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List of Shards

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"There was no long-term, and trying to cling to one would only spoil it all."

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Each Entity is comprised of "trillions upon trillions upon trillions" of Shards, so trying to chronicle all of them is an exercise in madness.

Presented alphabetically, these names are based on terms used by Glaistig Uaine, Warrior Entity, Thinker Entity, and Word of Wildbow. The type of shard is based on descriptions and speculation.

The Administrator / Queen Administrator

Known Hosts

True use

Glaistig Uaine referred to Taylor as the "Queen administrator",<ref>“Queen administrator.”

“Faerie Queen,” I responded.  “Mind if I share your fire?” - excerpt from Extinction 27.4</ref> and claimed her power was a "noble" among the faerie.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":0" group="Note">That is, a shard that the Entities actually use themselves as part of the Cycle.</ref>

In Scion's Interlude it is implied, but not explicitly stated, that Taylor's power was originally used to determine and rearrange the configuration of shards within an Entity,<ref name=":3">The shard that allows the entity to see the future is broken up, then recoded with strict limitations.  It wouldn’t do to have the capabilities turned against the entity or the shards.

The fragment it just used is sent off, directed to a small female.

The other fragments in that same cluster are retained.  To see the future is resource intensive, but the entity will harbor it as a safeguard.

More abilities are used to check, investigate, and then cast off.   The ability to communicate and receive signals is unnecessary now.  To transmit signals across wavelengths.  It, too, is intentionally crippled as an ability.  It would not do to have that one being used with regularity.  Such would be distracting for the entity and its counterpart.

When it knows the configuration is absolutely decided, it reaches for the last fragment it will cast off.  This one, too, it cripples, even largely destroys, so as to limit the host from using it in the same fashion.

In a haste to decide matters before it enters the stratosphere of that barren planet, the entity casts it off to a similar location as the future-sight ability.  A similar time, thirty-one revolutions from now.  The destination is a male, thin, in the company of strong males and females, drinking.
[...]

It could see the connection to the female’s shard, the activity as it broadcast signals, reaching out to contact lifeforms throughout the area, coordinating them.
[...]

The entity recognized her shard. The last one that had split off before the entity took on this form.

Queen. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref> and it is referred to as "Queen", "the administration shard" and "the administrator shard".<ref>“…You could go to Houston or New York, even. That’s far enough away from Jack,” the young female with the administration shard was still speaking, quiet, intense, urging without prodding.
[...]
The female with the administrator shard had long since fled, covering the retreat with her small army of lesser lifeforms, more traps snapping into place in her wake. - excerpt from Interlude 26</ref>

Possible powers

It specializes in coordinating control over large numbers of smaller lifeforms<ref name="R1">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.

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).
[...]
On the flip side, the common elements for Danny in the three triggers noted above are, well, Danny. He's got a lot of repressed anger and anger against the infrastructure, and in every case, his general awareness/the awareness of the shard has picked up on the same setting details. It's going to tie into similar categories and types of creature, fitting to Brockton Bay. Given Danny's personality, natural reticence, and the 'cornered rat' anger, this tends to veer in the direction of rodents. So I'm going with rodents for the options below... - What if Danny Triggered, Reddit.com 15 Mar 2016</ref> and generally would choose hosts and triggers that lend themselves to this specialty.<ref name=":0">Wildbow: Generally QA is going to operate around the fulcrum point of being a 'controls many minions' master trigger and is going to seek out hosts that hit that note. In the most forced context, you'd probably get a 'mass/tower of rats' brute body. - Comment on Discord</ref> Powers known to be granted or potentially granted by this shard include:

  • Taylor Hebert
    • Crude bug control, reminiscent of a bug version of Aiden.<ref>/u/Edello: [SPOILERS FOR WORM] What if Taylor...
      ...hadn’t double-triggered?

      /u/Wildbow: She'd be Aiden, but with bugs. - https://www.reddit.com/r/Parahumans/comments/7ysdpr/spoilers_for_worm_what_if_taylor/duitdjh Comment] by Wildbow on Reddit.</ref>
    • (1.5 trigger) Extremely fine control of all bugs within a rough three block radius, processing of senses and location, enhanced multitasking.
    • (Altered Corona pollentia) Rat control.
    • (Altered Corona pollentia) Crude control of bugs within a roughly one-block radius,<ref>I felt the range of my power halve, as though a guillotine blade had dropped down, cutting it off.

      My control began to slip.  It wasn’t so severe as the effect on my range, but I could feel it degrading.  I was aware of my bugs in a general sense, and they were moving in reaction to my subconscious thoughts, but the end result wasn’t precise.  I moved them, but getting them to stop had a fraction of a second’s delay.
      [...]
      My range was dwindling with every passing second, and so was my control.
      [...]
      I could feel Panacea working to give me that control, changing what she was focusing on.  I felt the swarm moving more in sync with what I was thinking and wanting.  But this… I could sense what was happening, feel my range plummeting yet again, the guillotine coming down.  My range had been cut down further.
      [...]
      Stop, Panacea, I thought.  Stop, stop, stop, stop…

      My swarm attacked her, and it wasn’t because of any conscious command on my part.  The attack was crude, more the swarming behavior of wasps drunk on attack pheromones than the calculated attack I was used to employing.
      [...]
      I looked at Amy, realizing the bugs were still approaching her.  I pulled the swarm away, and I felt how hard it was to move them.

