Trigger Event

A trigger event, also known as a zero-point or simply a trigger,<ref>We think that was his point-zero."

"His trigger event," Lady answered.

He nodded confirmation.

[...]

He sighed.  "I thought I might trigger, perhaps.  Hoped.  I suppose I don't have the potential." - Interlude 16 (Donation Bonus) </ref> is the moment a parahuman gains their superhuman abilities.

Triggers in Society

The trigger event is usually a very traumatic experience. The way in which people gain powers might hint at why the villains outnumber the heroes two to one, why more women than men have powers, and why third world countries have the highest densities of people with powers (if not 'capes', exactly).<ref name="4.3" /><ref>"Trigger events are a crucial element for study, because the timing, nature and spread of these emerging powers may provide a clue as to where these parahuman abilities come from.  More women than men have powers, for example, and there are more powers in undeveloped countries than there are in industrialized ones – Some of you may remember me mentioning this fact in the 101 class, when I was talking about the witch burnings in The People's Republic of Uganda." - Sentinel 9.3</ref>

Although experts understood many of the nuances of trigger events, they aren't known to the general public.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2">Interlude 18 (Donation Bonus 2) </ref> It was commonly believed that powers were genetic, even hough this had been thoroughly disproven.<ref>The genetics theory is popular, but has been thoroughly debunked.  We’re going to talk about how it was debunked… - Excerpt from Sentinel 9.3</ref> Governments would downplay the details of trigger events to prevent people from self-harming in attempt to gain powers. It was widely believed that the strongest powers resulted from athletes, great minds, etc, who broke past some fundamental limit.<ref>Wildbow on IRC</ref> There was a popular myth that younger triggers were more powerful.<ref>My first thought was trigger event.  The second was, maybe that idea about people being stronger if they get their powers at a younger age is true after all. - Snare 13.5</ref>

Types

Natural Trigger

A natural trigger event is accomplished through a traumatic experience. Researchers theorize that for every person with powers, there’s one to five people with the potential for powers, who haven’t met the conditions necessary for a trigger event. An individual needs to be pushed to the edge, their fight or flight responses pushed to their limits, before the powers start to emerge.<ref name=":0">"It's called the trigger event," Lisa answered me, "Researchers theorize that for every person with powers out there, there's one to five people with the potential for powers, who haven't met the conditions necessary for a trigger event.  You need to be pushed to the edge.  Fight or flight responses pushed to their limits, further than the limits, even.  Then your powers start to emerge."

"Basically," Alec said, "For your powers to manifest, you're going to have to have something really shitty happen to you."

"Which may help to explain why the villains outnumber the heroes two to one," Lisa pointed out, "Or why third world countries have the highest densities of people with powers.  Not capes, but a lot of people with powers."

"But people who have parents with powers?"

"They don't need nearly as intense an event to make their powers show up.  Glory Girl got her powers by getting fouled while playing basketball in gym class.  She mentioned it in a few interviews she gave." - Shell 4.3 </ref> Parahumans with a normal brain and neurological makeup develop a Corona Pollentia within their hind brain.^{[citation needed]}

The circumstances leading up to the trigger event influence the power granted. Psychological stress often leads to mentally driven powers - tinkers, thinkers, masters, shakers.  The more physical violence that is involved, the higher the bias towards physically driven powers.<ref name=":1">"Throughout the course, we're going to be looking at correlations and patterns, both in relation to trigger events and other things.  For example, how does the nature of the trigger event shape the power?  A study by Garth and Rogers suggests that psychological stress leads to a higher prevalence of mentally driven powers.  Tinkers, thinkers, masters, shakers.  The more physical violence that is involved, the higher the bias towards physically driven powers.  Garth and Rogers suggest a sliding scale, but it may not be that cut and dry.

"A followup study by Garth touches on what we know about cape ‘families'.  If one individual in a family has powers, it is far more likely that others will as well.  Almost always, this trend is either descending or lateral, it seems to transition from parent to child, or one sibling to another, but not from child to parent.  We'll talk about the theories on why.  For those of you wanting to read ahead, take a look at Garth's notes on the Dallon and Pelham families in chapter nine.  We can surmise that the different scenarios leading to trigger events may be directly related to the differences in powers, even among closely related members of a cape family.  Similar trigger events and related individuals, similar powers.  The more distant the relation and the more varied the trigger events, the more drastically different the powers they possess in the end." - Sentinel 9.3 </ref><ref name=":2" />

