Headscratchers / Steven Universe General

• How on Earth did Steven not pick up on hints that Garnet was a fusion until she split up the first time? It stands to reason that he should have realized sometime between the time he learned about fusion in "Giant Women" and the time he met Ruby and Sapphire in "Jail Break." She has two gems in plain view. Every other gem, himself included, has one. When she opens the temple door, two circles light up. He even knows she has three eyes, while every other non-fusion gem he knows has the normal human number of every body part. He's a smart kid, he should have realized.
  • He only knows three Gems, which are wildly different from each other, and for basically all his life he didn't know about fusions, so even when he learned that Gems were able to do that, he had no reason to think Garnet was any different from Pearl or Amethyst, it was just how Garnet was.
    • Steven is smart, but he's also not at all inquisitive and his deep love and trust in the Crystal Gems made him completely miss the idea that they could be hiding things from him or possess hidden flaws until said things came up in intense situations, despite numerous signs ahead of time.
  • Steven might be smart, but you're forgetting that there was a significant portion of the fandom that actually denied Garnet was a fusion. I'd wager a good portion of them are smart, too. It was "obvious" to us, and yet for some people, it just wasn't a possibility or even something they consciously made note of.
    • And if that's how the fandom was and most are teenagers to adults, then what chance would a 12 year old have at discovering the truth?
  • Technically, Steven knew six (uncorrupted) Gems before "The Return"/"Jail Break": Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, Rose (he never met her, but knew what she looked like), Lapis, and Peridot. But there's also the fact that Garnet only has two arms, while every other Gem fusion he'd met before that (Opal, Sugilite, and Alexandrite, excluding the 3/4 human Stevonnie) has more than two.
  • The Gems were very protective of Steven growing up and didn't go into many specifics about their abilities with him. He understands very little about Gems in general. He had no idea fusion was even a possibility for Gems before Amethyst mentioned it in an argument with Pearl. The first fusion he saw being made was Opal, who is much larger, stronger, and more obviously inhuman than her components. She was also difficult for Pearl and Amethyst to maintain and fell apart shortly after they completed their mission. With only Opal as a point of comparison, why would he suspect Garnet, who is physically very different than Opal and has never had to separate herself, of being a fusion?
  • Besides, aside from Garnet being physically very different than the other fusions that he's familiar with, Steven, like most twelve-year-olds, doesn't naturally assume that his parental figures have been lying about or hiding highly important details about their identities.

• Why does Onion not talk? Is he deaf? Autistic? Just quiet? Does he have some sort of condition? Is he mute? What's up with this cute little kid?
  • He just doesn't feel like it.
    • Bigger question, where are his EARS? Everyone else has them and the Gems seem to hide theirs with their hair. What's Onion's excuse?
    • He's secretly a gem monster and the Big Bad. Dun dun dun!
    • Well, considering that his hair and skin are darker and lighter shades of the same color, which fits the rest of the Gems (even Steven's skin is somewhat pink/rose-colored), the theory that he's a Gem, good or bad, has some credibility.
    • What if he was made in the kindergarten?
    • Another name for synthetic diamonds is carbon onion.
    • "Onion Friend" revealed that Onion keeps a video of Vidalia giving birth to him, so it's impossible for him to be a gem.
    • For the ears thing, it's actually possible for humans to be born without ears. It's called ear agenesis.
  • Maybe he doesn't speak English? He speaks to his dad and it sounds like gibberish to Steven.
  • It seems most likely at this point that he's autistic. Onion would have grown up in Beach City, so even if he speaks some other language from his dad, he would have been immersed in English from the get-go. However, he's shown communicating by talking to his mother and having her repeat things to others. Being selective about who you speak to is not unheard of for people on the autism spectrum. The gibberish may just be artistic licence to help show that other people aren't supposed to hear what he says. He's still creepy for other reasons though.
  • It prompts audiences to diagnose him with various disorders.
  • Given Sour Cream's outburst in "Drop Beat Dad," it seems confirmed that the "Charlie Brown Language" that Onion and Yellowtail use is legitimate in the Steven Universe Universe

• If Steven is in trouble if all three Gems are there, why is it usually Pearl worried/saving him? Only on a few times does Amethyst or Garnet save him. It seems like her catchphrase is "STEVEN!" Almost every time, the other two just kind of stand there.
  • Well I can't attest for Amethyst who's overall mood sometimes is just "Whatever" most of the time. But Garnet seems to understand that Steven is more capable than what the audience is shown and what Pearl seems to believe. After while Steven does mess up a lot, he's also pulled through and solved many solutions in as Garnet puts it "his own Steven-y way".
  • Whenever Steven's really in danger, the Gems all do their best to protect him. Pearl usually is the quickest to react though, probably because she's always keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn't hurt himself.
  • Pearl fusses over Amethyst a little as well. She's that sort of person.
    • Garnet can foresee that Pearl helping him has the best outcome for both of them in those cases. Amethyst knows this and also has experienced Pearl's maternal instincts herself. All three gems freak when there's really something to freak out about.
  • It also could just be an established role at this point. They know if things get dangerous they can't all rush to Steven. Amethyst is a bit too unreliable to fill that role herself, and Garnet is the strongest of the gems and is a bit too valuable to have to run off quite often. Pearl has heavy attention to detail and is the most agile member of the team. Plus Pearl would definitely argue for herself/have already been in the habit of doing it, due to her previous honor she took in protecting Rose at any cost to her own safety, which she has transferred over onto Steven.
  • The latest episode offer an alternate reason. With Pink Diamond revealed to be Rose in disguise, and Pearl being Pink's Pearl, she's still following her original programming to protect her diamond.

