Broken Trigger

Broken triggers or the structural issue are a type of extremely violent trigger event first observed after Zion's death, in which shards appear to disobey their intended behavior, often leading to the deaths of their hosts, as well as bystanders.

Features
Just as no power is the same, no two broken triggers are the same, but they do share commonalities.

Trigger Visions
The visions from broken triggers are often disjointed and come in waves. Some will replay the last memories of Zion, while others are so quick that no one sees anything. When near a broken trigger, Rachel Lindt appeared to see Zion's memories of the mockeries of Eden, or of killing Eidolon. At another broken trigger incident, Victoria Dallon saw similar visions of either these mockeries or Eden herself. Unlike typical trigger visions, those who saw visions from broken triggers were able to remember what they saw.

At least one victim of a broken trigger seemed to have gained awareness of the nature of shards, sensing the presence of the shard and expressing concerns about being incorporated into the shard's memory.

Manifestation
Broken triggers appear to display an almost shaker effect, allowing the shard to jump from person to person, affecting multiple people. This was possibly due to the now-unrestricted shards registering people as a triggeree, where before they would only connect to more then one person if that person was also having a trigger event. The position within the 'area of effect' of a broken trigger seems to affect its manifestation; in one incident, those farther from the center of the trigger event were less mobile, to the point that those on the perimeter were fixed in place by their shards.

Whereas typical parahumans were protected from the effects of their own powers,
 * Peanuckle: What I'd like to know is what sorts of abilities the shards can perform without limiters. Judging by QA and Khepri, shards are pretty much bullshit. But what about shards like Grue's, or Tattletale's, or Grey Boy's, acting outside a host to defend their Entity-body? Is there any comparison, or are "unshackled" powers so far beyond what we see that it's laughable?

Wildbow: Look at Noelle or the Bitch epilogue chapter for what a shard does when it's really unleashed - depending on the host, the nature of the unleashed power can vary, specializing as it develops toward a task/specific implementation. Grue's power would just spew darkness out in very direction to pretty much blanket and isolate an entire city, his body would become a vehicle for the power, and he'd mutate, quite possibly turning the 'tap into other passengers' ability into a link to just absorb power. Broken/dead shard, he'd continue doing so until those passengers lashed out, creating isolated, power-based effects/chunks of Grue in the midst of the city. 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. Basically, you unshackle, the power scales up, the mind/body start to break down, and if the host is lucky, the shard can provide some means of housing the new data and form. Standalone, without a host, the manifestation for the shard itself confronted in its own world, would be very similar in execution. - Comment by Wildbow in Spacebattles via the Manton Effect, those affected by broken triggers almost invariably died as a result of their powers or the trigger event. One incident involving a broken trigger fixed a victim's Corona Pollentia in place, leaving her unable to move without intense pain until her death; multiple others also died from the same condition. The same incident, centered around a matter manipulation power, also generated capes whose powers killed themselves; one vomited a fractal-like tree which tore away his body, while others were buried by their powers.

Titans
When a parahuman undergoes a broken second trigger event, they merge with their shard and become a Titan. As part of this process, the shard becomes the primary conscious actor of the resultant titan, acting according to its goals. The requisite loss of personality varies depending on the parahumans psychological state. Those that were able to scrounge some consciousness during the trigger and decided to seize the power, stay in control to some degree, or at least are able to influence their Shards decision making in a manner similar to how shards can influence the host normally. Those that choose to surrender to the power, appear to experience a loss in their original personality, attacking seemingly indescriminately.

Origin
Without a hub for the shard network (namely, Scion, the primary intelligence/consciousness of the entity), individual shards could no longer get permissions to alter themselves or their behaviours, or coordinate with the greater network in this task.

Case 53s and lethal vial triggers can be considered more benign variation of broken triggers. However, Eden had no time to configure host-shard connection before her demise, and the most of Cauldron vials were consumed before Eden's body was fully destroyed, so it is not completely clear if 'undercooked' process or 'lobotomized', but somewhat intact hub, had bigger influence in those cases being (not) as bad as they were.

So far Broken Triggers can be traced to Zion-derived, natural occurring connections, which unable to proceed properly without his guidance.

Post-Gold Morning
While odd triggers and strange powers were a fact of life for parahumans, they were generally following an internal logic. With the death of Scion, the shard network lost ability to maintain itself.

A broken trigger occurred in the nascent city, getting in the way of a domestic dispute that Bitch was resolving; it consisted of a parahuman who spread black ooze with each injury, gradually damaging himself before he died and spread it to a second host. Miss Militia stated that it was the fourth such trigger known, possibly twenty percent of the triggers since Gold Morning.

Glow-worm
Several instances were recorded across multiple worlds, though information about their origin was unclear among the public, with some comparing them to Case 53s and the Endbringers.

Early-Ward
Broken triggers had become a common part of life in The City. One of the worst such incidents occurred as a riot brewed among local construction workers, until another broken trigger ensued. Despite the efforts of the heroes on the scene to help those affected, numerous people intentionally entered the affected area to try and get powers, while those who were affected were killed by powers or the triggers themselves; ultimately, ninety-two people died as a result of the incident.

Six of the victims of the riot incident were citizens of Earth Cheit, straining the relationship between Earth Cheit and Earth Gimel and causing the former to threaten war on the latter.

Post-Goddess' Takeover
With assistance from Cradle, Speedrunners and her personal army, March was able to breach two time traps and in passing produce three broken triggers, two of which immediately merged together.

Single Triggers

 * The 'Black Ooze': created black ooze that morphed into tentacles and fronds, generating more upon being damaged. Once the first host was killed, the trigger seemed to spread to another host.
 * Casey Forks: generated mold, which he could use to puppet bodies and make machines work. Like other broken triggers, he is implied to have died.
 * Incident at the construction worker riot: a blaster trigger that spread exponentially throughout those nearby, with powers themed around matter creation or manipulation, folding matter into various origami-like shapes to cause various effects.
 * A dog who triggered with the power to generate a field of slowed time, accidentally trapping and killing people before being put down by Valkyrie.
 * The Mayor of Killington: Broken triggered into enormous worms.
 * Two unspecified broken triggers active at the time of assault on Teacher's base
 * One unspecified broken trigger in City's power-quarantine zone

Second Triggers

 * The Titans