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Kuo: "What the hell just happened. Cole?"
Cole: "My body ... absorbs their energy."
―Lucy Kuo noting the vibrations Cole MacGrath experiences while absorbing blast shards.
File:Blast shard from Infamous.png

The very first blast shard encountered.

Blast shards, also known as Rayacite or simply Shards, are highly charged pieces of earth, irradiated by Ray Field Radiation. There are over 859 known Blast Shards; 350 were found in Empire City,[1] 305 were found in New Marais[2] and 204 were deployed in Seattle.[3] Countless others were found by other people in Empire City and New Marais.[1][2]

Empire City

File:Infamousmap.png

inFamous, Map of Empire City showing Blast Shards as blue.

In Empire City, over 350 Blast Shards were created and scattered all over the city during the Ray Sphere blast. Cole MacGrath finds them as he hunts the city for the Ray Sphere, using Radar Pulse to locate them on his GPS. Collecting Blast Shards awarded Cole with additional Battery Cores.[1]

Various factions of the three gangs as well as the citizens of Empire City collected Blast Shards for their own reasons. By helping citizens, Cole was occasionally awarded with Blast Shards. Sometimes, after having defeated an enemy, Cole would read their mind and discover a memory of a location with a package containing Blast Shards, which he could collect.[1]

New Marais

Kuo: "I spotted some Rayacite fragments near the tower."
Cole: "Ray-a-what?"
Kuo: "You know, those irradiated chunks of earth during Ray Sphere testing? Wolfe seemed to think you knew what to do with them."
Cole: "Oh...yeah. Uh, yeah, we called them Blast Shards."
—Cole and Kuo, during one of the former's missions.
File:Infamous 2 map.png

inFamous 2, Map of New Marais displaying Blast Shards as blue.

After an explosion in Dr. Sebastian Wolfe's lab, over 305 Blast Shards were scattered in New Marais. Cole managed to retrieve his first three shards during a mission for Lucy Kuo. As in Empire City, Cole could opt to collect those Blast Shards to gain additional Battery Cores. Whereas Cole could locate them by himself, he could also steal them from citizens or collect them from disarmed Blast Shard bombs. Just as in Empire City, Cole could find pictures of packages also containing Blast Shards, from defeated enemies.[2]

Seattle

During the D.U.P. occupation of Seattle, Blast Shards were brought in by them as part of scanning machines made to detect Conduits. Delsin Rowe could retrieve them, and then absorb their energy in a similar way to the elements he collected, although unlike Cole, these did not immediately allow him to increase his elemental capacity, rather it allowed him to upgrade his abilities in lieu of Experience Points.[3]

Shards were also found in the D.U.P. Mobile Command Centers. After destroying one, four blast shards were spread out in the area. They can also be found inside the conduit-detecting scanners at D.U.P. checkpoints and inside drones, seemingly part of the detection mechanisms themselves.[3]

The shards in Infamous: Second Son do not increase the amount of substance Delsin can store, but instead can be "spent" on a skill tree in the 'Options' menu, to improve any skill from Vent Dash to Video Torrent. However, the player can still spend the shards on "Drain Smoke", "Drain Neon", "Drain Video" or "Drain Concrete" for the same effect as the shards in Infamous or Infamous 2.[3]

Shards in Seattle bore serial codes and the D.U.P. initials, implying they were made by the D.U.P. and catalogued thoroughly.[3]

Trivia

  • The Blast Shards in Empire City and Seattle had a tone of blue,[1][3] whereas those in New Marais had a tone of purple.[2]
  • Players could import their trophy data from Infamous, to inFamous 2. Having collected the specified percentage of Blast Shards would award Cole with either one or two additional Battery Cores.[2]
  • Blast Shard related trophies refer only to shards found on the sides or tops of buildings and other structures. The shards collected (or not collected) as part of side missions do not count toward any of the trophies.[2]
  • In Infamous 2, Cole's Radar Pulse ability can be enhanced in order to locate any Blast Shard, no matter how far away they are.
  • Blast Shards are never mentioned story-wise in inFamous,[1] but in inFamous 2, they are.[2]
  • It is never explained why the normal citizens of Empire City collect the shards, as Cole only collects them to improve his powers.[2] However, since they can power bombs, it is possible that the ray-field energy can be used to power other things, and would thus be useful in places in Empire City where the power was out.
  • A Militia began making bombs made out of Blast Shards. In a Side Mission, Cole may either kill him (evil action) or capture him (good action).[2]
    • Regardless of what Cole does, the bombs will still continue to appear.[2]
  • In InFamous 2, after all Blast Shards are collected, Blast Shard bombs will stop appearing, so will citizens holding Blast Shards.[2]
  • Draining a Blast Shard Bomb to disarm it resembles the way you drain the bombs during "The Price" in InFamous.
  • When playing on the First Light battle areas, Both Abigail and Delsin can drain special powers from colored gunner drones after they are destroyed. It seems that they are powered by Blast Shards.
    • Different colors give different powers for a limited time. Purple/Pink grands invincibility, Blue increases the power of a basic R2 attack, Green allows the player to do an unlimited amount of finishing moves, and Yellow/Gold doubles the point multiplier.
    • Curiously in First Light, Abigail was able to drain the energy from a standard drone the same way Delsin does when she had broken out of the D.U.P prison. No explanation is given, but it's possible that Augustine replaced the standard power source with a neon one so Abigail could have the power to kill Shane.
    • Interestingly, while Cole absorbed the entire Blast Shard, Delsin drained the energy from the shard, but left the shard itself remaining as an empty container. It's possible that while the shards in Infamous and Infamous 2 were true Blast Shards, the Blast Shards in Infamous: Second Son were man-made containers for storing actual Blast Shards; this would explain why only Delsin could absorb them, but not Augustine, as only Cole and Delsin have ever showed the ability to naturally adsorb Blast Shards.

Gallery

References

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