Guesses related to the Homeworld Gems and Gemkind in general go here.
- Eyeball Ruby, who is a huge fan of Jasper and knew all about her, indicates Jasper was already active and famous by the time Pink Diamond was shattered.
- We see several other Jaspers during Lapis' flashback. She just got lucky and came out perfect.
- Confirmed. In one of the episodes, Lars tries to reactivate their ship's core and finds it's not working, only for Padaradscha to "predict" that he was pressing the wrong button all along.
- Looking highly unlikely.
- Looks to be jossed.
- Jossed. Pink wasn't even shattered. And if she was around for her "shattering", her "past-future vision" powers (and by extension the fact that she seems super-aware of what she sees in them), would have caused her to scream out something along the lines of "Oh my! A Gem will shapeshift into the form of Rose Quartz and fake Pink Diamond's shattering!"
- Three of her gems (the top one on her forehead and the two flanking the round gem on her chest) are triangular, like the Crystal Gems' Peridot.
- Peridots are made to be engineers and technicians, and Fluorite shows some engineering knowledge when she successfully repairs the Sun Incinerator.
- Peridots are also green, and Fluorite's entire head is green.
- Fluorite does not seem to exhibit much combat ability. Peridots aren't made to be very powerful Gems, even if they can take a lot of damage without poofing.
So, why does "our" Padparadscha phrase everything as a prediction? Suppose that Blue Diamond created the first Sapphires. Being blue herself, she of course created blue Sapphires, and discovered the incredible future-seeing intelligence as an accident - not that she ever admitted it. Jealous, Yellow Diamond decided to create her own Sapphires, but, being yellow, she made yellow(ish) Padparadschas instead, and discovered they couldn't see the future, only the past. Enraged, she first brutally conditioned them to only spout predictions, and, when that (predictably) failed to produce results, ordered the whole variety destroyed - never stopping to think what these "defective" Sapphires might be able to bring to her court.
This leads to two conclusions: One, Padparadscha may eventually stop saying stuff "will" happen and revert to saying stuff "has" happened. Two, Padparadsha is not An Ice Person like Sapphire (just like Ruby isn't).
- Partly confirmed: Steven was able to partially un-corrupt her, but not entirely, and she slipped back once she began to really remember what had happened when she was corrupted in the first place (fitting with it being a mental thing) — though possibly not entirely.
- She was completly uncorrupted in "Legs From Here To Homeworld". However, she can only stay uncorrupted as long as YD, BD and Steven are touching them.
Alternatively, Bismuth could've been corrupted and Rose didn't want Bismuth to run amuck on Earth. Homeworld still would've wanted to get their hands on them, because Rose thought Homeworld could use Bismuth against her, so Rose somehow took down Bismuth to revert them into their crystal form and bubbled them until Rose could find a way to restore them.
- Jossed. Bismuth was bubbled after turning on Rose for her refusal of the Breaking Point.
- And now perhaps un-Jossed, since at the end of "Made of Honor" she seems to be back for good.
- Jossed, unless the Fantastic Nuke that caused the corruption is of the same origin.
- Confirmed, except for the part about it being difficult. In Steven Universe: Future, there are on-screen showings of shattered Gems being repaired with relative ease such as Jasper.
- They look more similar to Biggs Jasper and Ocean Jasper.
- Them being Jaspers is confirmed by Word of God, but no confirmation on what kinds.
- Confirmed in "Made of Honor" that the Orange Great North Monster is the Biggs Jasper Bismuth mentioned.
- Confirmed in "Made of Honor" that the Orange Great North Monster is the Biggs Jasper Bismuth mentioned.
- It seems unlikely, since the cut of the Monster's gem is completely different compared to Sapphire's.
- Then again, we've seen instances of the same Gems having different cuts, most obviously with Jaspers—our Jasper's shard-like gem, the Gem Hunt monsters' hexagonal gems, and the circular cuts of the Jaspers who staff the Zoo..
- I think she more closely resembles a Zircon.
- Jossed. The cure is all of the 3 remaining Diamonds plus Steven combining their touch/essence to reverse corruption.
- We know that when two Gems fuse, their minds and personalities merge. We also know that Corruption is primarily mental, not physical. When Jasper fused with the corrupted Gem, she was already pretty unstable, so she contracted the Corruption. But perhaps if the uncorrupted Gem was more mentally stable, the contact might instead remind the corrupted Gem of how to function, returning it to normal. Alternately, this may only work for Steven, due to his All-Loving Hero status and the healing powers of Rose Quartz Gems.
- We know she's a Jasper, and "Made of Honor" confirmed Biggs is the Orange Great North Monster.
- Snowflake is an Obsidian, not a Jasper.
- This model sheet confirms that Snowflake Obsidian is the large black and white Gem seen in "Change Your Mind".
- We've seen that Blue Diamond has the power to cause gems to feel her grief. Yellow Diamond can destabilize a Gem's form causing them to usually poof. Perhaps with White's unknown power, the three together is what Corrupted gems.
- Supported in "Legs From Here to Homeworld", in which Yellow Diamond restores Nephrite's physical form, Blue restores her speech, and Steven/Pink restores her mental stability. It's likely that Yellow and Blue restored the abilities they damaged in the first place, but since Pink obviously wasn't part of the corruption, White Diamond made the Gems mentally unstable.