      I was left with the ruins of my power.  My range was maybe a third of what it might otherwise be, the control rough-edged at best.  There were bugs in my swarm that I couldn’t control, too small. - Excerpt from Speck 30.1</ref> crude body-control of all humans within 16 feet, extremely crude sense of the emotions of controlled humans through flashes of memory. Reduced range of Bug control.
  • Danny Hebert
    • Master with one versatile master minion modeled after his mate, it floats and can unravel into its constituent rat swarm.<ref name="R1.2">Losing Annette is a master trigger, one with a singular, focused sense of loss/isolation. Annette completed Danny, and losing her left him incomplete. In expressing the shard, his shard looks to occupy that void. Rats scurry to Danny and they gather into a form. Bodies interlock, hold to one another and work in coordination as they form something vaguely humanoid. In the right light, as a silhouette, it evokes memories of Annette. Perhaps Danny becomes slightly unhinged. He misses her so much, and somehow this thing, which has a way of standing out of the light, or in his peripheral vision (and he doesn't pry) evokes memories of Annette in how it moves or how it responds to his words, as he talks to it incessantly. He withdraws from Taylor and his coworkers, and after he gets screwed over by local government, starts lashing out. He has rough control over rodents in groups, getting them to converge in one area to attack or to build his Annette. Annette moves silently, gliding over floors or up walls and then throwing herself at foes, dissolving into a biting, gnashing swarm when attacking or when being attacked. As he progresses as a cape, the figure becomes more flexible in the forms it can take or what it can do, and his control slowly and steadily approaches Taylor's. - What if Danny Triggered, Reddit.com 15 Mar 2016 </ref>
    • Subtle Master/Stranger with a multi-mile range that makes people and animals hate the target.<ref name="R1.4">Being stepped on by the local government, realizing he'd failed his workers, surrounded by a broader infrastructure and a city that seems hostile to him, he triggers as a generalized stranger/master. The eyes of others are on him, almost accusatory, or he thinks they are. He's angry, and that colors things. Stranger/masters tend to generate as emotion manipulators/controllers. Danny uses the smaller critters - insects, arachnids, rats, birds, fish, whatever - all together, not controlling them explicitly, but using them as vectors. It's an effect like Shatterbird's song, propagating through the critters, and covers an area miles across. Like Taylor, Danny doesn't even need to leave his house. For an area 3-4 miles across, people get irritable, frustrated. When Danny focuses on a person, people and local wildlife get irrationally angry and frustrated with that person. It's subtle, but that person's life becomes a nightmare, as flies and rodents collect inside their houses and in their cars, and everyone they meet seems to act hostile or outright tries to hurt them. The subtlety and 'soft' nature of the attack is a source of frustration to Danny, who is angry and wants to swing a punch, to get some resolution. He could stay largely impossible to detect, but instead anger wins out, and he puts on a costume and goes to confront the people he sees as the biggest problems. Or he just doesn't stop when the people and his host are assaulting the people he's going after. - What if Danny Triggered, Reddit.com 15 Mar 2016 </ref>
    • Changer/Master/Thinker that regurgitates rats that act as relays for his generalized control of rodents.<ref name="R1.3">Danny, who hasn't been eating nearly as much (or feeding his daughter) is a hollow shell of a man. Alan approaches him, tries to shake some sense into him, and Danny experiences abject horror at just how badly he failed his daughter. It's like that sensation of missing a step, teetering toward rock bottom. The Danny we know teetered, experienced that moment of horror, and then got pulled back to his feet and gets counseled in what steps to take to rebuild and recover by Alan. This Danny teeters, falls, and triggers. Horrified and distracted by his emerging powers, he doesn't hear what Alan has to say. He says something incoherent, then turns and flees the scene. This Danny suffered a crisis of identity (fatherhood), guilt, and a realization of just how much he had disconnected himself from reality. The loss of Annette still burns. The crisis of identity manifests as a changer element, the guilt as a thinker one. In an ironic twist, his power keeps him distanced from reality. He tries to gather himself up, but the nature of his power makes it hard to reconnect with his daughter, and his efforts to regain normalcy are foiled. When he eats, he regurgitates everything but the bare minimum to keep his body functional, and with that regurgitation, he produces rats. He maintains the rough, very generalized ability to control rodents, but the ones he spawns are smarter and tougher, he maintains more explicit control over them, he can see through their eyes, sense what they sense, and use them to control the other, general swarms. Actually killing his own rats is hard, but the more they are, the smaller his own perspective is, relative to the combined sensory input of all the various rats. He inevitably reaches the point where he can't take care of Taylor anymore, his awareness largely subsumed, so he tries to turn to more productive ends, trying to improve the city for his daughter, going after the corrupt politicians, the teachers who failed his daughter, and the bullies. - What if Danny Triggered, Reddit.com 15 Mar 2016 </ref>
  • Aidan
    • Sets rally points to control bird minions can choose to look through their eyes or manipulate them directly.<ref name="WoW">Writebow: Can't control them indviidually

      [...]