• Has anybody noticed that Pearl and Amethyst seem like they have a crush on each other? They seem Ambiguously Gay.
  • To me, their relationship seems to be more like sisters or a mother and daughter than anything romantic. Not every relationship between two females is romantic you know.
    • As someone who has a relationship with her sister that is pretty much identical to Amethyst and Pearl's (plus the fact that all the gems are supposed to represent aspects of Rebecca Sugar, who is the real Steven's older sister), I completely second the Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling vibe being what the show is going for.
    • I think "On the Run" especially showcased this dynamic.
  • It's always seemed to me like all three of the Crystal Gems have a complicated Ambiguously Gay relationship with each other.
    • How? Because I'm not seeing it.
    • Amethyst and Pearl's love-hate relationship (which really comes to a head when they try to fuse), Pearl and Garnet dynamic of being surrogate mothers to Steven, Amethyst's excitement to fuse with Garnet and Pearl's blushing reaction to said fusion dance. It's easy to not see anything there if you don't care to look, but they are all members of a seemingly One-Gender Race who've spent a long time together and Gems clearly aren't asexual, so there's no reason why there's couldn't be any romantic tension there.
    • During Pearl and Garnet's fusion dancing instructions, Pearl noticeably blushes, and the dance ends with Pearl up against a wall with Garnet's hands on either side of her head. Pearl also covers Steven's eyes like a mother shielding her child from something inappropriate when Garnet and Amethyst fuse into Sugilite.
    • One has to wonder why the only remaining possible fusion among the three gems—Pearl and Garnet—hasn't been so much as mentioned.
    • What love-hate relationship with between Pearl and Garnet? Amethyst really doesn't get along with Pearl so naturally, she would jump at the chance to fuse with someone else. Word of God seems to confirm the Gems are indeed asexual. The Gems have an interesting dynamic with Steven; all three alternate the roles of both mother and sister to Steven. And really, if they've know each other for a long time, wouldn't that negate possible romantic tension.
    • Given that the title character of the show is the hybrid product of a romantic relationship between a Gem and a human, it seems safe to assume that the Gems aren't necessarily asexual.
    • Asexual people often have romantic orientations. Rose could have loved Greg romantically and wanted to have a child with him without feeling any sexual attraction.
    • What Word of God meant by asexual was that the Gems do not have a gender, not a sexuality
    • That's REALLY not what asexual means.
    • Asexual has two meanings. The first is strictly biological and refers to an organism which reproduces without the blending of haploids, these are usually simple organisms such as amoeba and bacteria. But, some starfish are known to reproduce this way. The other meaning is Psychological/Sociological and refers to someone who doesn't experience sexual attraction to anyone. I assume the Crewnivese are referring to the former meaning.
    • The norm for Gems may be asexual instead of heterosexual, but that doesn't mean that gems can't have sexualities at all. Pearl's love for Rose was not hidden at all, and both she and Garnet have been confirmed to be gay (Well, Garnet is at least a product of two gay gems, but still.) And even if they are agender, they can still be gay, because they're all feminine-presenting and use the same pronouns.
    • Okay, I think it's time to clear some stuff up: an asexual is not attracted to any gender sexually. An agender does not identify as any gender. An aromantic (which is the key term that has been missing here) is not attracted to any gender romantically. As far as I can tell, all Gems are asexual (and probably agender), and most of them are aromantic to the point of not understanding the concept of romance. It seems like Garnet was a first romantic relationship in Gem history, but pearl's feelings for Rose are definitely romantic in my opinion, and Greg and Rose have a romantic relation, so it's at least not unheard of on earth. But I really think it might be a Crystal Gem thing.
    • Actually asexual also means that you can reproduce without a second party which is essentially what the gem race does by injecting gem goop into the ground

• Why did people think Onion was a part of the Fryman family? Besides the food based name there's no actual proof.
  • ...You know what; I was one of those people and I'M not even sure why I thought that.
  • People probably saw that Onion had blond hair, a food related name, and head shape like Fryman and let their Headcanon do the rest.
  • Maybe he's related to Sour Cream.
    • Confirmed! At least, adopted. (Joy Ride)
    • Double-confirmed. As of Onion Friend, Onion is the son of Vidalia and Yellowtail (currently married), while Sourcream is the son of Vidalia and Marty.

• So, does the "Gem cracking/breaking = Being Killed Off For Real" concerning the Gems not necessarily apply for every gem? I mean, we saw how bad it got for Amethyst in "Indirect Kiss", and it didn't even completely shatter. Yet in "Mirror/Ocean Gem", Lapis's Gemstone was cracked, and the only thing that did to her was make her eyes basically look like mirrors and stop her from creating Wings made of water and inhibit her ability to fly. She obviously wasn't in any immediate danger of dying or looking like she was getting any dramatic side effects from that and what not, given she was able to easily put up a fight against the Gems with the Ocean for half of the episode. Could it have to do with her being the Strongest Gem we've seen so far?
  • Maybe it works differently for different gems, or depends on how the damage occurred. She was probably sealed away whole and then took damage, corrupting her but still leaving her powers intact.
  • Lapis was pretty hostile when she came out of the mirror and didn't really calm down until Steven managed to talk some sense into her. Maybe her crack affected her mind and reasoning and she ended up dwelling on the fear of Crystal Gems?
  • Think of the gems as a computer and their body/mind/powers as a program the computer is running. Lapis's crack busted the fan and maybe loosened a few wires at worst, causing sub-optimal performance. Judging by how bad she got and how quickly she got there Amethyst's crack was more like snapping the motherboard in half, and it's a miracle she worked at all.
  • It's also implied that the stronger the willpower, the less difficult it is for the cracked gem to tear its body apart. Of all the single gems, Lapis likely has the strongest willpower. She was able to hold Malachite down for months without losing control, in spite of Jasper's strength. While her power is stronger than Jasper's, Jasper is physically stronger and, seeing as they were trapped under the ocean, she wasn't able to utilize any power other than her wings.

• How much contact do the Crystal Gems have with the people of Beach City? They've been around for thousands of years and live in a very obvious temple in the shape of a giant, eight-armed woman and fight very destructive magical creature regularly. Despite this, the people not only fail to recognize them, but seem to have no understanding of who or even what they are on even a superficial level. The Gems, meanwhile, seem to be surprisingly ignorant of concepts as basic as birthdays and school despite regularly partaking in pop culture. I realize that the Gems don't go out of their way to interact with humans, but at least some information exchange should happen passively.
  • Birthdays can be justified by giving a difference between Knowledge you "need" to know and knowledge you are "interested" to know. Since the way Gems age seems to be completely alien to how human does (for starters, the concept of aging seems to be entirely psychological instead of biological), birthdays is not really a concept they can really understand since they don't seem to use years to define age, in other words, unless they had a deeper enough interest in human holidays and celebrations, they would not be able to tell a "birthday" apart from other dates were people give away gifts. School, on the other hand would be a little easier to explain since the concept of a school (A place were you go to learn) would fit the interests of someone like Pearl, who has a respect for history and knowledge as well as trying the hardest to be a mentor to Steven.
  • That doesn't explain why the people of Beach City seem to understand so little about the Gems. They've been around for potentially thousands of years, certainly longer than the town itself, and regularly go out in public as well as fight very noticeable battles with Gem monsters on a regular basis. Obviously you don't expect them to have all the details, but they should at least be able to recognize the Gems as either heroes or at least troublemakers with real powers.
    • I'm not so sure the citizens of Beach City are engaged or smart enough to care about or realize the implications of what goes on around them. Remember, these are the people who when the OCEAN suddenly disappeared worried about local tourism instead of, say, the global economy, the ecology, the Earth's climate, etc.
    • The aforementioned possibility of the gems having been in the area before Beach City was even founded may actually explain this. If the gems were already there, then it's possible that the resident humans simply take their actions for granted just because stuff like that has been happening there for longer than there's been recorded history; one also has to consider chances are the gems have consistently pushed away anyone who took interest in their activities for safety purposes, like how rose quartz wanted Greg to stay out of any magical business, so the general populace's ignorance on anything gem related may very well be due to the gems themselves wanting it that way.
  • They used to have a fence.

• I actually have a related question. How come the presence of the Gems doesn't ever seem to draw the attention of anyone outside Beach City? You'd think, at the very least after the aforementioned ocean-stealing incident, the government, the military, etc. would be swarming the place looking for clues about what the Gems are, how they work, and whether they're a threat. But the closest we ever get to that is the city's mayor. Is the world really just that clueless, or do the Gems have some sort of Extra-Strength Masquerade that they're not telling us about?
  • Or they're aware and just don't give a damn?
  • Given that they've been around for 3000 years (i.e. longer than any human civilization) and clearly not made any real attempt to hide, it's entirely possible that the government(s) of the world already know all they need to know about them and just let them do their thing.
    • There's still Gem ruins dotted around the Earth from before humans had civilization, so humans grew up alongside evidence that the Gems existed. It's possible that the Crystal Gems had sporadic contact with human civilizations throughout antiquity and the middle ages, then more extensive contact when North America was first colonized (assuming human history occurred similarly to real history). So the US-equivilant's government probably already know who they are and Rose made an agreement with the Founding Fathers that they're not to be bothered.