Second Generation

If one individual in a family has powers, it is far more likely that others will as well. Powers can be "inherited" from siblings or adopted parents, but it's very rare for them to pass "upward" from child to parent.<ref name=":1" /> People who have parents with powers don’t need nearly as intense an event to make their powers manifest.<ref name=":0" />

No third or later generation capes are shown triggering in the story, although they do exist; Theo is a third-generation parahuman, as is an unnamed child in Toronto,<ref name=":2" /><ref name="18.y">Queen 18.y</ref> along with Fleece III.<ref>charecter sheet</ref>

Second-generation capes gain powers influenced by both the powers of those related to them and their trigger event.<ref name=":1" /> Similar to grab-bag capes, the children of parahumans tend to manifest multiple lesser powers related to those around them.<ref name="WD1" />

Multiple Trigger

Main Article: Grab-Bag Cape

If multiple hosts undergo a Trigger Event at the same time, then a multiple trigger will occur. In such an event, several people will get powers at once. Most often, this will result in multiple parahumans who have an array of minor powers that share a concurrent theme. The powers most often compliment one another, or at least work in similar ways. These are known by the colloquialism of "grab bag capes".<ref name="R1">Comment on Reddit</ref>

Multiple triggers are meant for the end-game of the Cycle, serving to stress-test powers as well as compare and contrast the smaller powers.<ref name="WD1">Relatively rare - one in twenty or less are multiple-triggers. To be used when the case calls for a multiple trigger, or it’s suitably large-scale and otherwise boring, you could justify a trigger event as a multi-trigger.
In such cases, multiple people trigger at the same time. This tends to produce a spread of lesser powers - often three or four powers, possibly with one major one, and often deviations. The powers are related between individuals, but the idea/power that gets emphasized or takes the lead in one individual will often be a minor power for others. Minor powers might not be emphasized at all. Powers tend to form a complementary theme.
[...]
Multiple-triggers are prone to animosity regarding the other triggerees in their ‘unit’, for lack of a better word.
Though distinct and not simultaneous, siblings born to the same cape parents show the same trends, with biases in what powers manifest and more small powers.
Worm Spoilers:
Multiple triggers are actually the endgame of the cycle, prior to the reabsorption and collapse. When virtually all individuals in the setting are parahumans, connected to shards, the introduction of multiple-triggers serves to stress-test powers and compare and contrast the smaller powers. - Dice Rulebook</ref>

Second Trigger

It's possible for a parahuman to experience a second trigger event, offering a radical change or improvement in their powers.<ref>"Months ago, we were talking about this subject, the Manton effect.  You mentioned how it might be possible for someone like us to have a second trigger event.  A radical change or improvement in their powers as a result of a life or death moment.  Such might explain how one broke the Manton rule." - Interlude 5</ref> To experience a second trigger, a parahuman has to experience a situation highly similar to their original trigger.

Second triggers are exceedingly rare, and generally do more harm than good due to the level of trauma involved.<ref>I did some reading, and there's a pretty scary number of people who have their second trigger events and then have a bad ending shortly after.  I think it has to do with the toll it takes on you, the event. -

Interlude 15 (Donation Bonus 2) </ref>

The Shard draws from context and explores and/or conceptualizes new uses for its powers. The Shard begins splitting off to find a new, but similar host - piggybacking off the original Shard's context and experience - but then a major event prompts to catalyze and consolidate in the current host instead.

Cauldron capes cannot experience a second trigger, because the Shards harvested from Eden's corpse are 'dead'. Completely cut off and unable to interact with other shards, baring exceptional circumstances. Similarly it is unknown if the such shards are able to bud.^{[citation needed]}

Double Trigger

Due to second triggers requiring a situation that mirrors the first trigger event, the most common type of second trigger is the "double trigger". Due to the triggers occurring back-to-back, the need to experience a new event that mirrors the original one is removed, and they're largely indistinguishable from a single trigger.<ref name=":2" />

Cauldron Trigger

Cauldron capes gain their powers after drinking a Cauldron vial. They are much more likely to gain physical mutations than natural triggers.^{[citation needed]} Their powers are primarily based on what vial they took, although their personality also influences it.<ref name=":3">Interlude 15 (Donation Bonus 3) </ref> Cauldron capes are much less likely to be villains, and are generally more mentally stable.<ref>Cauldron produced more heroes than villains, because there was none of the trauma of a trigger event to throw them off. - Interlude 14.5 (Bonus Interlude)</ref><ref name=":3" />