      Writebow: Sets invisible flags. Birds get pulled to that point.

      Writebow: Or uses flag to have them all move in a wave, attacking on the way, etc. - Comment by Wildbow archived on Spacebattles</ref>
  • A Brute power is possible but stretches the confines that the shard operates under. A Brute body completely composed of minions is possible for example.<ref name=":0">Dwood: Wildbow: can the QA shard add brute flavors to its triggers?

    Wildbow: Generally QA is going to operate around the fulcrum point of being a 'controls many minions' master trigger and is going to seek out hosts that hit that note. In the most forced context, you'd probably get a 'mass/tower of rats' brute body. - Discord conversation archived on Spacebattles</ref>

The Armamentarium

Miss Militia's shard.

True use

Remnant of the larger shard apparatus that equips tinker shards with the diagnostic and computational tools that are needed to reach and handle their abilities.<ref name="SB1">Miss Militia's Power in more detail?

See 11.h for pointers about how Miss Militia's passenger gathered weapons info about conventional arms. It also feeds into her awareness for updates on weapons (ie., as she becomes aware of more modern munitions). Any projectile firing weapon, just about, barring cruder mechanisms like catapults, and any theoretical, (appropriate) projectile (rubber bullets, hollow points, etc). Her attunement to her passenger greatly influences her ability to use the weapons, affecting draw time, and subtly affecting things like aim and weight. It's a power that effectively derives from the 'scraps' left after certain shards were deployed, and where it might normally be split up or combined with other abilities to form tinker oriented shards (think of the aforementioned qualities assisting a gun tinker like Tecton's kinetic sense assists his tectonic tinkering), it's primarily being deployed to collect data in this instance. It isn't an aggressive shard, so it's primarily concerned with being involved (even peripherally) in conflicts, but it gets restless easily - to the point that it's stripped away her ability to sleep as part of its design. - comment by Wildbow on Spacebattles</ref>

Possible powers

  • Blaster power: energy form that can become any modern weapon. Noctis "enhancment"
  • Shaker power: Adaptive 'living cannon<ref>A woman with a great cannon that constantly changes, expanding and contracting like a living thing
    [...]
    The woman with the gun made her way to Partisan’s side. She whispered, but the entity could hear it, as it heard all things in the vicinity. “War?”

    “We’ll need our Black Knight, Hannah,” Partisan said. - Excerpt from Interlude 29</ref>

Trivia

  • It's shard name is fan created.

The Astrologer

Glaistig Uaine's name for the shard that was attached to a member of Turanta.<ref name="25.5 e1">We don’t have time to laugh about like this,” Turanta, the apparent spokesman of the cold capes said.

"I am not joking, astrologer.  I would like to see their lights dancing in the air.  I have seen only glimmers, fragments of the performance.  To see it all at once… yes.” - Excerpt from Scarab 25.5</ref>

The Broadcast Shard

Jack Slash's shard.

True use

How the entities communicate and coordinate between them.<ref name="26ze1">All around the entity, there were shards in varying states of maturation.  The female’s was among the most mature.  Seasoned by conflict, heavy with information, lessons learned, tactics, applications, organization.
[...]
A confrontation had started between a young male and an older one.  A fragment of a shard against a very mature shard.  The most mature shard in this area, at a glance.

The more mature power was unleashed.  A wavelength power, a kinetic transmission.

The entity watched, and it recognized the shard at work. The broadcast shard. One that had been crippled, just like the shard of the female that floated before the entity now. The same shard that had managed communication between the entity and its counterpart. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref>

Based on Glaistig Uaine's criteria and Warrior Entity's crippling of it, it likely counts as 'Noble'.<ref name=":0" group="Note" />

Possible powers

  • Transmitting the cutting force of blades, allowing them to be used at range. Coupled with a subtle but extremely strong power that links with nearby shards, to imperceptibly nudge parahumans (including the host) in favourable ways.

The Champion

'Noble' shard listed by Glaistig Uaine, said to "ensure the next act goes off without a hitch".<ref name=":2" /> Identity unknown, though there are several candidates speculated.

"Chaos" shard

Known Hosts

True use

On at least one occasion and probably others, it finalized The Cycle, destroyed the host planet, and launched the Entities into space.<ref name=":1">A sphere, cracked like an egg and cracking further, all in slow motion, with energy glowing through the cracks. Her awareness loomed above it all.

As slow as it had been, the moment she realized it was a planet, time caught up and everything moved in fast motion. The planet became dust and debris and there was nothing left behind.