- The Tourmaline from the end of the Change Your Mind special only has a singular gem and a significantly spikier and more top-heavy design from what we see of her while the Tourmaline in the movie and Future is a fusion with two gems with a much rounder, smoother design. While the reason Sugar gives for the descrepency is that Tourmaline underwent a redesign between Change Your Mind and the movie, it would make more sense that they were simply two different instances of Watermelon Tourmaline with the natural one having been the Puffer Fish Gem Mutant and the Fusion being two other instances of Tourmaline that could combine to make Watermelon, like Rubellite and Chrome Tourmalines.
- Confirmed in the podcast!
- Pearl focuses this onto Connie during "Sworn to the Sword", her obsession with the past and Connie's similar feelings of self-worth magnified the effect. When people say Pearl brainwashed Connie, it's literal.
- A lot of this is to allow fusion. When two or more minds can directly interact and influence each other, latent abilities come about that wouldn't otherwise.
- And now we have Steven being able to see into Lapis' mind while dreaming.
- A lot of this is to allow fusion. When two or more minds can directly interact and influence each other, latent abilities come about that wouldn't otherwise.
- They also can't move around or communicate, but yeah, that's also probably part of it.
- Evidenced by the fact that Pearl retreated in mid-sentence while trying to reassure Steven.
- Amethyst is reckless and emotional.
- Rose Quartz loved the Earth so much that she decided to stop existing as herself.
- We don't know her reasoning for that yet.
- Jasper appears to be impatient and angry most of the time. She even said illogically that going to Earth is a waste of her time, despite her time being potentially infinite.
- Seconded and here is why;
- in Garnet, they are the most complete Fused Being because they are so aligned.
- In Rainbow Quartz, they only had extra eyes(because Rose and Pearl were very compatible except how they SAW Greg!).
- Each of one of Sugilite, Sardonyx, and Opal had pairs of limbs and eyes but never extra feet. Aside from being rather useless, the singular pair of feet may just be a sign that all of the participating Gems are walking the same path so to speak, and may be the physical embodiment of the basis for the fusion(unity of goal). Meanwhile the separate sets of arms and eyes representing differing methods of action and perception respectively.
- Then we have the unholy mess that was Alexandrite with all the other extras had extra mouths because each participant had differing opinions on the task at hand, especially Pearl and Amethyst about consuming food.
- Pearl can create holograms, Garnet can see multiple timelines, and Amethyst is far more adept at shapeshifting than other Gems. Lapis Lazuli can project past events. Peridot has ferrokinesis.
- Wasn't this theory already made and confirmed?
- The Gems were using the Earth to create more Gems, but it's implied the process hurts the planet. The Crystal Gems decided to defend the Earth from the others.
- Well, there are "Crystal Gems", the ones that rebelled against Homeworld to defend Earth, and "Homeworld Gems", the original 'group' of gems. "Corrupted" is a term that can be used for any gem, and Lapis was a one-time thing, so "Imprisoned Gems" is not a group.
- It seems to me there are only two types of gems: Homeworld Gems, who exist inside the Diamond Authority, and Off Colors, who exist outside the Diamond Authority. The Crystal Gems and Corrupted Gems would fall into the latter category.
- Pearl's has an obedient nature (Holo-Pearl, who's single-minded and robotic).
- Steven's has a reliable nature (Lion, who doesn't do anything he's told but will always be there when he's needed).
- Garnet's has a destructive nature.
- Amethyst's has a chaotic nature.
- Jossed. While Steven's powers create beings like Lion, it's a side effect of Pink Diamond's healing powers. Neither Garnet nor Amethyst has anything similar. Pearl's ability appears to be the special power of Pearls, like Ruby's fire, Sapphire's ice and future vision, and Peridot's ferrokinesis.
- Confirmed, though it would be a very odd planet if it didn't.
- If they're a villain, they could be responsible for many of the gem shards.
- And that bladed weapon will be a macuahuitl.
- Confirmed in a sense, as the Fusion Obsidian wields a greatsword with a lava blade.
- If this is true, her name will probably be Selenite (also known as moonstone).
- Jossed. The Gem race goes to other worlds to colonize them and create Kindergartens that will increase their numbers.
- Partially Jossed. "Lars' Head" heavily implies Lion was just a normal earth lion who Rose brought back to life with her powers.
- Confirmed, though the planets the Gems victimize are transformed into space station-like "colonies" before they actually reach the point of collapse.
- Confirmed with all the subtlety of an anvil in "Back to the Kindergarten."
- It’s the Centipeetle.
- It's Peridot.
- It’s the leader of the Gem Homeworld, or at least a high-ranking commander there.
- Her name is Diamond, since diamonds are the most famous and unbreakable of all gemstones. Plus, it would complete the Accidental Truth Ronaldo shouted out at the end of “Keep Beach City Weird.” (Preemptive apology for everyone that named their gemsona “Diamond".)
- It depicts the Yellow Diamond character that Jasper mentioned in The Return?
- It’s The Heavy that's going to be in “The Return.”
- Her power involves Gemstone Assault, since the picture features quadrilaterals floating around her. That also would draw some nice parallels to Lapis Lazuli’s Making a Splash (a Gem that does not attack directly with weapons).
- It’s a guy.
- If they were different at all, they'd be more androgynous in contrast to the feminine-looking Gems, since the Gems are neither guys nor gals.
- It's Pink Diamond.
- Replace with Mayor Dewey with Marty for two reasons. 1. Mayor Dewey is shown to love his son. 2. Marty is already shown to be the kind of guy that one-night-stands women.