• So do the Gems need to breathe or not? Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl are shown gasping for air in Cheeseburger Backpack, but Steven and Lapis have a conversation at the outer edge of the earth's atmosphere, and Lapis is able to fly through outer space. This is made all the more confusing by the fact that Steven was nearly suffocated not two minutes before said conversation.
  • Maybe Lapis (and possibly other gems) can create a mini-atmosphere around herself?
  • Given that Steven was perfectly fine for that entire conversation and we know he has human limitations, we can only assume that they were low enough that there was at least some atmosphere or that the production crew simply didn't consider the issue. It's unknown if all Gems really need to breathe, but Lapis either doesn't or has some method of protecting herself from the dangers of space travel as she "flies" through it. Even if they don't need air to live, they certainly need it to speak, so they'd still have to take breaths.
  • There's also the possibility that the water column made by Lapis wasn't that tall, and Steven just had the impression of being at the outer edge of the earth's atmosphere. After all, if you think about it, if someone really used the entire ocean to create a tower to reach outer space and the tower collapsed, then all coastal areas of the planet (or at least the big majority of them) would be completely ravaged by tsunamis.
  • It's possible that it wasn't so much the problem that they don't need to breathe in space but can drown in water as it is the possibility of choking. In a vacuum, it's possible that they, like stated before, can form a small atmosphere around them, but in any drowning situation, they aren't given enough time to form an atmosphere and thus can choke on the water.
  • In "Island Adventure", the Gems tell Steven that he can't come back with them to the island. When Steven asks why, they tell him they're going underwater and Pearl remarks "And you do need air to breathe". Also, in "Giant Woman", Garnet has to swim in lava to retrieve the Earth Beetle, and she only brings goggles, so there seems to be an implication that gems don't need oxygen at all.
  • Confirmed in Lion 3: direct to video, the "space" inside lions mane has no oxygen in it, gems don't need air.
  • Also on Bubbled, Steven survives by making a bubble around himself while lost in space but Eyeball is outside the bubble and is doing fine, she is even able to talk.

• How does Greg always have sunburn lines as if he's wearing a t-shirt and longer trousers? He only ever wears a tank top and yet his farmer's tan contradicts this.
  • It's indicated that he got the tan back when he was with Rose, when he wore clothing that would make a proper farmer's tan. You can see it in "Lion 3: Direct to Video".
    • Tan lines only last for, at most, maybe a month or two after a person changes their style of dress and/or stops getting as much sun, so it's pretty certain that Greg's tan lines didn't last for ten years. It's possible that he does wear outfits that would account for the tan-lines, just not too often when we see him. Or it could just be a little bit of Rule of Funny.
    • This troper's dad used to be out in the sun a lot more when he was younger. These days, the most sun exposure he gets is when he's mowing the lawn. Yet he has the tan lines year-round.
  • A common fan theory is that when Rose gave up her physical form, she erupted into light which gave Greg a permanent tan.

• How the heck does Beach City keep returning to normal after each incident? When the Red Eye attacked, there was all that debris. When the puffer fish attacked, Garnet smashed the Fish Stew Pizza sign. And when those drillasites attacked, the Funland arcade got pretty messed up. What's happening?
  • Mayor Dewey is really good at keeping people from noticing...
  • Alternatively, people are just really use to all the weirdness at this point and just roll with whatever is happening.
  • It has been implied that the Earth in-show has some major differences from our own - for instance, Hollywood is in Kansas, according to Jamie. Maybe the Earth as a whole is just used to weird shit happening, because it's been going on since the Gems arrived on Earth (i.e. before the start of recorded history)?
    • Um, really surprised that I can't find any record of this here, but "Steven's Earth" is certainly far different than ours, especially considering THE GIANT HOLE IN THE MIDDLE OF RUSSIA.
  • I bet the Crystal Gems help repair the local property damage, when they're not otherwise busy.

• If their gems are more or less the thing you need to hit to kill them, then why aren't they like covered in heavy armor around them? Even the homeworld fighter like Jasper doesn't really have anything to protect their gem. I don't know it just seems like if you had the obvious a weak-point you would want to protect it better.
  • It does seem as if quite a few of their abilities require that their gem be exposed to work. Any power that needs to be projected from the gem, would likely be inhibited with the use of cumbersome armor. This would also be true for many of the gems, if they wanted to manifest their weapons.
  • There isn't much incentive to cover a "weak point" when enemies can pierce the rest of your body with a sharp wooden stick and have their way with you while you regenerate. Judging by the impact that caused Amethyst to slowly crack, space rocks are more durable than they appear.
    Though there is still the question of why they don't wear full-body armor. If I had to guess, I'd say a naturally polymorphic species just can't stand it.
    • Maybe that why Steven has issues with his powers, he the only gem who actually covers his up.
    • It might be a contributing factor, at the least. I do recall Steven pulling up his shirt a lot, when he was still trying to learn his powers.
    • Also, Rose Quartz, who had the gem previously always kept her gem uncovered
    • It is a strength, because it means we must always face our enemies.
    • It does appear from ''Three Gems and A Baby" that Gems naturally don't like having their gems covered, even Steven at that stage. Presumably as Steven's gotten older, his tolerance for mildly uncomfortable sensations has improved.

• Why do people keep complaining that this is a rip off of Adventure Time? The tone, setting, characters, and art style are all completely different.
  • I think there are similarities (I love both!), but mostly people who say that are just bitter about Sugar leaving AT.

• What the unholy fudge-bunnies even is Lion? I've re-watched the episodes where he's prominent and even done what research online, and the most information we seem to have is that he's "connected to Rose somehow." Did Rose make it? Is it just a normal pet for gems? Shouldn't the gems be looking into this? Shouldn't they try and figure out what the living super-weapon has to do with their dead friend? Or is "not actively killing them" seriously the only prerequisite it needed to join their team?
  • Either the gems know fully what the fudge-bunnies Lion is and haven't bothered explaining, or it will eventually be part of an episode and they are leaving us wondering on purpose.
    • Pearl's reaction in "Rose's Scabbard" makes it pretty clear that the Gems don't know what Lion is or where he came from. Nobody does. As for why they let him live in the house, he's Steven's friend and doesn't have anywhere else to go.
    • If the presence of the video tape inside Lion's mane is any indication, Lion might be a recent creation that Rose made soon before having Steven, so he could have a physical way of relating to her.
    • With the latest group of episodes ending in Lars' Head, it's now apparent that Lion was a real lion, who was healed/resurrected by Rose.

• So this is something that occurred to this troper fairly recently, but considering how physically superior many Gems are to a normal human, and the fact that the Crystal Gems in particular have dedicated themselves to protecting human kind, would that including protecting them from themselves? More specifically, say there's a radical extremist group like Al Qaeda or Boko Haram somewhere in the world, which it seems reasonable to assume there might be as of the show's timescale, particularly if the Gems aren't overly well-known about by humans in general, given that their presence on Earth over the last 5000 years hasn't exactly been flashy. Would the Gems have any desire to help deal with a group of this sort, given the obviously detrimental effect it would have on human culture, and if not, why not?
  • From what we've seen, the Crystal Gems just protect humans from other Gems and Gem-related things, as a way of making up for the invasion. They don't have even close to the numbers to fight crime in any meaningful way, anyway.
  • Not to mention that a group as baffled by human behavior as the Gems would have trouble deciding which side of a war to join. If one side says "we're freedom fighters" and one side says "they're terrorists" they don't have enough knowledge of humanity to know the difference. I can see the compassionate, loves-humans Rose as a person who'd listen to every side of the story and err on the side of avoiding war entirely than risk killing or harming the wrong person. Especially as from their perspective, human wars always sort themselves out on their own in a few years.
    • The whole point of the rebellion from Rose's POV was to allow Earth and humans to find their own path free of Gem dominance, be it positive or negative. Acting as self-righteous "superheroes" (as opposed to saving individual human lives) would be hypocritical on their part.
  • We've never really seen a human villain. There's been no mention of terrorists or dictators or whatnot. Maybe the humans of Steven Universe are just nicer than the humans of real life. Maybe their inherent kindness is part of what inspired Rose to defend them. Or maybe the Crystal Gems have been dealing with human bad guys, but after a few thousand years they managed to weed out most of that stuff and now its only Homeworld that poses any real threat.