She closed her eyes until they fit inside her eye sockets again. All went away, except for- for that energy that she’d seen and felt. - Excerpt from Eclipse x.1</ref><ref group="Note">Strictly speaking, it's possible that Ashley was mistaken that her power creates "the same energy" she saw in her trigger vision. Miss Militia misinterpreted her vision of an Entity shedding shards to seek out hosts as being an Entity dying.</ref>

Possible powers

  • Uncontrolled destruction blasts focused through the hands. Strong kickback that could be used to maneuver.
  • (With surgery) Enhanced control, range. Level of enhancement depended on the shape, quality, and state of repair of the prosthetics.

Coruscant Knave

Glaistig Uaine's name for Legend.

True use

Legend speculated that it was intended for using to travel through outer space.<ref>He’d wondered sometimes if his ability to fly was meant for travel on an interstellar level. What if he kept accelerating? His breaker power would let him weather the void of space, his ability to see would be that much more powerful if there was no atmosphere to occlude his vision over miles… even the boredom of traveling for years was nothing if his conscious mind shifted into a rest state.

Not that he’d ever test it. - Excerpt from Interlude 14.y</ref>

Possible powers

Extremely varied and flexible lasers that could be shot from any part of the body; energy-based Breaker state that absorbs energy to heal but has reduced mental faculties; extremely rapid flight aided by Breaker state.

Cross/Mein Shard

Known hosts

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.
[...]
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.

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.

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. - 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.

    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.

    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.

    The trigger reads Eric. Who is he? How does he generally respond to situations?
    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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'.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.

    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.

    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.

    The trigger reads Eric. Who is he? How does he generally respond to situations?
    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.

    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.

    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.

    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.

    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'.Comment by Wildbow on Spacebattles (scrolldown)</ref>

"Darkness" shard

Known Hosts

True use

Unknown, but commonly speculated to have something to do with the transfer of matter and energy between dimensions.

Possible powers

  • Generation of darkness/smoke that was transparent only to the user. Had muting effects on some kinds of energy (sound, radiation etc.) and interfered with some powers (Velocity, Shadow Stalker.)
  • (2nd Trigger) Generates darkness that tangibly moves through the people in the vicinity, creates more of itself, and allows the user to copy the powers of any one parahuman within the darkness.
  • (Warped Corona) Globular clusters of darkness that are sticky
  • (Warped Corona) Teleportation of self and others through generated darkness.

The Demesnes-Keeper

Known hosts

Commonly speculated to be Labyrinth, as she and Glaistig Uaine have met,<ref group="Note">They were in the same room as during the Khonsu Meeting.</ref> Taylor noted her as one of the people with power that would fit a 'noble' shard,<ref name=":2">“You view us both as queens, Faerie Queen?”

“I do.  But let us drop the titles when we talk.”

“Okay… Glaistig Uaine.  Anyone else?”

"There are others who stand shoulder to shoulder with us, but queen is the wrong word, Administrator.  The champion, the high priest, the observer, the shaper, the demesnes-keeper.
[...]

I have a special role in this.  I keep the company of the faerie who have left our metaphorical stage.
[...]

The other nobles, their tasks are more immediate, shorter in term.  What makes us truly noble is our role before and after this act.  The others sleep, and we toil.  We're practiced, stronger, for that constant effort.  The champion and observer ensure the next act goes on without a hitch.  The shaper and demesnes-keeper clean up after we are all done here, one way or another.  So it goes."
[...]

I could only think of one powerful individual who was on a par with the others she'd named.  Contessa and Glaistig Uaine were easily twelves or higher on the power-ratings scale, and I could look to others with powers in that neighborhood to figure out who she was referring to.  Panacea, Labyrinth… - excerpt from Extinction 27.4 </ref> and her power fits both the name and apparent true use.

It has since been implied that the physical destruction of worlds at the end of the Cycle is the responsibility of Damsel of Distress' shard. Whether this means Damsel is the bearer of the Demesnes-Keeper is unclear.<ref name=":1">A sphere, cracked like an egg and cracking further, all in slow motion, with energy glowing through the cracks. Her awareness loomed above it all.

As slow as it had been, the moment she realized it was a planet, time caught up and everything moved in fast motion. The planet became dust and debris and there was nothing left behind.

She closed her eyes until they fit inside her eye sockets again. All went away, except for- for that energy that she’d seen and felt. - Excerpt from Eclipse x.1</ref>

True use

According to Glaistig Uaine it is one of two 'noble' shards responsible for end-cycle cleanup alongside the Shaper.<ref name=":2" /> Given the final moments of The Cycle, it is commonly assumed to involve the destruction of the worlds and elimination of the evidence of the entity's existence.<ref name=":1">A sphere, cracked like an egg and cracking further, all in slow motion, with energy glowing through the cracks. Her awareness loomed above it all.

As slow as it had been, the moment she realized it was a planet, time caught up and everything moved in fast motion. The planet became dust and debris and there was nothing left behind.