Trigger Vision

Anyone experiencing a trigger event sees a vision of a vast multidimensional entity, but most quickly forget it.<ref name="I7" /> Any parahuman nearby experiences a similar vision and is briefly incapacitated.<ref>Infestation 11.6 </ref>

Known Triggers

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• Skitter was shut in a locker with piles of used tampons and pads. This alone might not have been enough, but time passed and she realized that of everyone who had seen the event happen, nobody was helping her. She had a panic attack, and her powers emerged.<ref name="4.3">Shell 4.3</ref> She likely had a double-trigger, based on the tests performed by Number Man.
• Grue came face to face with the man who had been abusing his sister, and had previously abused him.<ref name="4.3" />
• Tattletale triggered after her brother committed suicide.
• Miss Militia was in Eastern Turkey/Kurdistan, which was in the middle of an ongoing conflict, when Turkish soldiers gathered up the kids of a small village and used them as living subjects to clear the path of traps laid by the guerilla fighters. She grew convinced she was about to die, either by walking into a trap or being shot, and her powers activated.<ref name="I7">Interlude 7</ref>
• Bitch's pet dog was being killed by her foster mother when she triggered.
• Scrub gains his powers during a free-for-all brawl that Skidmark instigates among his own followers, after being beaten and/or in a moment of panic.<ref name="11.6">Infestation 11.6</ref>
• Jack Slash was kept in a basement by his parents and told the world had ended.
• Bonesaw's family were tortured by the Slaughterhouse Nine.
• Clockblocker triggered while donating bone marrow
• Browbeat jumped into a freezing cold lake
• Dragon<ref>Interlude 16 (Donation Bonus 2)

</ref>

• Crusader was neglected, tried to kill his sister and was caught.<ref name=":2" />
• Purity was in a car crash and starved trapped by the side of the road.<ref name=":2" />

Second Generation Capes

• Glory Girl gained her powers after being fouled in gym class.<ref name="4.3"/>
• Panacea triggered when Glory Girl was injured in a fight.<ref>Wildbow on Spacebattles</ref>

Second Triggers

• Grue triggered again watching Bonesaw dissect his teammates.
• King of Cups second triggered after his wife was killed during Golden Morning.
• Narwhal second triggered and gained the ability to bypass the Manton Effect
• Glaistig Uaine

Cauldron Capes

• Battery purchased powers to defeat her nemesis Madcap.
• The Travelers drank vials they found to help them in a crisis situation.
• Alexandria was approached by Cauldron while dying of cancer
• Eidolon was approached by Cauldron after he attempted suicide
• Newter was rescued by Alexandria
• Garotte was kidnapped by monsters from her seaside village
• Shamrock was kidnapped from her temple-school
• Triumph's father bought powers for him to help him cheat at sports.<ref>Interlude 15

</ref>

• William Manton drank a vial and fled Cauldron after his daughter was mutated.

Underlying Mechanics

After an Entity has finished preparing a Shard, it will let the Shard loose, plot for the Shard's arrival, as well as plotting the location it will arrive in and its future host. The Shard will lock on to the host, get a grasp on the host's personality and summarily allow that portion of itself to die and burn out to form the Corona Pollentia. It will then sit dormant for a time, unless the time of the Shard's arrival coincided with the host's trigger event.

When a trigger event happens, the Shard recognizes the event from the state of the host, from context and from the flood of stress responses. It then reads the host to find out who they are and how they respond to situations before reading the situation for itself and accessing what form the danger takes.

The Shard then discards everything it doesn't need, distilling itself down to one efficient, case-specific task, suited to the host. Where the Shard isn't already programmed with inherent safeties and limitations it will use the host's stored knowledge to generate a grasp of what it needs to do.

If there are additional hosts present during the host's Trigger Event, and they are actively using their powers, then the Shard can "ping" off the others and exchange information. This generally allows the host to gain some kind of additional ability that they would not have had otherwise.

Though it may seem like trigger events generally involve the cape automatically manifesting their new power, this is not always the case.

Trivia

• Pregnancy does not usually lead to a trigger event as it is a normal part of the Human life cycle, events surrounding the pregnancy however, can lead to a trigger event.<ref name="R2">Comment by Wildbow on Reddit</ref>
• Dismissing clients of Cauldron, new triggers are generally teenagers, although elderly capes exist.<ref name="I21c1">Comment by Wildbow on Interlude 21</ref>

References

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