• General question here. How does a fusion know her new name after being fused for the first time? Does it just pop into their head when they first see their colour scheme and all? Or are the names given to them by those who witness their fusion, which is probably the same way normal gems get their names (from the gems overseeing the Kindergartens)?
  • They just have a degree of inherent knowledge. There's never been any indication of education or training involved in any Gem's life, except in Pearl's case which is specifically stated to be her reaching beyond her place in life.
  • Judging by Smokey Quartz's response to first being created, it takes a few moments to figure it out, but they do pretty much instinctively know their name.
  • Peridot mentions in "Gem Drill" that Gems are created knowing who they are and what their role is the minute they burst out of the ground. Maybe for the fusion it happens similarly, though not as instantaneously (As seen by Smoky Quartz), as Peridot implies.

• OK, so when multiple different kinds of gems fuse, it creates a new form that, in addition to being bigger, combines aspects of the component's bodies. And when 2 or more of the same gem type fuse, you just get a bigger gem of that type. But what happens when a fusion is not completely homogenous, but also has more than one of the same gem type?
  Like if you added a second Ruby to Sugilite, would Sugilite just get a bit bigger, with it being the same since no new Gem types were added? Or, would it become something else entirely (with skin more towards the reddish side of the purple spectrum, a more Ruby-esque body shape, and named after a mineral whose color better matches the new skin) due to the proportions being thrown off (gone from 1/3 Ruby to 1/2 Ruby)?
  • It would have resulted in a slightly bigger, slightly stronger Sugilite. Gems of the same type just form a bigger stronger Gem of the same type, and since a fusion isn't affected by the order in which the Gems fuse then all that changes is size and power.

• Where do Pearls come from in this universe? Space oysters?
  • Same place as most other gems, likely, just probably made on a smaller time scale due to the nature of their purpose.
  • Answered in Future; they're apparently made in a room called The Reef, with a character called The Shell. So in a weird way yes, space oysters.

• What exactly is the point of including all those trivial little differences between this show's universe and the real world? Like "the state called Keystone." We see a picture of it and it is obviously Pennsylvania. Why not just call it Pennsylvania? I feel like any historical difference significant enough to make the state have a different name would also alter its border.
  • Worldbuilding; It's stated several times (Whether in the show or by Word of God) that Gems coming to Earth had major repercussions, both historically and geographically. The little tidbits tell us what's changed.
    • There's a Siberian Sea for starters...

• If the Crystal Gems were originally just Rose Quartz and Pearl, why is Garnet now their leader even though Pearl has seniority on her?
  • Pearl explained it in one episode: Garnet has enhanced perceptions that let them find threats and figure out how to deal with them. Also she has actual leadership qualities unlike Amethyst and Pearl.
  • Pearl also has natural tendencies towards subservience, as noted by Peridot. Though she is insulted by the implications and tries to deny it, she does seem to feel more at ease when deferring to someone of greater authority.

• This is a classic one, but why do the Homeworld Gems speak English? It's a somewhat more interesting question for this story, because the use of English (a language which has gendered pronouns) forces the gems to use gendered pronouns for themselves despite being a genderless race. It makes sense for the Crystal Gems, having lived on earth, to assume gendered pronouns for themselves (in this case, female-gendered because the default gem body looks broadly feminine to humans.) It doesn't make sense for Homeworld gems who have had no contact with Earth culture to do the same thing. Logically, Jasper, Peridot, and the Diamonds ought to find the idea of being gendered the way earth's biological creatures are to be weird and disgusting.
  • One possibility is that the language that the humans speak is actually Gem language (which they started using when the gems were colonizing their planet.) This would imply that its female pronouns were originally considered genderless, and that humans added male ones and turned it into a gendered language over time. (It wouldn't explain the total absence of any meaningful linguistic drift beyond that despite thousands of years of separation from the homeworld, though.)
  • Another possibility is that the homeworld gems don't speak English, and that the gems (intended for conquering a variety of worlds) have Translator Microbes built in.
  • It could also be the other way around. Gems seem to predate modern humanity, maybe early humans learned to speak gem (although they developed their own writing system) and it became the precursor language to English instead of say... Latin. Although more likely it's just translation convention because putting alien linguistics in a children's cartoon would be dull.

• How exactly did Rose "give up" her physical form to make Steven? They never explained this in the show, only saying that Steven and Rose can't both exist. How exactly did it play out?
  • Given how in Change Your Mind their gemstone morphed from the forms of Pink Diamond and Rose Quartz before settling on Pink Steven, I think the best way to put it would be that Rose permanently combined her consciousness and physical form with the human that had been growing in her womb, erasing all her memory in the process.

• Assuming that the light/sound that Centi saw when she became corrupted is indeed what corrupted the gems on Earth, shouldn't Amethyst have also been corrupted when this happened?
  • She wasn't born yet.
    • Related to that, we also know that Lapis was on Earth at the time, too. She was just stuck inside of the mirror. I like to think of them as being akin to living computers. In some way or another, the mirror was like a firewall protected Lapis' "software" so she wasn't corrupted. Amethyst may have been similar in that way, in that her "hardware" wasn't completed, so her "software" wasn't installed and therefore was also not corrupted.

• So, when 2 Gems of different types fuse, they form an entirely new type of gem. But could these fusion-gems also form naturally in the kindergartens? For example, can there be a gem that is actually born (for lack of a better term) as a Garnet (though, of course, having only 1 stone then) rather than being a fusion between a Ruby and a Sapphire?
  • Given that gems seem to be able to spot a fusion on sight I'm going to have to say no, fusions never grow naturally.
    • The question isn't if fusions can grow naturally, but if their gem type (or what they call themselves) as a fusion grow naturally as a single gem. Blue Diamond remarks "Did that...call herself...a Garnet?" when confronted with Ruby and Sapphire's fusion, which sort of implies that there are Garnets out there and Blue Diamond doesn't think our Garnet is one.
    • However it is possible for a single gem version of a fusion to exist, As proved with Hessonite from "Save the light" Whom has some body similarities with Garnet (Similar hair build, and heterochromia eyes), and in real life, Hessonite is a type of Garnet.

• What are the the government and military doing during all this? You'd think if invading aliens are a proven thing then the worlds government would be going all watchmen and uniting against homeworld.
  • The people of the world know that gems exist and that magic and monsters exist but they don't have any details. It took them thirteen years just for Steven to find out they were aliens who invaded Earth, the gems don't bother talking to and especially not explaining themselves to humans in general. Remember, the gems have been on Earth for thousands of years, there's no new revelation on their parts, it's just how their world has always been.
  • It's been 6000 years since humans last saw any Gems aside from the 3 that live in Beach City—and those 3 kept human contact to a minimum before Steven. Aliens had a huge civil war on Earth 6 millennia ago? Sounds like conspiracy theory material.

