Trigger Event

A trigger event, also known as a crisis point, a point-zero, or simply a trigger, is the moment a parahuman gains their superhuman abilities.

Triggers in Society
A trigger event is typically 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, as most act either as warlords or mercenaries). Not everyone who triggers is given an immediate solution to their problems, and some are killed outright as they trigger.

Although experts understood many of the nuances of trigger events, the details weren't to the general public. It was commonly believed that powers were genetic, even though this had been thoroughly disproved. Governments would downplay the details of trigger events to prevent people from self-harming in order to gain powers. It was widely believed that the strongest powers resulted from athletes, great minds, and other such exemplars who broke past some fundamental limit. This was in part due to a concerted effort to spread disinformation about the process, and seemed to be largely successful given the confusion among the general public.

There was a popular myth that younger triggers were more powerful. It is more of an adaption by the young person growing up and figuring out the nuances of their power with the extra time.

The Protectorate and other heroes (such as New Wave) would check up on possible recent triggers. This serves as a useful recruiting tool, as many new parahumans are impressionable and don't have many positive influences.

Natural Trigger
A natural trigger event is accomplished through a traumatic experience. A large amount of people have the potential to trigger even if they 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. A parahumans Corona Pollentia can take widely varying forms within their brain based on their powers.

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. The nature to the shard itself also effects the power that is granted, but the circumstances of the trigger event are what shape the final power expression. There can be cases where a potential parahuman is in a situation to trigger but it does not line up with the type of power their Shard is meant to grant, with the parahuman triggering later when the correct situation presents itself. On a final note is that a trigger is a individualized experience the events that might cause one person to trigger could be dealt with more constructively by another.

Inherited Powers
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. People who have parents with powers don’t need nearly as intense an event to make their powers manifest. These are known as Nth-generation powers (second-generation, third-generation etc.)

A genetic relationship isn't necessary to inherit powers. Powers inherited from someone other than a relative were initially known as "serial powers" before it became clear that they were the same phenomenon.

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, along with Fleece III.

Second-generation capes gain powers influenced by both the powers of those related to them and their trigger event. Similar to grab-bag capes, the children of parahumans tend to manifest multiple lesser powers related to those around them. As their shards are essentially the same triggering near a 'parent' does not count for the circumstances of a Trump trigger.

Multiple Trigger
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 complement one another, or at least work in similar ways. These are known by the colloquialism of "grab bag capes".

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.

Multi-triggers tend to have higher rates of PTSD, more difficulty recovering from their triggers, and lower long-term survival rates. This may be because it takes a more dramatic event to cause multiple people to trigger.

Second Trigger

 * With the second trigger, the agent reaches out, makes contact with others, networks and draws on collective information to refine the restrictions and save its host... Circumstances tend to mirror the original trigger event. The resulting power ignores restrictions that were previously set.” - Doctor Mother explaining second triggers to Weaver.

It's possible for a parahuman to experience a second trigger event that removes limits to their abilities or adds a secondary aspect to their power. Second triggers are exceedingly rare and generally do more harm than good due to the toll it takes on the host. To experience a second trigger, a parahuman must experience a situation very similar to their original trigger event. Neither second-generation capes nor cluster capes are known to have second triggers. Cauldron can induce capes to experience a second trigger, but they generally need help to get circumstances to match with the original trigger.

Prior to a second trigger event, the shard is drawing from context, exploring and conceptualizing new uses for the host's powers. The shard begins splitting off to find a new but similar host, piggybacking off the original shard's context and experience. However, instead of splitting to a new host, the second trigger event prompts the budding shard to catalyze and consolidate in the current host instead, altering their powers.

Third and further trigger events are impossible, according to Doctor Mother, but an explanation as to why isn't provided. However, people who have already had a second trigger event can still achieve a Broken Trigger and fully merge with their Shard, as seen by Valkyrie.

Double Trigger
Not to be confused with a second trigger, a double trigger (also called a 1.5 trigger by Wildbow ) is two trigger events that occur in quick succession. This may be the reason why certain parahumans are unable to experience a second trigger, since they've already had one. According to Number Man, Taylor experienced a double trigger that was caused by the horror of manifesting her power. This implies that double triggering may be a type of recalibration on the shard's part, occurring when the initial trigger is too much for the host to handle.