She closed her eyes until they fit inside her eye sockets again. All went away, except for- for that energy that she’d seen and felt. - Excerpt from Eclipse x.1</ref>

The Destroyer

According to Valkyrie, Chevalier is the keeper of the "Destroyer" shard.<ref name="E.1">Teneral e.1</ref>

True use

Unknown.

Based on it's unusual title and Chevalier's power, it's believed by some fans that this shard was the one the Entities used to destroy planets by merging all the energy from every possible version of them.<ref name="I26 e1">Once they are reformed, they leech all of the heat and energy from countless worlds and concentrate it in a single reality.  The energy boils the oceans of silt-choked waters, disintegrates the landmasses.

[...]

The energy is released, and the planet shatters.

The shattering is so extreme that it extends into other worlds, through the same channels that the fragments used to extend into other realities.  Every single one of the remaining habitable worlds is destroyed in the ensuing blast. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref> However, it has since been implied that this is the responsibility of Damsel of Distress' shard.<ref name=":1">A sphere, cracked like an egg and cracking further, all in slow motion, with energy glowing through the cracks. Her awareness loomed above it all.

As slow as it had been, the moment she realized it was a planet, time caught up and everything moved in fast motion. The planet became dust and debris and there was nothing left behind.

She closed her eyes until they fit inside her eye sockets again. All went away, except for- for that energy that she’d seen and felt. - Excerpt from Eclipse x.1</ref>

Possible powers

Merging physically-similar objects, creating one object with their blended properties; flexibly re-allocating these properties (e.g. the sharpness of one and the weight of another); allowing the object to have different properties for the user and the rest of the world (e.g. it affects them as if it were light and the rest of the world as if it were heavy). Linked ability to see images surrounding every parahuman that reflect their powers or trigger event.

"Heartbreaker" Shard

Budding champion of this cycle.

Known hosts

True use

Speculated to be part of an exploration of psychology and human nervous systems.<ref>alethiophile: Bear in mind that, unless there's some other arguments that don't ever get play, GG's argument there is basically entirely vacuous. Sure, true telepathy would take more computational capacity than a human brain can muster. But so does Skitter. Thus, according to in-universe rules, there's nothing stopping true telepathy. I saw a theory at one point that this line was essentially wishful thinking and/or propaganda to prevent a panic, trying to play down Ziz' powers.

Wildbow: Yeah. In truth, it's more that shards don't have the exact right templates to draw on in past experience to regularly model a human brain and decrypt the mess of firing neurons. Those shards that can do such decryptions are combined with or supporting other shards that need to model humans (such as shards that simulate or certain thinker shards that aren't mind-reading.

Which isn't to say Telepaths don't exist - they're just not very rare and not highly valued by the shards, who are content to gather information on human brains from the latent black box storage of the tens of thousands of people with powers out there, and explore that in future cycles. - Conversation on Spacebattles</ref>

Possible powers

Influencing self and others to a greater or lesser degree.

High Priest

Glaistig Uaine's name for Eidolon's shard.

True use

'Noble' shard according to Glaistig Uaine,<ref name=":0" group="Note" /> who cryptically described its role to Eidolon as follows:<ref>Excerpt from Interlude 27.x</ref>

"Can you tell me why you call me the High Priest, before I put my life in your hands?"

[...]
"Some lead by logic, by law, by order and organization. Others lead by the abstract. By faith and the imagination of the public. Yes?"
"You're talking about leading… the passengers, the agents?"
"Naturally so. Plotting, raising the faerie up as objects for worship. They are chosen, cultivated, as the situation demands, to suit the world outside, to best manipulate it. The pantheon in the temple."
"Me. I'm this temple?"

She nodded.

[...]

“I have little love for gods or the godly, High Priest.  I may have to apologize for choosing such an unflattering title to describe you, but it fit as described, fit on other levels.”

She also stated that his shard had a "living" counterpart that she refused to name, in addition to possibly serving as a distorted counterpart to her own shard.<ref>“Death is inevitable.  Life is too.  Even if Scion succeeds, there will be some who remain, because they hid well enough, because they aren’t interesting or different enough to kill.  Life, death, a binary.”

“This isn’t constructive.”

“It can be, but I won’t repeat myself a third time.  Binaries.  Everything represented on the other side of the mirror.  Not perfect reflections, but reflections nonetheless."

“What’s my reflection, then?”

“You should know,” she said.

“You?”

“Mm.  No.  But I could be, in a small way.  Like I said, the reflections are distorted.”

“Your power is death, my power is life?”

“Not so overt, but you’re thinking along the right lines.  I am alive as the faerie queen, I collect the dead, I tap them for my strength, to better shepherd them.  You are the High Priest of the stillborn faerie, but you could tap the living for strength. - Excerpt from Interlude 27.x</ref> One possible interpretation is that she was saying Eidolon's shard would have powered Eden's avatar, making it the counterpart to Scion.