- Well, Steven does have an Evil Counterpart, but it's White Diamond, since Steven has Pink Diamond's gem.
- Confirmed with all the subtlety of a meteor strike in "Back to the Kindergarten."
- Confirmed in "Off-Colors," though they're desperate fugitives.
- Fusions fueled by The Power of Love, such as Garnet, whose parts have the closest thing two full Gems can have to a romantic relationship and is, in her own words, "made o - o - o - of lo - o - o - o -ve", and Stevonnie, whose parts have the closest thing a twelve and thirteen-year old can have to a romantic relationship, fuse together very well, having a perfectly humanoid form and not splitting apart easily.
- Fusions fueled by friendship or camaraderie, such as Opal, Sugilite, Alexandrite, and possibly that thing depicted by the statue exterior of the gem temple, merge slightly less well. They are fairly humanoid, but they have multiple pairs of arms. Also their fused gem weapons don't appear instantaneously but have to be assembled. And they are not as stable, sometimes only able to remain fused only as long as they have a mutual interest in performing a specific task. And sometimes they are not as nice as the sum of their parts, as shown with Sugilite.
- Fusions fueled by The Power of Hate take the form of monstrous abominations, as shown with the six-armed, zero-legged Malachite. However they are surprisingly stable fusions, reflecting the ability of hatred to metaphorically "hold you prisoner".
- The relationship between Ruby and Sapphire is confirmed as romantic in "Reunited," if it wasn't already. Both Rainbow Quartz and Rhodonite are also perfectly-humanoid romantic fusions. Fluorite, though, is a romantic multi-fusion and not even faintly humanoid. Also, Sugilite and Alexandrite are fully as terrifying as Malachite, while the friendship fusions Sardonyx and Smoky Quartz certainly aren't.
- If that conflict heavily thinned their numbers, it might explain why they could only spare one powerful, warrior-type gem to protect Peridot on her mission to investigate the continued presence of Crystal Gems on Earth. Hoping that Jasper and the power of the ship's exterior weapons would be enough to subdue or kill all the Crystal Gems on Earth (they only knew of three, but for all they knew there could have been more) was a calculated risk that they had to make due to limited resources; it may not have been simply out of hubris that they neglected to send a large army.
- A war between Gems would make sense. The basic weapon of Homeworld Gems is a Gem Disruptor which apparently only works on Gems. Steven wasn't as affected by it as much as Crystal Gems, normal humans probably wouldn't react to it at all. If Homeworld was united and ruled by a single group with no rebellious factions there would be no need for such a weapon.
- It appears that the reason Homeworld didn't return to use Earth for more kindergartens is because of the Cluster - they'd turned Earth into a ticking time bomb.
- That said, Lapis was imprisoned inside a mirror being used as a mere object and is only powerful around big bodies of water, on a desert she would be useless. Plus, she didn't even seem to have a gem weapon and was overall quite submissive in her ways. So she being a noble seems unlikely, unless she was part of some dethroned nobility or gems have types matched with a tasked "job" and doing a poor enough job can get you demoted into an object; making Lapis indeed a "leader" or something, but she failed so miserably at her entrance test that she ended up in a mirror to log gem history.
- Jossed. Holly Blue Agate in "Gem Heist" practically prostrates herself to the single-named Sapphire. Smoky Quartz has no particular special authority.
- It may also be why Rose Quartz decided to defend Earth specifically: It's implied that the Gems have conquered other worlds, yet Rose seems to have confined her efforts to Earth. The origin of Gems was lost until they arrived on Earth, and Rose learned it was either their original homeworld or housed the last remnants of their creators: She decided to rebel not just from a general love for living things, but to try and make amends for the Gems wiping out the rest of Mankind, and maybe because she knew that humans could do great things and wanted to see the species advance again. Most of the Gems' tech would have been taken or adapted from their human creators, which might explain why there are organic elements (the Crystal Heart, the contents of the Kindergarten machines, Rose's plant-based powers) in an otherwise inorganic society.
- Alternatives: Gems were created by super advanced humans in the future (the idea above) or from a different dimension (and in this case humans of Steven's Earth can be another creation). Or Gems and humans have the same Precursors (cfr. Time Lords, Neon Genesis Evangelion and so on).
- In the comparison with Neon Genesis Evangelion, White Diamond can be the analogous one of Lilith fusion with Adam: gigantic, assimilation abilities... she has knowledge (like humans) and power (like the "angels").
- The human origin appears more probable because of the last episode: White Diamond berates Steven for behaving as a child... but Gems have no children! So the language of the Gems appears clearly of human derivation. See also Fridge Logic.
- The Kindergartens allow the mass production of gems, but leach minerals from the soil that other creatures need to survive. Given that the interior of Homeworld is a GIGANTIC Kindergarten, it seems more like they just used up all the resources at home and started spreading out. There's no indication that fusion is in any way involved in reproduction; Peridot and Jasper are both shocked at it being used for any purpose other than increasing strength for battle.
- Steven's status as a half-Gem would probably come up at some point, most likely when a situation calls for one of his powers, ex. his shield; without knowing the Gems' origin, Steven would have no reason not to be as open as usual with the Snake People, leaving them with the seed of an idea for human-shaped beings with gem-based powers. But maybe the world of the Snake People isn't suitable for organic beings, or they just want to see if they can boost their creations' abilities and make them stronger, like the Crystal Gems (who Steven would have undoubtedly talked about), leading to the creation of human-looking, but wholly inorganic, Gem-based beings... who would then proceed to destroy or abandon the Snake People, setting off to conquer worlds and create an empire. Steven is indirectly responsible for the creation of the Gems!
