflict and the nature of the Shard itself.

Generally the younger a person is the more changed they are when a shard connects to them during a trigger event.

How powers effect someone's day to day function varies.

The Fallen are generally vary good at feeling the connection with their shards<ref name="SB1">Comment by Wildbow on Spacebattles</ref>.

References

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