"And dangerous?"
"Probably that too."
The Manifold
The Manifold is a Shaper relic that can amplify and augment the qualities of other objects.
Matthias Sumner tasked the Freelancer with locating the Manifold, claiming that it might be useful in building the Javelin of Dawn. The Dominion also pursued the device; one of their scouts may have been exposed to the Manifold and duplicated twice. Regardless, the Freelancer retrieved it and returned it to Matthias in Fort Tarsis. He got it working, and sure enough, had two duplicates of himself made. The Freelancer suggested they stay out of trouble while they figured out what to do.[1] Aruna Kaule later explained that the scout had suffered from reality decay, and by extension, so was Matthias.[2] Eventually, after the Freelancer returns to the Shaper ruin to analyze the Dominion duplicates' remains, Matthias concludes that the only way to keep all three of them from dying was to allow the Manifold to finish its full cycle, at the cost of keeping him permanently divided.[3]