- Following on from this, we know that Homeworld Gems ultimately lost the war on Earth, leaving very few of Rose's followers alive (one could interpret Greg's words as meaning only the Crystal Gems we know). Perhaps the conflict on Earth was the "absolute last desperate resort" that caused the commanders to order Fusions to be used among their remaining troops. And maybe it even backfired; some think that the statue outside/surrounding the temple is the fused form of Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and Rose. Several smaller, badly-suited fusions could have fought, and lost, against one massive one (going by Alexandrite's size) who had the advantage of being supported by a Gem like Rose.
- The strawberry fields are full of ancient Gem weapons, some of which are Sugilite-sized. Considering how Garnet describes it- "A maelstrom of destruction and death"- it's easy to imagine any number of poorly-joined fusions rampaging across the battlefield as a last resort.
- Fusions like Sugilite can't be controlled, but they can be beaten by one determined opponent- like Pearl. Gem society probably considers fusions to be unstable and dangerous, but also simply over-rated, a last resort of those too weak to stand on their own. Considering how much Jasper likes to fight, she may have sparred with- and defeated- fusions before. Garnet, however, is so in sync with her selves that she can properly channel her power.
- Following on from this, we know that Homeworld Gems ultimately lost the war on Earth, leaving very few of Rose's followers alive (one could interpret Greg's words as meaning only the Crystal Gems we know). Perhaps the conflict on Earth was the "absolute last desperate resort" that caused the commanders to order Fusions to be used among their remaining troops. And maybe it even backfired; some think that the statue outside/surrounding the temple is the fused form of Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and Rose. Several smaller, badly-suited fusions could have fought, and lost, against one massive one (going by Alexandrite's size) who had the advantage of being supported by a Gem like Rose.
- Steven practiced fusion with Amethyst in "Alone Together," so if this is true it's absolute Squick.
- Correlates to physical power, that is, as Lapis Lazuli had the strongest ability seen but wasn't particularly large.
- "Reformed" seems to support this theory. When Amethyst tried to take a larger form, she wasn't able to maintain it in combat.
- The spin attack has only been seen in Amethyst and Jasper. It doesn't joss your theory, but we haven't seen enough Gems to know if some special powers are seen in multiple Gems but not all.
- Jossed. Jasper herself is a Kindergarten gem, and Peridot calls her "the ultimate Quartz".
In conclusion, unless Steven can figure out of to heal dead gems, the entire race is basically extinct.
- Considering the length of their lifespans and the ambiguity of their exact methods of reproduction (it does take an extremely long time for gemstones to form in Real Life), it could be easily inferred that their natural "birth" rates are unfathomably low by human standards. As mentioned elsewhere on the page, assuming this problem has been around that long, this may have been their motivations for coming to Earth in the first place.
- Considering Gems don't require the things that humans require to survive, such as water, this would make sense.
- Meaning Homeworld has been taken over by (Cyborg-like) advance Gem technology.
- Yellow Diamond and Peridot are generation of cyber gems that currently control the population of Crystal Gems.
- They travel to various worlds rich in mineral and harvest a colony of Crystal Gems as servants.
It is likely that the Crystal Gems, who sympathized with humans and vowed to protect them, saw both beauty and strength in the human race but in women in particular, and gradually began to adopt certain visual elements of human women over time as it was somewhat relatable to what they were used to already.
On a related note to the above, it's likely that Ruby and Sapphire's appearances are more akin to their time pre-Earth, as Ruby, similar to Jasper/Peridot, is very nonbinary in appearance (although Sapphire is clearly what humans would consider feminine, similar to Lapis Lazuli); as fusions essentially become a single "consciousness" that can grow and change on its own (much like single gems) with only general influence from its constituent gems, Ruby and Sapphire as individuals likely do not change much in appearance (as they don't spend much time separated) while Garnet as a single being continues to evolve. (This is also suggested by how impersonal they are with Steven when separate, as seen in the episode 'Keystone Motel', despite knowing who he is and how important he is to them/Garnet - they simply don't feel the same 'personal attachment' to him when they're separated.)
- Jossed by Blue Diamond and her pearl. While we haven't seen Blue Diamond in detail, she still has what's clearly an extremely feminine look and structure and, as far as we know, had absolutely no affection for earth or any reason to adjust their appearance for it. (Remember, a gem's clothes are part of their permanent appearance and can't be casually changed.) Blue Diamond's pearl is even more clear, since we can see her more clearly - while the curve of her chest is subtle, she's still unequivocally wearing a dress cut around the idea that she has breasts, with cups intended to cover them. Both her and Blue Diamond have clothes that are at least as feminine as anything worn by the current Crystal Gems. It seems more likely that, rather than the Crystal Gems coding themselves as more feminine, the coding is divided according to color, gem type, and caste; all Blue gems seen so far are heavily coded as female, whereas Yellow ones (and Rubies) are all much more androgynous. Pearls tend to be somewhat coded as female but adopt some of the coding of their masters (so Blue Pearl is heavily female, while Yellow Pearl is subtly female and more androgynous.)