Given that Eidolon also created the Endbringers, the High Priest is often speculated to be responsible for the creation of similar "superweapons" in Eden's vision or in previous cycles.

Potential powers

Virtually any three, plus a power more 'native' to the shard that lets him drain the power of other shards.

"Future" Shard

Known Hosts

Heavily implied, but not explicitly stated, to be the shard of Dinah Alcott.<ref name=":3" />

True use

One part of the broader cluster of shards used by the Warrior Entity to "perceive the future". It was used for viewing specific possible futures of both individual shards<ref>Not many, but there may be glimmers where the subject is capable of perceiving the information stored in the shard as the connections are formed.

For good measure, the entity breaks up one shard cluster, tunes it, then codes the effect into each and every shard.  It studies the host species further, refines, attunes.

It takes time, but the entity forms a sufficient safeguard.  The host species will forget any significant details.

The broken shard is cast off, joining countless others.  It will bond to a host.  The entity looks forward, checking.

After the target planet has revolved thirty-three times around its star, this shard will connect to a host.

A male guards his offspring, a female, with his size and bulk.  A group of hostile bipeds cluster around them.  They call out, making unusual loud sounds, suggesting intoxication.  One of the hostile ones gestures, gripping its male parts, pulling them free of their coverings.  A sexual gesture follows, waving the organ left and right, thrusting it into the empty air.
[...]
It views the future again, with changes made in the code.

This time, the shard settles in the male, then immediately shifts to the more distressed female.
[...]
The female disappears from the awareness of the hostile ones that surround it.- Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref> and the entire cycle,<ref>The entity looks to the future, to see if this is sustainable, efficient.

All seems well.

A view of other bondings suggests this emphasizes younger targets, particularly those in a middle stage of development, between a lesser phase and an adult phase.  Emotions are higher at that juncture, and the possibility of conflict increases further.- Excerpt from Interlude 26 </ref><ref>The entity looks to the future to check for danger.

Plague.

All signs point to the shards murdering their hosts.

The hosts must be protected, or this will be disastrous, counter-intuitive.  The entity adjusts the innate safeguards, protections to reflect the host species and their tolerances.  The bonding process will protect the host, where the host needs protection.  Shards that are capable of providing flame at will cannot burn the hosts, now.  Shards are reorganized, combined and clustered where necessary, to grant sufficient protection.

Infestation.

Better, but not perfect.  The entity refines the process, limits certain abilities, so they will not eradicate too many at a time.

Soft. The broadcast is sent out to the counterpart, along with suggestions and tips on how to refine the shards.

Agreement, the counterpart accepts.

But the entity can still see fallout effects.  There are parallels in memory storage.  Not many, but there may be glimmers where the subject is capable of perceiving the information stored in the shard as the connections are formed.- Excerpt from Interlude 26 </ref> as well as to estimate probability of the cycle's failure.<ref name=":4">Always, in the course of its examination of the possible futures, it was evaluating, checking to see what was necessary.

A quick glance into the future, not so deep a look as to expend too much of its remaining energy.  Conservation is key at this juncture, and from here on out.

The entity’s present configuration is satisfactory.  The chance the cycle can be interfered with has become infinitesimally small. - Excerpt from Interlude 26 </ref> The cluster is particularly energy-intensive when used to its full capacity, encouraging the Entities to be cautious in their use of it.<ref name=":4" /><ref>Three hundred and thirty-one revolutions before the shards reach a critical mass and enough information is gathered.  To look to the future and seek that information in advance would take too much energy.  To do this and fail would be a catastrophic setback in the cycles. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref> This shard-cluster is all but stated to be the Warrior's equivalent of Path to Victory.<ref name=":3" />

Although Scion cast off the Future shard to seek a human host, he retained much of the rest of its cluster, allowing him to continue to view the future without it.<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":5">Aggressive actions, but it didn’t matter.  The entity was invulnerable.  It could glance into the immediate future and know there was no potential reality where this male would be able to harm it.
[...]
The entity looked to the future, looked to possible worlds, and it saw the ways this could have unfolded.  It burned a year off of the entity’s life, but he had thousands to spare anyways.

There was a scene where the entity stood over the broadcaster’s corpse and ruminated on what had driven the male to such extremes.  The shard wasn’t a particularly aggressive one.

A scene where the man died, and years passed, the entity slowly coming to the same conclusions as it observed the rest of the species. - Excerpt from Interlude 26 </ref>

Keeper of The Dead

Known hosts

True use

Unknown but speculated to deal with Collector of imprints generated by shards. Chooser of the slain.

Believed to be a 'noble' shard based on the fairy queen self-reporting, although she was a little unclear.<ref name=":2" />

Possible powers

Had a previous version before current version seen with second trigger.