• How come when Steven fuses with Connie they both glow but when he fused with Amethyst it seemed like only Amethyst was glowing and Steven was himself? Would that mean Steven can't make a perfect fusion with them or is it in part that he's still getting the hang of fusion with someone other than Connie?

• Why did the Diamonds just leave Earth be after causing the Corruption? Most of the Homeworld forces had been successfully evacuated, and they had every reason to believe that the opposition had been reduced to mindless monsters. You'd think the logical thing to do at that point was to return to the planet and resume the building of the colony.
  • Because they don't care about the resources or potential of the Earth, they want the planet to die. Rose Quartz tainted the Earth for them so they want to destroy it. Possibly out of grief over Pink Diamond.
  • Perhaps they were afraid of the Earth itself. Peridot and Jasper both very quickly came to the conclusion that it was something about the Earth's environment that was causing Gems to go "insane" (read: develop personalities). It's easy to imagine a group like the Diamonds, who stubbornly refuse to treat their fully sentient slaves as individuals, might treat the desire for freedom as some kind of environmental corruption and quarantine the planet that caused it. Even Garnet's implied once or twice that rejecting rules is just something that happens on Earth.
  • It was Pink's colony; neither Yellow nor Blue wanted to take over and finish the colony that killed someone they loved. Instead they planted the cluster so they could have a geowepon, thereby getting use out of the Earth without having to be near such painful memories.
    • It got explained in "Legs From Here to Homeworld" where Blue tells Steven, "we blasted the planet and obliterated every Gem on its surface." Basically, the Diamonds thought that the Corruption blast would shatter all Gems still there. If there was some miracle Rose Quartz still survived and/or to forget about the Earth, then Yellow sanctioned the Cluster.

• Exactly how does Amethyst's stomach work? Is it the same as a human's or is it tougher and more resilient? We seem to get conflicting portrayals. In "So Many Birthdays" she eats a rotten old burrito and it's shown to make her violently ill, as anyone would get from eating nasty food; but "Reformed" seems to establish that she regularly eats motor oil with her sandwiches, which would probably also make her pretty sick, although (as Pearl did point out once) eating poison couldn't kill a gem. Is motor oil just so tasty that she tolerates the projectile vomiting?
  • I like to think that the Gems' digestive systems are basically plastic; there isn't anything going on beyond mechanical digestion and peristalsis. The motor oil is likely a lubricant to help it pass through, since the food probably can't form a proper bolus, chyme, or feces.

• Why hasn't anyone sat down with Peridot and interviewed her on everything she knows about modern Homeworld that could be useful?
  • Who says they haven't? Such a conversation would not have included Steven, and since the show is almost entirely from his perspective he learns things as we learn them. Also, it would take quite a while to figure out what she'd need to explain as she wouldn't know what has changed since they were around. They don't even seem to be aware of some of the things that were from their own time on Homeworld.

• Here's my question: How in the wide world of sports do pearls work as a Power Crystal? Crystal Gems dope rock crystals with Life Energy to reproduce, correct? I assume the crystalline matrix of the jewel stores this energy and the rudiments of a personality, which then develops into a fully grown Gem. Pearls are neither crystalline nor minerals, being basically oyster snot hardened around a grain of sand. No matrix to store data or Liquid Assets in. And apparently, only precious stones work, so why do pearls count but rock salt, gallium, silicon, obsidian, or iron don't?
  • The engineering behind injector process for gem creation is not explained in much detail, only that it has a significantly draining effect on the area it is performed. Peridot explained that pearls are "made to order servants" and status symbols which probably means that they are made individually instead of using injectors. Pearls are principally composed of calcium carbonate, and have a minute crystalline form, and have concentric layers like a jaw breaker. That could be as usable of a matrix as anything else assuming one was necessary. Bismuth is the first elementally metallic "gem" that we see, and the hopper structure of her crystal is only possible in real life through an electrochemical process. This isn’t a unique feature of synthetic bismuth or even metals.

• I know Rubys are both dumb and discouraged of thinking critically but, how did Eyeball and Doc fail to see the Crystal Gems/ the barn despite they were in their line of sight? Or the purple gem on "Jasper"'s chest?
  • They're that stupid, quite simply. They fell for Jasper being on Neptune.
  • There is a difference between stupidity and myopia, though.
    • Rule of Funny
  • Given the rigid caste system of Homeworld the idea of one gem impersonating anouther is likely so alien it's unthinkable.

• Why do people assume Ruby only has one gauntlet and Sapphire the other? We've seen all the Gems summon as many weapons as they needed many times. Ruby only summoned one because she only needed one, did I miss something? Was there evidence elsewhere?
  • I think they don't have their own gauntlets, they inherit them from Garnet; also it would be kind of hard for them to summon more than one, seeing as the gauntlet surrounds the hand with the gem, it would not be easy to put the gauntlet on normally the way they are designed, they would have to shape-shift each time!
    • This doesn't work with what we've seen regarding fusions and their weapons. With every full-Gem fusion we've seen, the fusion's weapon(s) consists of the weapons and abilities of their components, potentially combined in various ways. There is no indication whatsoever that the reverse is possible. Also, the gauntlets are summoned magically. They form around Ruby/Garnet's hands rather than needing to be pulled on, so there's no difficulty in them being put on. We see this literally every time Ruby/Garnet summons their weapons. As for the initial question, a lot of people wrongly think a Gem only has one "copy" of their weapon. By that false logic, the "missing" gauntlet that Garnet has must come from Sapphire, and this makes sense to them because of how Garnet's narrative theme of duality is often linked to her being a fusion. They're just wrong about how Gem weapons work. There's been no indication that Sapphire has a gauntlet as a unique weapon, and it seems more likely that her Future Vision is her weapon the same way Lapis' hydrokinesis is (confirmed by Word of God) her weapon despite it not being a physical weapon.
    • Perhaps, Sapphire's cryokinesis allows her to form the knuckles, and that's what we see on Garnet's gloves.
  • Most of this has already been said above, so bear with me, Gems each from their own weapon so each type of Gem has their own weapon to form but individual gems have the same weapon (E.G. all Rubies (or would it be Ruby's?) have the same dagger). Each Gem can summon multiples of their weapon as required (as seen by Pearl summoning two swords or Amethyst summoning multiple whips). When two different gems fuse, their weapons also do (Pearl's sword and Amethyst's whip fusing into a bow), with the components of the weapon forming it (Pearl's sword forms the handle and limbs of the bow, with Amethyst's whip being the string). With this in mind, we can gather that The Ruby that makes up Garnet would put their dagger into the knuckles of the gauntlets, since they appear to be spiked. With this in mind, the dagger must make up those parts of both the gauntlets, since Sapphire would have a different weapon (although given the role of sapphires within Gem society, It seems more likely to be a tool (Hand of Fate, anyone?). Neither of them owns or creates one specific gauntlet, since they would then look very different to each other as they would each come from two very different Gems.
    • Incorrect. Gem types do not all have the same weapon, we have seen CG Ruby summon a gauntlet. That is her weapon, she has never even been implied to have the chisel-like dagger that Eyeball has. Bismuth essentially states that gem types don't all have the same weapon by being surprised that Amethyst has a whip. If all Amethysts had the same weapon, there would be no reason for Bismuth to react the way she did.
    • Bismuth's words were "Not any Amethyst could make a whip like this." She was amazed by the quality of the weapon, not the fact that Amethyst had one, this gives the idea that Amethysts commonly have whips. Of course there's good evidence that certain gems of the same type have different gems to each other. Our Ruby is seen having a gauntlet/glove in one episode. Eyeball is seen using a dagger. This makes sense with weapon placing, it wouldn't be much use to have a glove sticking out of your eye or having to put a hand inside your gem to summon a glove. This would also add to the deadliness of fusions since they could use multiple weapons with enough arms (or maybe with just two arms depending on the weapons). It still begs the question how weapon modifications work and why they're even needed.