- The one part where this might be true is Rose Quartz, whose outfit is more clearly-feminine than anyone else in the show and who is the only Gem so far with clear cleavage; not coincidentally, she's also the gem most fascinated by earth, so it's not implausible that she regenerated herself into a form patterned off a human female shortly before or after the war began. (The one problem with this is that her dress - which we know she was wearing back then because we've seen it in flashbacks - doesn't even remotely resemble 6000-year-old human fashions.)
- A related WMG, of course, might be that it was the other way around - in the Steven Universe universe, "feminine" coding for clothes was adopted by female humans aping the blue (and possibly pink) gems during the colonization and war 6000 years ago. Male humans tend to be closer in physical form to Rubies and other gems we consider "androgynous", so they adopted their fashions instead. This could explain why Rose and Pearl were wearing modern-ish fashions 6000 years ago; rather than aping Earth clothing, Earth clothing slowly came to ape them, based partially on relics and images of them left behind.
- Seems Jossed since 1. gems predate modern humanity and modern human fashion, and 2. gems that have no respect for humanity take forms that have the same fashion sense.
- Jossed. Rose Quartz was not Pink Diamond, nor was she apparently significant enough in gem society to have such influence.
- Somewhat confirmed. Rose was Pink Diamond and the token good teammate for the Diamond Authority. However she was treated more or less as an annoying younger sibling and figurehead, and so barely had any, if all, influences on Gem Society. While Homeworld conditions have gotten worse, it's due to a possibly unrelated factor (running out of resources) rather than Rose being absent.
Homeworld never returned to Earth before because of the time and resources it would to send an army. Even if they built a fleet and stuffed it full of Gems, it would take a massive amount of time before the army arrived. Homeworld Gems would be flying blind, heading towards an enemy who quite possibly had millennia to prepare new, deadly weapons, much like Jasper and Peridot first defeated the Crystal Gems. Homeworld did use a super weapon to end the war, but they had to abandon Earth as well, and for all they knew, Rose Quartz and her rebellion simply shrugged off the damage and rebuilt themselves. It was safer for Homeworld to write Earth off as a lost cause, and focus on internal matters.
Now, though, Yellow Diamond has access to FTL technology. She can send out a spaceship with a lone (expendable) technician on board to scout out the Earth, and learn about the situation in a matter of days. She can dispatch a troubleshooter like Jasper as needed. And, now she knows that there are only three Crystal Gems left on the entire planet, and- depending on how many spaceships she has- Yellow Diamond can send an army whenever she pleases.
- Partially jossed by the fact that Lapis, who had no access to modern gem technology, was somehow able to fly from Earth to the Gem homeworld in a sane length of time; this implies that Lapis Lazuli gems have FTL innately. This only partially josses the theory because it's possible that Lapis Lazuli gems are capable of personal FTL flight, but not capable of bringing anyone or anything with them; however, why wouldn't Homeworld have at least sent a Lapis scout at some point over the past few thousand years, if that was the issue, especially given that a Lapis gem is basically a Person of Mass Destruction on a water world like Earth? Another possibility is that Lapis was able to reach a much-closer homeworld gate somewhere in the solar system... but if one of those exists, then the gems didn't need FTL travel to reach earth.
- Partially confirmed. The Rubies had a faster-than-light vessel, which Peridot (as an Era 2 gem) and the Rubies were familiar with but that the other Crystal Gems found to be a novelty. On the other hand, the Earth wasn't being left alone after the rebellion — it was boobytrapped. Yellow Diamond was perfectly able to send ships and troops, but there wouldn't have been any point until it was time to collect the Cluster.
- Jossed as of "Legs From Here to Homeworld", as Pink Diamond's ship, created before the rebellion, can travel from Earth to Homeworld in hours.
- Amethyst knowing what Smoky Quartz's name would be, despite the fusion almost certainly being completely unprecedented (low ranking soldier + Diamond), strongly implies that there are other Smoky Quartzes for her to compare them to, possibly high-ranking soldiers.
- Confirmed by Rebecca in the Steven Universe Podcast.
- Jossed. The Cluster is meant to be what destroys the Earth, and it's an act of vengeance against the planet that was the center of the Rebellion. Also, Peridot wasn't the one who made them; she was checking up on them.
There are actually a few other things that could back this up too: when Jasper asked Lapis to fuse with her, she says "Just say Yes." Lapis doesn't say anything, but instead gives her her hand and the two dance. Secondly, when Greg and Rose dance in "We Need To Talk", they don't fuse. You could say that this is because Greg is human, but it may also be because Rose didn't know he was trying to fuse with her, simply because she thought that, as he was human, he wouldn't be able to.
Finally, notice that Ruby and Sapphire never do a full dance in order to fuse. You could say that that is show of their love, and indeed it could be: Ruby starts to dance with Sapphire, but the two of them already know they don't need each other's permission, because they love each other THAT much.
- Alternatively, dancing could just be the easiest way to synchronize gems, but some gems may be good enough at fusion to not actually need to synchronize.
- Another piece of evidence in favor of this theory is that the second time Garnet and Amethyst fuse, they simply walk into each other.
- Rebecca Sugar did say that the show wouldn't have antagonists in the conventional sense. Instead of a planet full of a bunch of Bastard Aliens, or even a small controlling elite ruling over everyone else with an iron fist, it's much more representative of the way real Governments work, with bureaucracy, political arenas, popular opinion, the media, and more playing a role. The real problems arise when you have unscrupulous hardliners like Yellow Diamond and her ilk put in a position where they can use the lack of transparency and accountability inherent in the system to pursue their own political agendas. If the Symbol Peridot and Jasper both wear is indeed a military denotation, it could bean especially sharp commentary on expansionism, colonialism, and heavy-handed foreign policy.