Cauldron Trigger
Cauldron capes gain their powers after drinking a Cauldron vial. The process of drinking one is intensely painful, the vial forcibly forming a Corona Pollentia in the brain. They are much more likely to gain physical mutations than natural triggers. Their powers are primarily based on what vial they took, although their personality also influences it. Cauldron capes are much less likely to be villains, and are generally more mentally stable. Given how a subject triggered, their powers can become less reliable when in a stressful situation.

Trigger Vision
Anyone experiencing a trigger event sees a vision of a vast multidimensional entity, but quickly forgets it. These visions are due to the neurological linkage between the shard and the host, the amnesia tied into preprogrammed measures.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. [...] 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 Any parahuman nearby experiences a similar vision and is briefly incapacitated.

After Gold Morning, content of visions changed to more recent recollections of The Warrior's memories. Also visions became more fragmented and remained in the memory.

Later, they changed again to the impression of powerful all-devouring mouth-pit, which people can drop into and embrace or recoil.

Known Triggers

 * Skitter was shut in a locker with piles of used tampons and pads. The realization that no one was coming to help her, compounded by the constant social isolation of the previous months, caused her to trigger. 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.
 * Tattletale triggered days 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 guerrilla fighters. She grew convinced she was about to die, either by walking into a trap or being shot, and her powers activated.
 * Bitch's pet dog Rollo was being drowned by her foster mother, causing Rachel to trigger.
 * Scrub gained his powers during a free-for-all brawl that Skidmark instigated among his own followers, after being beaten and/or in a moment of panic.
 * Jack Slash was kept in a basement by his parents and told the world had ended. He triggered after emerging to discover that the world was perfectly fine.
 * Bonesaw's family was tortured by the Slaughterhouse Nine.
 * Clockblocker triggered while donating bone marrow to his terminally ill father.
 * Browbeat jumped into a freezing cold lake on a whim.
 * Crusader was neglected in favor of his disabled sister, tried to kill her in retaliation, and was caught.
 * Purity was in a car crash, trapped in the wreckage by the side of the road, starving.
 * Imp triggered while being threatened by a group of men.
 * Chevalier triggered after being trapped in a car crash that saw his younger brother being kidnapped.
 * Dauntless triggered when he had to perform a C-section on his girlfriend, to save the life of his son, after their house was trapped in a mudslide.
 * Lung had his group of friends got knocked out and killed by a mysterious woman while covered in drugs he triggered.

Second Generation Capes

 * Glory Girl gained her powers after being fouled in gym class.
 * Panacea triggered when Glory Girl was injured in a fight.
 * Golem triggered after being left alone by Purity and her group.
 * Chicken Little triggered after waking up alone after sleep-walking and having night terrors.

Second Triggers

 * Grue second triggered watching Bonesaw dissect his teammates.
 * King of Cups second triggered after Queen of Swords was killed during Gold Morning.
 * Narwhal second triggered and gained the ability to bypass the Manton Effect.
 * Glaistig Uaine.
 * All Titans.

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 from a dimension embroiled in global war.
 * Garotte was kidnapped by monsters from her seaside village during a hurricane.
 * Shamrock was kidnapped from her temple-school in an unknown dimension.
 * Triumph's father bought powers for him to help him cheat at sports.
 * 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 cast the shard off, plot its trajectory, and determine the location it will arrive in with its potential host. Once the shard has arrived at its target reality, the shard will lock onto a desired host, get a grasp of the host's personality and subsequently allow that portion of itself to burn out to form the Corona Pollentia. It will then sit dormant for a time until a trigger event occurs.

When a trigger event happens, the shard recognizes the event from the state of the host, the surrounding context, and 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 assessing 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 aspect to their powers that they would not have had otherwise.

Age Range
Most trigger events occur within the age-range of twelve to thirty; there are some outliers, though those tend to be on the younger end of the scale.

Dismissing clients of Cauldron (and later, Broken Triggers) new parahumans are generally teenagers, although elderly capes exist.

Trivia

 * Late teens to mid twenties is the most common age range for first generation triggers. Every generation after the first has an increased likelihood of triggering, even if they're much younger then the original recipient.
 * Though painful, 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.
 * While some powers can detect whether someone has the potential to trigger, very few can determine the circumstances needed for a trigger or when one is about to occur.