• It's stated that Homeworld is running out of resources and implied that the reason for their colonizing/harvesting of other planets is that they need more. But what does Homeworld need resources for? Gems appear to be perpetual motion people that don't consume anything, their technology likewise seems to run indefinitely, and barring serious injury or unlikely accidents they're functionally immortal. The only thing they need resources for is to make more gems, and the only reason they'd need more gems is to gather more resources. Is Homeworld just caught in a loop of unnecessary expansion? Are the diamonds keeping the lower gems focused on other problems to keep them from questioning authority?
  • The Crystal Gems live a very low tech existence, without any of the high technology we see from the others. They have to build those fancy ships from something, and power them with something. More to the point, almost all creatures are driven to multiply and expand, and being near immortal doesn't mean the Gems don't have the same urge (especially as their prominence in the murals indicates colonies are a symbol of great status). More to the point, Gems can still die. In fact it seems likely that their natural rate of reproduction is very slow, meaning one bad day could put a massive dent in their numbers.
  • Given how war-like their cast system is, and how much they want a planet-sized weapon it kind of feels like they are at war with some other galactic civilization, or else their pre-galactic/pre-unified world was so war-torn that they just never shook off the concept of needing to build the largest army possible.
  • Gems are created knowing their purpose, and the Diamonds don't want the gems to experience feelings or relationships, just to follow orders. Idle gems are more likely to get bored and try to do something else, so they need to be given something to do. Most of them are made to expand the empire, whether that means fighting, building, terraforming, etc., so the best option would be to continue doing so, which means making more gems, which means expanding more to give them something to do.

• Why isn't Opal's weapon a harpoon, instead of a bow?
  • Because Opal is a representation of the relationship between Amethyst and Pearl. The bow combines Pearl's spear (discipline) with Amethyst's whip (flexibility) to create something beautiful and stronger than either could manage on their own. Also because a bow is way cooler.

• Why don't Ruby and Sapphire have stars on their outfits?
  • What's the point? They're always fused so nobody's ever gonna see them anyway. If anything, it helps them more because they can infiltrate enemy troops easier.
    • But temporary fusions such as Opal have stars on their outfits and they don't show up too often.
    • Yes, but all the temporary fusions are made out of gems that already use the star pattern in their forms. Remember, Ruby and Sapphire have abandoned their identities to live as Garnet, as far as they're concerned GARNET is their true form so they customize her with the star pattern.
  • Worth noting that the star pattern is new, and was likely adapted to honor Rose's death. They are not seen on their clothing in the flashbacks. The only time we've seen Ruby and Sapphire get poofed, they were under extreme stress to return to each other, so they likely did not think about adding a star to their design.

• So, I can understand why Lapis has grown to become friends with Peridot since they are roommates. But when did she forgive the other Crystal Gems? Last I checked, before "Back To The Moon", she was still pretty mad about the whole thousands of years in the mirror thing. Now, she's helping them against the Rubies, and is even now considered part of the family in "Gem Harvest". When did she forgive them, and why?
  • Peridot's a Crystal Gem, too. There was a lot of time for the two to bond and for Peridot to try to convince Lapis that the other Gems aren't that bad, or at least not be furious at them. She can still be angry about the mirror thing and bristle when offered to be taken "prisoner" without seeing the Crystal Gems as enemies.

• Are the tears that Gems can shed real or made out of light too? If it's the former, how do Gems that don't ingest anything, like Pearl, cry? If it's the latter, how come they don't disappear the moment they fall of the Gem's face?
  • Presumably real, given that Rose Quartz had a fountain filled with them.
  • Everything a Gem does or produces is powered by her gemstone. They're light forms with mass and can physically interact with things, so an explanation for real tears is: magic Gem stuff.
  • Gem weapons are most likely light projections, as are Pearl's "Holo-Pearls", and both of those can exist without touching their creator. Gem tears could easily operate on the same principal.

• Perhaps more important than the "How do gems speak English" question is "How do Homeworld gems read English?" "Monster Reunion" clearly establishes that the Gems have a different written language than English. Whether or not this applies to spoken languages is uncertain, but whatever translator microbes may or may not be involved here clearly don't work on the written word. How is Peridot, then, able to browse the human internet?
  • Peridot just learned the language, she's been on Earth for a while and she's highly intelligent with a near-perfect memory.
  • The gems have been on Earth since humans were humans were hunter-gatherers. Maybe Our languages originated from the gems.
    • Even if this is the case, human languages and Gem language would STILL be vastly different, because they spent the intervening 6000+ years evolving independently, in different societies with different experiences and environments. There just isn't a good reason why modern Gem and modern English would be so similar, save for plot convenience, of course.

• Why don't the Crystal Gems try to exploit Peridot and the various wreckage they've got (the remains of the Gem Warship and her robots she sent to Earth) to try and narrow the tech gap between them and Homeworld? They KNOW how outclassed they are in technological terms at this point, but ALSO have a mechanic that knows the tech inside and out AND have some of the tech left over, and even if they didn't they DO have plenty of Gem materials left over from the war (like the crashed ships we've seen). It's honestly getting frustrating that they're not even TRYING to be proactive.
  • If Peridot was capable of recreating modern Gem tech with the resources she had available she would have done so by now. She hates how primitive even the Crystal Gem's tech is and her limb enhancers were a very important part of her identity that she would have replaced ASAP. It's likely she can't replicate the power sources for Gem tech, it's not just normal tech but also magical.
    • If power is the only issue, there's lots of ways to get that. Wind, solar, nuclear, etc. Not to mention, whatever is powering the Temple (Crystal Heart, perhaps?).
  • It took Homeworld THOUSANDS OF YEARS to acquire the technological advantages they now have over the Crystal Gems, not to mention that they have a good bit more than just one Peridot on hand. It would definitely be nice to see the Gems make more of an effort to close said technology gap (Pearl trying to figure out how Peridot's Robonoids work in "Political Power" was a nice start, if inconvenient for the resident humans), but it will probably take more than one Peridot ("Smarter than other Peridots", albeit) working out of a barn for a few months to actually make meaningful progress on that front. Imagine trying to defend against atom bombs with rocks and sticks, and you'll see where I'm going with this.