- Although Always Chaotic Evil does seem fully averted in the sense that any evil is not racial in origin, the rest of this seems Jossed. In Homeworld society, there is a strict caste system rather than anything resembling democratic politics, and the Diamond Authority seems to in fact be a small controlling elite ruling over everyone else with an iron fist.
- Confirmed. Peridot rattles off an identification, including the facet she was created in, and later Homeworld gems are shown differentiating themselves in similar ways.
The Gems originally evolved/were created without the strict social order they now exhibit, as evidenced by their physical ability to empathize with others and grow beyond their "programming". These early Gems had strong, broad-scoped and unique abilities that surpass those exhibited by the newer models by an order of magnitude. But their formation depleted the minerals of Homeworld, resulting in increasingly weaker and smaller Gems being born with more limited abilities. So the early Gems decided that the new generations would have to become more specialized to be any good at anything. This was the start of the caste system. They were divided into aristocrats, who handled the decision-making, and had the greatest amount of resources expended in their creation, warriors who were physically strong but less versatile and prone to single-mindedness, and workers, who physically weak and specialized in highly specific tasks that they were supposed to follow for the rest of their lives.
But even this system didn't stop the decline of the planet's condition. New generations of aristocrats and warriors were increasingly weaker than their predecessors, and so the Gems decided to expand their territory by colonizing an xenoforming new planets for their needs. The Gems produced on other planets relied increasingly on mass production, with thousands or millions of nigh identical Gems being made to serve the needs of the expanding empire. And so the Gems became the mechanistic, rigid culture that we know today, run by narrow-minded drones who can't see beyond the duties of their own caste, while whatever aristocrats remain have fallen out of the loop and just live in luxury on Homeworld, pretending that nothing has changed from the past.
In this WMG Rose Quartz, Lapis Lazuli and Sapphire are aristocrats, signified by their more humanoid anatomy and dress-code, Amethyst, Jasper and Ruby are warriors, and Pearl and Peridot are ofcourse workers, albeit from highly different specialisations. Ruby and Sapphire were among the last non-worker Gems produced on Homeworld and are stunted and (relatively) weak because of it, which is also probably what originally gave them common ground in spite of their very different castes. Rose Quartz is unique and from the ancient stock, not a later specialised model Gem. The same may or may not apply to Yellow Diamond.
- So far Sapphire has been confirmed as an aristocrat, and Peridot has revealed that new Gem generations are weaker than their predecessors because of the dwindling resources of Homeworld.
The reason is because their leaders were facing constant defections whenever they sent troops to Earth. Steven was able to turn Peridot after only a few weeks, which is minuscule in the lifespan of a Gem. Imagine someone with the experience and knowledge of Rose Quartz. She'd know a lot more about the problems in Gem society, and know how to get more people to turn their backs on it. Sending a follow-up army after the Gems were reduced to Rose Quartz, Pearl, and Garnet (Amethyst wouldn't be discovered for another 500 years) probably could have destroyed them easily and taken Earth back.
Instead, they set up the Cluster and pulled out. They would destroy the Earth and everyone on it, rather than risk losing more troops to Rose's charisma.
Homeworld would've wanted to break the Gem and start over with better Injectors in another Kindergarten, but Rose secretly took the Gem and bubbled it away to a safer place until she could figure out how to heal it. This could've further prompted her to go against Homeworld.
- This goes a long way to explaining why, for example Pearl gets so many abilities that you wouldn't expect from a decorative maidservant, such as being way stronger than some other "civilian" gems like Peridot. The idea that all the mass-produced Gem types are made by cloning unique, singular "prototype" Gems that occurred naturally or were created by some other means which is no longer known to Gemkind, suggests that Gems weren't actually designed for the role of their caste, but rather were co-opted into them.
Although Pearls, unlike other mass-produced Gem types, seem to be somewhat customized for their individual masters, this customization is probably limited to superficial factors (maybe even just changing their color). They don't alter them any deeper (for example, reducing their physical strength or their intelligence to something more appropriate for a lowly maidservant), because a Pearl that deviated too much from the original would be considered defective, and no one wants to be seen with a defective Pearl.
It's unclear what bearing this has on whatever way in which Jasper, at a glance, identifies the CG's Pearl as defective. It could be that she may not actually gemetically differ from a "standard" Pearl, but her "non-standard", independent behavior causes her to be seen as defective anyway. - An expansion of this theory, with a heaping helping of Fridge Horror: this cloning is accomplished by taking a small shard of the Gem you want to clone, and burying it in the ground to grow and absorb life energy until it has grown and developed back into a full-size Gem, with all of the abilities but virtually none of the memories of the original. In other words, maybe a Gem has to be smashed to bits in order for new ones to be made. And maybe Pearls are made by smashing a Pearl to bits and embedding the little chunks into some kind of magic oyster or something to grow new Pearls.
Maybe a little while after the beginning of Gemkind, the Diamonds conspired to murder all the other gems, then developed the Kindergarten technology to grow armies of clone servants out of their parts.
The reason there is only one of each color Diamond is that none of the original Diamonds was willing to be shattered in order to propagate herself, but they were willing to shatter others in order to build their armies. (And/or, it could also be because Diamonds are formed by compression of carbon and thus can't be grown in the same way as other crystals.)