'Mall Stampede Cluster'

The Mall Stampede Cluster is a group of four shards that have formed a cluster together. These shards are:

  • Grasping Self: Primarily attached to Cradle<ref>Heavens 12.f</ref>
  • Anguished Heart: Primarily attached to Love Lost
  • Lurching Intruder: Primarily attached to Snag
  • Cloven Stranger: Primarily attached to Precipice

This cluster has a very unique set-up involving a dream room, and a unique power sharing function.

'Molluscoid' Shard

A shard connected to Withdrawal.

This shard is a remnant of a previous cycle, in which an alien race of molluscoids created mecha technology in order to interact with another race on a nearby moon. To facilitate adaption between the two worlds, nanofluids were created that had the abilities to influence friction, chemical bonding and temperature, amongst other things. This fluid was almost enough to stop the cycle from being completed.<ref>One is a young man with a heavy syringe and a crafted outfit that augments his movements. Seeing the syringe reminds of a past cycle. A fleeting moment- recalled because the facet of this shard is focused on timing, and that cycle came ‘down to the wire’, as this shard’s little March would say. A civilization of molluscoids that fashioned means of locomotion. When they interacted with another species on their third moon, they emulated that species with the shells they built around them. In a low-gravity environment, they wore bodies of metal that each stood a mile tall, narrow, each with a lone individual, pairing, or family of molluscoids within. These spindle-limbed forms waded through gas, heads above the thickest of the gas, limbs ending far below, where they could harvest from the deeper, higher-pressure environment.

The fluid in that syringe almost aborted that cycle. To facilitate adaptation between the two different worlds, the molluscoids created nanofluids that impacted friction, chemical bonding, and temperature, among other things. When the cycle closed on the moon, the molluscoids modified the fluids and did what they could to prevent access to the planet’s core. Heavens 12.all</ref>

Possible powers

Grants a tinker ability that allows Withdrawal to create these nanofluids, and exoskeleton components remniscent of the mulloscoid's long-limbed mechs.

The Negotiator

Known hosts

True use

Possibly supplementing the work from other shards when choosing a target.

Possible powers

The shard might have some other capabilities including:<ref>Tattletale's power would just scale up constantly in power, reach, and intensity of detail. The shard might not have broken 100% clean - Scion might have given it some tools somewhere in there, so I can imagine a Tattletale-sub-entity scaling up to a breaker state or tapping into a tinker ability to network/develop more hardware/brainware to process it all. Scale up to processing multiple dimensions at once, and develop/manifest/obtain a weapon. Going back to the tools Scion gave, a simple blaster power with a clean, possibly invisble terrain-penetrating laser, with Full-bore-tattletale focus at work to discern the best possible weak point? Or even just a Tattletale in the middle of it, holding a gun? Picture her systematically picking off threats one after another, from highest priority to lowest, from the center of the incident sites, maximum range. - Wildbow of Spacebattles</ref>

  • Thinker
  • Blaster with secondary shaker abilites
  • Tinker

However these are only mentioned for the purpose of speculating about what an "Unshackled Tattletale" would look like.

The Observer

'Noble' shard used to "ensure the next act goes on without a hitch" according to Glaistig Uaine.<ref name=":2" /> Identity unknown, although Dinah's "Future" Shard, Contessa's "Path to Victory", and/or the Clairvoyant's shard are all popular candidates.

Path to Victory

Also referred to simply as "Contessa's power" (even when discussing other users)<ref name=28.6/>, and referred to by the Thinker Entity as it's "future-sight power"<ref>An optimal future. It is an unwieldy future because it gave up a part of its ability to see the future to the other being. There are holes, because this entity does not fully understand the details of what happened, and because this entity’s future-sight power is damaged. </ref> or "ability to find the optimal future".<ref>In the doing, it alters one of the third entity’s powers, replacing its own ability to find the optimal future. - excerpt from Interlude 29</ref>

Known users

The Warrior, the Thinker and Abaddon all appear to have had variants of this shard.

  • The Thinker's was damaged and she had to replace it with one she gained from Abaddon; it got knocked loose and bonded with Contessa. <ref name=":6">Interlude 29</ref>
  • The Warrior retained most of his Path to Victory when becoming/forming Scion,<ref name=28.6>Tattletale frowned.  "Contessa's power."

    "It's telling her victory is impossible?" I asked.

    "No.  Well, maybe.  I don't know.  Haven't exactly had a long conversation with her.  No.  I'm saying… well… Scion has it.  Her power.  That line he fed Eidolon?  It was calculated to devastate the man at the point he was flying highest, so the fall would be more catastrophic.  It's something I couldn't pull off.  I watched some footage of the fight, where Scion's power didn't nix the cameras.  Corroborates the evidence.  He wasn't actively using the power, but there's a confidence there."

    "Scion sees the path to victory?"

    "Or something close."

    "You're sure?"

    "The evidence, his attitude, as far as he has any attitude at all… yeah.  None of the limitations like Contessa has, I don't think.  No blind spots.  Just… yeah." - Excerpt from Cockroaches 28.6</ref> but cast off a portion of it to Dinah Alcott.<ref name=":3" />

True use

God viruses using it to navigate and watch out for threats. Like not steering into a black hole or getting shot by Sting.