• Could Amethyst be genderfluid? She is feminine-presenting at most times and uses female pronouns, but is referred to with he/him pronouns when wrestling. It's Word of God that the gems are non-binary, but could that include gender fluidity?
  • In "It Could've Been Great", when Steven declares he is a 'moon boy', Amethyst then asks why she can't also be a moon boy. It's most likely only referring to how she wants to float like Steven, but it makes a little sense if they don't see gender as a fixed concept.
  • With the wrestling, she was pretending to be human so she could wrestle without the other Gems finding out or getting disqualified for being a superpowered alien rock beating on squishy humans. The only ones who used male pronouns for her were the crowd, who saw what appeared to be a man and Steven, who was playing along with the disguise himself.
  • It could be that they're non-binary because they're unitary. In gem society there's no children to raise, they reproduce by growing other gems in the ground, and your role in society is determined by the kind and cut of gem you are. Their bodies are made of light, meaning there's no biology or brain mapping behind their gender. One could argue that it doesn't matter, though it's interesting to speculate if it's possible.
  • Purple Puma is referred to with he/him pronouns when wrestling, so that's just a case of Amethyst cosplaying rather than making a statement regarding her identity.

• On the topic of "off-color" Gems, why is it that Gems with certain deformities (like the Rutile twins) or disabilities (like Padparadscha's wonky future vision), or Gem fusions are considered off-color, but Gems who have their gem located somewhere that's asymmetrical (such as on the hand or over the eye) aren't?
  • That's like asking why a human isn't considered disabled for having smile lines. The placement of the gem on a Gem's form has nothing to do with the actual structure of the gem itself. It's involuntary, and it's implied to be a rough indicator of their personality (ie, it has a functional purpose). "Off-colors" are considered wrong because there's something fundamentally nonstandard about the quality of their gem that makes them less able, or unable, to function the way that a Gem of their type is supposed to.

• How is it possible that the Crystal Gems have lived on Earth for thousands of years, yet they are completely ignorant of the most basic aspects of human life, such as the difference between babies and adults? In one episode Pearl doesn't even know what a phone number is! Their stated mission is to protect the Earth and humans from Homeworld, yet during those thousands of years they never cared to acquire even the most rudimentary knowledge of the ones they're protecting? Amethyst seems to be a bit more knowledgable of Earth habits than the others, which makes sense given her origins, but what exactly did Rose, Pearl, and Garnet do on their downtime before Steven was born?
  • They did exactly what they do now, interact with each other, fight gem monsters and retrieve gem artifacts from around the world. Rose's rebellion wasn't about humanity, but all life on Earth, we're no more special than dogs or ants or birds or anything else, no reason the gems would take special interest in our lives and culture. Besides, Rose wanted us to have the chance to learn and grow on our own, she loved that about us, so the gems stayed out of our way as much as they could.
  • Also, a lot of the things they are ignorant about are relatively new. The invention of the phone was a blink of an eye ago to a being who lives for millennia. Human culture is a mount of shifting sands to them; there's no point in trying to keep up with it.
  • More to the point, if the gems don't know what a phone number is, why do they have a phone? If Amethyst uses it, surely Pearl would have asked her about it, or Greg would have told them.
    • "They" don't have a phone, Steven has a phone. The entire house and everything in it is Steven's room and his stuff.
  • This seems to predominantly an issue involving Pearl, she's the one least likely to willingly interact with humans. Amethyst seems to generally know enough to have human friends outside of the Crystal Gems (Vidalia, Greg when he showed up for a time)and willingly partake of human culture (or at least foods and items). Garnet seemed to understand how to use the phone as well way back when she had to make up an excuse to Connie's mom.
  • Yeah, it's just Pearl (and possibly Lapis). The Gems that engage the most with Earth culture are the two youngest, Amethyst and Peridot. Garnet doesn't get as involved as those two, but doesn't hold herself aloof, either; her fusion dances are to modern music, and she does play video games with intuitive controls. It can even be seen when they play the diner board game together (which is very 1990s in its rules) — Pearl has issues, but both Amethyst and Garnet understand it completely.

• Given that Rose Quartz is actually Pink Diamond, how is she able to fuse with the crystal gems and get forms specific to a rose quartz (i.e Rainbow Quartz and Smoky Quartz)?
  • Quite possibly, "Rainbow Quartz" and "Smoky Quartz" are misnomers. Or it could be that a Rose Quartz fusing with an Amethyst would make something other than a Smoky Quartz.
  • Rainbow Quartz was formed with Pearl, and so it would be easy to lie about the name. Smoky Quartz was formed with Amethyst, who is herself a Quartz. And the best thing... Rainbow Quartz doesn't actually exist. It's a fake gemstone, made from artificially treating white quartz.
  • What does that make Rainbow Quartz really? Quartz are silicon based, and both pearls and diamonds are carbon based. Would Rainbow Quartz just be a big pearl?
    • On a related note; how come Garnet and Amethyst never realized they were actually fusing with a diamond rather than a rose quartz whenever they formed Smokey Quartz, Sunstone or Obsidian with Rose (and in Amethysts case, the first time she fused with Steven)? Pearl was in on the secret, but they weren't.
    • Same reason Garnet didn't know about Pearl lying when they formed Sardonyx. Fusions are literally a separate person - the components all have memories and input, but the fusion itself has its own mind. If the components aren't specifically bringing thoughts to the fusion's head, they're not shared.

• Rose Quartz and Pink Diamond are one and the same. Perhaps it's a caste-based racist view of all Pearls looking the same to the higher-ranked gems, but how did Blue, Yellow and, presumably, White never recognize the Crystal Gem Pearl as the one belonging to their own sister?
  • Only explanation I can think of is shapeshifting- Pink Diamond's Pearl always shapeshifted into another, still recognizably Pearl, form, when fighting the revolution. Notice how all the other Diamond's Pearls are all hues of the Diamond's color- blues and yellows. It stands to reason that Pink Diamond's pearl was also originally only various shades of pink and a bit of white as Pink Diamond has that too. Crystal Gem Pearl always had blues and yellows as well. This and a different skirt might be enough to make the Diamonds think it must be another Pearl.
  • If you pay attention, you'll notice that whenever we see "Rose Quartz's Terrifying Renegade Pearl", she looks very different from "Pink Diamond's Pearl" as seen in the palanquin scene.
  • All gems of the same type look the same to the Diamonds, Blue didn't even recognize Sapphire when she was standing right in front of her despite Sapphire having been part of her court and Yellow needed Peridot to clarify which Peridot she is through a sort of serial number.
• How is it that Homeworld never developed the technology to discern whether or not a Gem has shapeshifted or to positively identify a Gem's true type? Moreover, why did nobody account for the possibility that somebody had shapeshifted to look like Rose Quartz?
  • As Yellow would say, "Each gem has its place." If that's the case, why would any other diamond try and shapeshift into another form? Such a possibility is perhaps literally outside their imagination. From the sounds of it, gem society isn't exactly well versed in anything remotely resembling spies. So they see the shapeshifting as another form of war or utility rather than lies or manipulation.