The only issue with this theory is that in Steven Universe S0E1 "What are gems?" (assuming it's canon), when they teach about the nature of Gems, Pearl says that a shattered gem will "cease to be", an apparent euphemism for death. However, she may have explained it that way since she's in denial about the real situation of shattered gems because the truth is too horrible to accept.
Maybe even forced fusion would work, if they stuck the pieces back in the right configuration rather than a random cluster, but unfortunately Homeworld Gems are more interested in pursuing this technology as a weapon to make war monsters out of random chunks of their enemies, rather than seeing its potential as a lifesaving procedure to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Even though all gems are theoretically capable of shifting to any shape as long as they don't exceed their normal size by too much or for too long, assuming coherent non-humanoid forms is not easy for most of them. This is the reason we only see Amethyst shapeshifting significantly, since she is interested in it and has done it so often as to become really skilled at it.
It may be that being left completely alone for the first several hundred years of her life, she had nothing to do but spend a lot of time practicing it, and since she had no way of knowing the "standard" for what she was supposed to look like since she didn't grow up with other Amethysts (who all emerged 500 years earlier), she probably tried a lot of forms, building up so much experience in shapeshifting that she eventually ended up a lot more experienced in it than even most gems that are much, much older than her.
Most gems, since they prefer their default forms and are not really interested in shapeshifting, are really out of practice in it, and if they suddenly tried doing what she does they'd probably just end up as a deformed blob. IIRC, the only time we see anyone besides Amethyst shapeshift is Garnet, and the most extreme things she does with it are shift into Steven to play "Steven Tag" (still humanoid), and make giant fake gem-shard disembodied arms to prank Pearl in revenge for not telling her that the gem shards escaped the bubble in "Secret Team".
One thing that suggests that shapeshifting isn't easy and requires learned skill, is a line from "Message Received". When Peridot runs away in her robot, Amethyst gets a wild look in her eye and exclaims "I've been ready for this!" before turning into a fully-functioning passenger helicopter. That line and the way she said it suggests that she wasn't just able to do it spontaneously; she'd probably started practicing it after all those instances of Peridot escaping using the helicopter-fingers on her limb enhancers.
As irresponsible as she seems, it probably bothered her that going airborne offered such an easy escape, so she spent some time mastering helicopter form (a full-size passenger helicopter for serious use is probably more difficult than just screwing around in the living room as Dogcopter, which she had done already) so no one could get away that easily again. She may actually spend a lot of the time she's alone in her room practicing new forms, which may be why she makes it look so easy.
- Seems Jossed - the Rubies came back and they came back angry at being tricked. It wasn't an act, Eyeball really fell for it along with all the others.
- However, Navy is later shown to be more than capable to fool Steven.
- Implicitly Jossed. Seems the Rubies really are that stupid/gullible.
- Possibly not. Navy showed that she was more than capable of playing the fool to trick Steven and co. to get her ship back.
- As far back as "The Answer," the Crystal Gem Ruby is shown to be more intelligent than the average (though just as prone to let her temper control her). Despite being mass-produced, Rubies seem to have as much intellectual variation as humans.
- Jossed. Bismuth's appearance matches the Gem seen in Lapis' flashback.
- It's definitely a Bismuth, but it's not confirmed if it was the same one Steven met or another Gem of her type.
- Eyeball was implied to have witnessed Rose shattering Pink Diamond, which is implied to be during the rebellion. However, this doesn't really deconfirm this, as Eyeball seems a lot more intelligent and competent than the other Rubies.
- Rubies were always dumb. They just got dumber.
- Possibly jossed since we've seen Holly Blue Agate, Aquamarine and Topaz all summon weapons just like Crystal Gems.
- Aquamarine's wand turns into a ribbon she wears on her head rather than being stored in her gem.
- The fact that it's referred to as The Rebellion and not, say, "Rose Quartz's rebellion" indicates that there's only been the one, though it could be that it got the title because it was the biggest and most successful.
- Not so much Jossed as based on a false generalization. Opal uses a bow in "Giant Woman."
- Season 4 shows that lots of Quartzes made on Earth (possible even all of them, save for Rose Quartzes who ended up bubbled) now serve in the Human Zoo. However, they seem to share Amethyst's friendly personality and eventually side with her rather than with their obnoxious boss.
- Despite being made from light, outside of their gems, Gems seem to work a lot like humans in terms of mechanics. Their basic forms may be somewhat similar to a Titan's: no complex organs like intestines or reproductive organs, but they have muscles and bones, and have a sac in their chest/abdominal cavity used to exhale. Why exhale? Speech, of course. That's probably the only reason they have a mouth and throat, because it allows for communication. Perhaps without all the extra organs they don't need, they can emit more complex sounds than what the average human can make, and shapeshifting could easily help with this.
- Of course, than that brings in languages. Perhaps the gems have a natural sort of translator in their gems, which helps with communication with other gems (and by proxy us humans). However, when corrupted, their natural translator is damaged and what would usually sound like speech would sound more like the inhuman screeches and clicking that Centipeetle does. The Crystal Gems, who have lived around humans for years and have shapeshifted to a degree to get closer to humans on Rose's behalf, may not be able to speak their native language anymore. They probably are the only ones who actually do speak proper English, whereas Peridot and the other Homeworld Gems are just using their powers.