Possible Powers

Contessa's human-sized variant allowed her to view the steps to accomplish almost any task, and helped her to perform the actions (including physical movements, speech and even thoughts) necessary to accomplish them. Eden altered the restrictions on her power when she tried to kill the Entity, blocking her from using it on the Entities and anything related to them. <ref name=":6"/>

Scion's version was similar to Contessa's but without that restriction,<ref name=28.6/> and could additionally be used to view specific possible futures.<ref name=":3"/><ref name=":5"/>

Having given up part of her Path to Victory to Abaddon and with the remainder damaged, Eden was still able to view a specific "optimal ... simulated world" with it. This possible future was accurate enough that it was set in Earth Bet and featured slightly-different versions of a number of canon characters. However, the Entity was not fully shown the path to that future and so failed to reach it.<ref name=":6"/>

Dinah Alcott's ability could also be considered a power granted by Path to Victory, albeit only a small portion.

The Shaper

Known hosts

True use

According to Glaistig Uaine it is one of 'noble' shards responsible for end-cycle cleanup. She also described the shard as "an artist".

Possible powers

  • Bone manipulation
  • General biology manipulation

Sting

Known hosts

  • Flechette (As the primary power out of multiple others)
    • March (As a secondary power out of multiple others)
    • Homer (As a secondary power out of multiple others)

Is a mainstay of the Entities' tool kit, rarely needing anything else. During the time of Worm it's role in the Cycle is mainly to test other shards.<ref name="SB16">Sting, for the record, is akin to the shark. Sharks haven't evolved for aeons, because you can't get much better than a motherfucking shark. What you can do is put the shark in a tank with other fish/animals and see the way things might play out. - Wildbow on Spacebattles</ref>

True use

Combat, as far as we know.

Possible powers

Making objects ignore specific laws of physics, allowing objects to pierce through any barrier (regardless of what reinforces that barrier), chemically fusing objects together, making objects explode.

The Safeguard

Known hosts

True use

Used by the Warrior Entity to ensure that the local bipeds who connect with shards do not catch on as easily to what's happening.<ref name="I26 e1">But the entity can still see fallout effects. There are parallels in memory storage. Not many, but there may be glimmers where the subject is capable of perceiving the information stored in the shard as the connections are formed.

For good measure, the entity breaks up one shard cluster, tunes it, then codes the effect into each and every shard. It studies the host species further, refines, attunes.

It takes time, but the entity forms a sufficient safeguard. The host species will forget any significant details.

The broken shard is cast off, joining countless others. It will bond to a host. The entity looks forward, checking.

After the target planet has revolved thirty-three times around its star, this shard will connect to a host.

A male guards his offspring, a female, with his size and bulk. A group of hostile bipeds cluster around them. They call out, making unusual loud sounds, suggesting intoxication. One of the hostile ones gestures, gripping its male parts, pulling them free of their coverings. A sexual gesture follows, waving the organ left and right, thrusting it into the empty air.

Sounds of amusement, laced with hostility.

The male and his offspring retreat as far against the nearest construction as they are able.

The shard connects, attaching to the male.

No. It is ineffective. The female is clearly more distressed.

Prey.

There is a way to maximize exposure to conflict.

The entity taps into its understanding of the bipeds and how they operate, recognizes the signs of distress, the nuances such things can have.

It views the future again, with changes made in the code.

This time, the shard settles in the male, then immediately shifts to the more distressed female.

Insinuation. The shard connects to the host’s neural network.

The bond is created.

The shard opens the connection as the stress peaks, and the host doubles over in pain, bewildered, stunned. The shard then forms tendrils that contact each individual in the area. It retains traces of the entity’s tampering, of the studies in psychology, awareness and memory, and is quick to adapt. It finds a manner in which it can operate, then alters itself, solidifying into a particular state. The remainder of the functions are discarded, the ones in the shard itself are rendered inert to conserve power, while the ones in the host fall away, are consumed by the shard. The host’s neural network changes once more.

The female disappears from the awareness of the hostile ones that surround it.

The entity looks to the future, to see if this is sustainable, efficient. - Excerpt from Interlude 26</ref>

It is not confirmed to be 'Noble' as the narration suggests the Warrior turned to the shard cluster for the explicit purpose of encoding the memory erasure effect rather then using something that was already active.

Possible powers

Controls blind spots, and keeps natives unaware about The Entities.

'The Waste'

Victoria Dallons shard, which is a mixture of the shards of Brandish, Manpower, and Gallant. 'The Waste' is not an official name, but one it somewhat gives itself.<ref>I am waste. I am fortunate that my multifaceted host takes what she is given and puts it to effective use. Heavens 12.all</ref> This is in reference to the fact that is a shard made up of the discarded remnants of other shards.

This shard is the first to get an actual perspective within the story, and seems to really like its host.

Notes

<references group="Note" />

References

<references/>

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