• Why was Rose Quartz horrified by Gems draining the life of Earth to make more gems but not by lifeforms of Earth eating each other (that includes herbivores eating plants as they are alive too) to stay alive only to die after a certain amount of time?
  • Earth lifeforms eating other lifeforms is normal part of the planet's ecological balance, and it doesn't really threaten Earth's biosphere as a whole, whereas the Gem birthing process would've pretty much destroyed Earth and devastated all life on it. Also, Rose becomes truly horrified only when she discovers Earth has sapient life... So her outrage is kinda hypocritical, but the same hypocrisy applies to all humans who think murdering other humans is wrong but breeding animals for food is okay. Sapient beings just tend to rate other sapient beings higher than other kinds of life.
• What exactly do Homeworld gems do in their downtime? Sapphires can't always be making predictions. Quartzes aren't fighting every second. Gems on that side don't know what art is and music is probably considered a luxury only for high ranking gems. They don't have tv and aren't likely at all to have fictional stories.
  • We see rubies killing time by having conversations in Garnet's flashback to her origin's, and we see how the various gems kill time with activity on earth. There is no reason not to presume they wouldn't do some of the same in their down time back on homeworld. Conversations, games, building things, learning, and training can all be fun to the right gem.
  • We also know that at least some art exists on homeworld, as the Perls dance and sing, and there is artwork shown in many gem structures, mostly idolizing the Diamonds but still it is artwork. The only real indication that art may be lacking is Peridot's lack of knowledge about it, but given Peridot also lacked knowledge of such basic things as rain in a world made up mostly of water may suggest that Peridot was simply ignorant of certain concepts rather then that the entire homeworld lacked them. The 'Meep Morps' may have simply been a different kind of art then the diamonds usually encouraged, or possibly only certain gems were allowed to do art and so the idea of gems like peridot and Saphire creating art was odd enough that they came up with a unique name for it.

• Since it's only really been established that a gem can only change her appearance after regenerating (barring shapeshifting, of course) and the Crystal Gems, all look differently now than when Rose Quartz was around...what happened that ALL THREE were ostensibly poofed?
  • All through season 1 we see the gems fighting gem monsters, including at least one creature capable of poofing Amethyst. It's likely that they had to fight similar creatures during there centuries on Earth and at some point got poofed in a fight. Honestly if we assume the gems were at least as actively involved in fighting gem monsters for centuries as they seem to be in season one, if not more involved due to the larger number of monsters there would be right after the war, the odds of the gems managing to make it without being poofed all that time is pretty low.
  • Also in Garnet's case there is no need to be poofed, Ruby and Sapphire could have split up, either voluntarily or due to a fight, at some point and chosen a different shape when they reformed.
  • Consider this: Alexandrite is a fusion of Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl, Alexandrite is ridiculously powerful, Alexandrite has been formed enough times by her debut episode that the gems can casually fuse into her and understand her full battle capabilities. Clearly there's plenty of corrupted Gems that were more threatening than the ones we saw if they've had to form Alexandrite that much, so plenty of chances to get poofed.

• Is Pearl actually romantically interested in Rose or did she just act so devoted because Rose was her diamond?
  • It's mostly genuine but her programming did have a bit to play in it.
  • When she breaks down with the "I've been having thoughts, even when you haven't asked me to", that's the moment she admits it's crossed from service into romantic love.

• Sooo, thanks to the reveal in Change Your Mind, Pink is apparently "gone," but according to Rebecca Sugar, she's not 'dead,' either apparently? The whole "gone" thing is confusing; what context do they mean by "gone?" Gone to the neighbors down the street? Gone as in erased from existence, a la Shiki's Mystic Eyes of Death Perception? Gone as in Asriel becoming Flowey? What does it mean???
  • The simplest way you could define it is that her essence lives on, but is no longer Pink as we knew her; like a more extreme version of how you ten years ago and you in the present aren't the same person, even though it's a matter of growth. What is uncertain however is what shape that essence will take when Steven is no longer around to house it.

• Umm, so now that Steven and the Diamonds are friends, a certain elephant in the room is present: Are The diamonds and homeworld still conquering and terraforming planets? The diamonds never said anything about not continuing their conquest. At most, they said that their work was stressful. So are the diamonds going to continue their plights, just in a way that keeps them happy? What's exactly going to happen to the rest of the galaxy where pink diamond doesn't live?
  • For that matter, Wasn't the entire point of the war to fight against homeworld's tyranny? It seemed like the purpose of the war in the final episodes scaled down from wanting to stop a corrupt empire from ruling the galaxy, to just making one person happy and satisfying her family (of imperialists). What exactly did this war even accomplish?
    • Perhaps we'll get an answer to both of these questions in season six and/or the movie. Step one was getting the diamonds on bored and the next step will be addressing those two issues.
  • Some sources say that, during the timeskip between Season 5 and the Movie, the Empire and it's caste system were dismantled.
  • In the Movie, Yellow Diamond says "I've disbanded my army! I've liberated my colonies!", confirming that the Diamonds' conquest of the galaxy has ended thanks to Steven.
• Why does it take the Off Colors so long to make it to Earth in the Sun Incinerator, when Pink Diamond's ship, which was millennia older, could make the trip from Earth to Homeworld in a few hours?
  • Diamonds probably get the best tech and leave their underlings, even the high-ranking ones, with weaker tech. Also, there's the fact that the Sun Incinerator was being piloted by people who, at least at the start, had zero idea what they were doing, and probably took it slower than max speed to be on the safe side until they got the hang of it.
  • Their engines were badly damaged by Emerald so they were incapable of using faster than light speed or even moving at all at points. They managed to get the ship fixed enough to work but not back to top speeds.

• Gems know their names at birth and speak the universal language, English. Cool, okay. But why do they use the names of gems that were themselves named by or after a human? For instance, Bismuth refers to "Little Larimar", which is blue pectolite that was partly named after the discoverer's daughter.
  • In this universe the Diamonds named the different kinds of gems and humans picked up the names from them. For example, Pink came up with the name "fool's gold".
  • Bismuth can't possibly be speaking a language invented after she was bubbled, making references to words that hadn't yet been coined. It doesn't make any sense, but it's an Acceptable Break from Reality. Being named after a human isn't the problem, the problem is that it's a name Gems would never have come up with coined at a time it couldn't have been acquired from humans.
    • "Garnet" comes from its pomegranate-like color. Gems wouldn't even notice a plant, let alone name a Gem type after it.
    • "Agate" comes from the Achates River in Sicily. Not Homeworld.
    • "Hessonite" means "crappy gem." Not likely to be used as a name.
    • "Fool's gold" is a nonsense name in a culture unlikely to have experienced a gold rush.
    • "Diamond" itself is actually eerily appropriate, given it means "I subdue."
    • Those origins only apply in our world.

• How is it that a year on Homeworld is as long as a year on Earth? The two planets having the exact same orbital periods around their stars would be a huge coincidence, so what gives?
  • Possibly Translation Convention.
  • They don't have to be exact, just similar enough to not make things difficult.
  • Homeworld selected its colonies, such as the world that would eventually be named Earth, for having certain properties. Perhaps year length was among them.

• Pearl and Volleyball were both created for Pink. So why does Pearl have her gem on her forehead like White? As we see with Yellow Pearl, Blue Pearl and Volleyball, pearls tend to have the same gem placements as their owners.
  • Because a gem's placement affects their personality. Pearl was created to be more thoughtful and rule following in order to help Pink Diamond behave herself.
  • Because Crystal Gem Pearl was created for Pink, but to White's specifications.

• Ruby is seen to have fire powers and Sapphire to have ice powers. But they only ever use them in their unfused forms. How come Garnet never uses them?
  • Because they'd be useless most of the time, but apparently using them together is how Garnet makes her electrical powers. So technically every time you see Garnet use her electrical powers she's also using her heat and cold based powers.
  • Lightningbending is an extension of Firebending, and redirecting lightning is based on Waterbending, of which Icebending is a subset, so that makes perfect sense.

• We see that Pearl can, in a matter of minutes, build a giant, super-strong robot out of random junk in the barn. Why have they never done that before? It could have been a useful extra-something to use when preparing for Peridot's arrival, or just something that could Stephen could have used during dangerous situations back when their ability to create bubbles or shields was less reliable.