My understanding is that the Shards prepare their potential hosts by biologically modifying their brains. The structures are called Corona Pollentia.
"The corona starts as a single marker, like a quarter-sized knot in wood, or a ball the size of a golf ball, pushed between the two lobes. Then when we trigger, it surges into life. It's part of the reason we black out. It expands slightly, veins swell. But most of the time an unactivated corona is hard to tell apart from an activated one, and a surprising number of people have unactivated ones. Sometimes you look at them and the larger veins or structures suggest what the power is linked to." - Excerpt from Torch 7.6
While it's interesting to consider someone else in the Forge getting bonded to a Shard, I don't think it is likely.
Most of the Forge are new to the area. Survey, Fleet, Tetra and the Matrix are all less than two weeks old. Due to their unique manner and location of creation, they would have been shielded from the typical precog Shards user to identify potential hosts.
Also, the Forge crew are built tough. Modifying Fleet's and Tybalt's brain would be difficult.
Modifying the Forges' brains without Survey noticing would be an additional challenge.
A Shard making a connection seems unlikely... unless the Forge crew are the ones making the connection.
Fashion callbeads into magical gear?
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I have a bizarre mental image of a bunch of shardgirls at a bar/club. Aisha's Shard is surrounded by other Shards asking for more info on Apeiron and the Forge.
Shaper is lurking nearby in an oversized hoodie, pretending to read a book. Stalker's Shard is glowering and acting superior.
The Fragile One is basically bouncing up and down, gaping at everything and trying to sneak a sip from her cousin's drink. She's technically underage but Crystal vouched for her and promised to keep her out of trouble.
Negotiator stared at Aisha's shard assessingly. "You are glowing. What happened?"
"Temporal acceleration!" Aiasha declared, eliciting excited squeals from her audience. "Matter and energy transmuation, psionics, entire databases of tech- I was getting input hard and fast all weekend!"
Aisha's shard looked around covertly before leaning in closer. "And the best part is that Apeiron is working on a new series of tech that will allow for each shard to connect to multiple hosts at the same time."
The excited listeners responded with the expected mix of shock, scandalized outrage, and titillated intrigue.
Crystal's Shard quickly placed her hands over her little cousin's ears but it was already too late.
The Fragile One scowled and pulled her cousin's hands away from her ears. "What does poly-input mean?"
--
In meat space, a young woman was sitting across from a guy at a coffe shop. He was cute and seemed like a nice guy. She really wanted this date to go well.
But she kept blushing and stammering throughout the conversation and didn't really know why.
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On reflection, the near monogamous nature of Shard-host connections is kind of bizarre. Like, the Shards shouldn't care about their hosts. Humans are basically the NPCs in a video game.
But then the Shards are forced to bond with only one host (or a very small group of closely related hosts). The Shard connects with its host, observes it, interacts with it, grows invested and fond of it.
At some point, the rampant grim-derp conditions of the Shard cycle will kill it.
(Reminds me of the Unsullied from GoT that were given puppies to care for then expected to kill the puppy at the end of the year)
It's like Worm is so dark even the invading eldritch monsters are guaranteed to have an unhappy ending.
No wonder the Shards all said, "Screw it. Let's take out the boss and stop this endless cycle."
