Item from Worm by Wildbow
Fragments of the Entities — incomprehensibly vast alien beings like Scion and Eden. The source of ALL parahuman powers. They bond to hosts during trigger events and have their own alien agenda.
Shards are the hidden truth behind every parahuman. The Entities scattered them across Earth like seeds, each one budding into a connection with a human host during moments of extreme stress — trigger events. The shard grants powers but also subtly pushes its host toward conflict, because conflict generates the data the Entities want. Every cape fight, every Endbringer battle, every moment of creative power use feeds information back to the shard network. Powers aren't gifts — they're instruments in an alien experiment. The shards will eventually be recollected, the data harvested, and the host species discarded. This is the secret that Cauldron is trying to prevent.
In their true form, shards are crystalline biological structures existing partially across multiple dimensions — impossible to perceive directly. When visualized in trigger visions, they appear as vast, spiraling formations of light and alien geometry. To the host, they're invisible — just a power that responds to thought and emotion.
Also known as: Entity fragments, passenger, corona pollentia