The port seems to stand out and was put there intentionally so it must have a purpose. During her fight with Garnet, Jasper was punched into the viewing area of the room they were in which cracked the ceiling, that room was on the back of the ship. These two areas could be where it's vulnerable to attack, since why it blocked all attacks with the front. Peridot knows these ships as a technician, so we might see these exploited in the future.
- Room for Ruby makes this really unlikely, as it shows that Navy in particular is VERY deceptive.
Of course, we know that the "official story" has a lot of false information. Peridot and even Navy have commented on the Earth's beauty, with Peridot even proposing solutions to use Earth resources without damaging the planet, and the real reason why the Earth was put on the Diamonds' blacklist was Rose Quartz's rebellion. We also know that the Gems on Earth weren't "wiped out", they were corrupted by the Diamonds.
Imagine an ancestral Gem, without any light-projecting abilities (including bodies) but with some form of elemental control. If these proto-Gems can reproduce, whether directly by fission or in some more complicated manner involving natural Kindergartens (which could still be less complicated than the reproductive cycles of, say, grape phylloxera), they can evolve. Over time, they may find it convenient to create "bodies" out of the materials or energy they control. Eventually, Gems evolve the ability to project light; this is eventually used to build bodies which are more versatile, durable, or otherwise superior to the elemental bodies. Thus, we have a race of Gems with hard light bodies and elemental powers.
There are some questions which arise from this speculation. For instance, why can't Gems (apparently) reproduce naturally now? Aside from the obvious though weak possibility that they can but choose not to for whatever reason, it's possible that they became sterile after they learned to create artificial Gems, either due to random mutations or deliberate design. (If the Diamonds did the sterilization, they could probably still reproduce.) It is also possible, though less likely, that parts of Kindergarten machinery are created from whatever "wild" Gems use to reproduce (with machinery around them for more standardized, useful, or efficient Gems).
In addition, if all Gems have elemental powers, why do only a handful use them? It's possible that they just don't know about them. Ruby, Sapphire, and Peridot only discovered their elemental powers after a period of stress (fleeing Homeworld and nearly losing her tablet, respectively). Most Gems may not have had an experience which triggers these powers, and it would not be surprising if the Diamonds chose to suppress knowledge of them except for the few Gems who would be regularly using them (such as, presumably, Lapis Lazulis). It is also possible that some Gems are using their powers without knowing it; for instance, Steven and Rose's ability to regulate their descent or or stop falling could be due to aerokinesis (supported by Steven's inability to be weighed down by even a boat—he could have been supporting it with air, which also explains why he wasn't harmed), or Malachite's ability to create and control ice could be a mixture of Lapis's hydrokinesis with some other power possessed by Jasper.
Finally, if the Diamonds don't want most Gems to use their elemental powers...why don't they just remove them? They might not be able to, either due to insufficient Gemnetic engineering technology or because the elemental powers are linked to some vital function of the Gems (such as if the mechanisms for light projection and elemental control are linked or the same).
It is possible that the ultimate origin of the Gems will never be addressed, and likely that if they arose naturally their evolutionary history will be explained. Even so, it's fun to speculate about.
And some less important detail.You maybe noticed that she is too masculine,even more then Jasper.
- Yellow Diamond being head of Homeworld's Army is not as big a deal as one might think, because most planets don't have the psychic resistance to fight back. For the few who do, she's called in.
Not only do all of the gems in the show speak English, but in "Log Date 7 15 2", Peridot was able to read a joke book written in plane English, despite being made clear in "Monster Reunion" that their written language is very different from English. Despite her intelligence, the odds of her just "learning" English writing by herself in the current passage of time is very unlikely.
The signs add up; we've seen that the Zoo Gems are surprisingly sympathetic and kind to the humans in their care, they've been abused and discriminated against by their bosses their whole lives, the show has a liking for oblique Chekhov's Guns and one of the key tenets of the Crystal Gems is individuality and uniqueness. It's not too far out of the question for the Crystal Gems' adventure in the Zoo to light a spark of rebellion, with Carnelian and Skinny leading the way...
- Jossed on two counts:
- One, the power set demonstrated by the Crystal Gem Rose Quartz is actually because she was Pink Diamond in disguise, and thus is not possessed by real Rose Quartzes.
- Two, it's revealed in "Now We're Only Falling Apart" that Blue Diamond was the actual creator of the Human Zoo, not Pink, and Pink was the one who created the Rose Quartzes.
- The Zircons seem quite masculine...
- You say "lower class," but how about off-colors?
- On the other hand, as a prison tattoo a solid teardrop under the eye indicates a stone cold murderer.
- What?
- It would be amazing if that single human child turned out to be Lars, not Steven. If he's going to be stuck up there for a while, he might end up accomplishing something.
Sapphires are seers. No sapphire was shown summoning a weapon.
Quartzes/Agates are elite soldiers. Rose/Steven, Amethyst, Jasper and Holly Blue can summon weapons.
Bismuths are builders and arhitects. CG Bismuth didn't summon weapons, only shapeshifted her limbs to fight.
Rubies are low ranking soldiers. Both CG Ruby and Eyeball were seen summoning weapons.
Peridots are engineers and technicians. Peridot has never summoned a weapon.
Pearls are servants. However, CG Pearl can summon a weapon.
Lapis Lazulis are terraformers. Lapis has never summoned a weapon.
From what we've seen, Topazes seem to be used as brutes and guards, and both Topazes shown so far can summon weapons.
So, from what has been shown so far, it seems that summoning weapons is a power exclusive to Gems who were designed for combat in some form or shape. That would make a lot sense, considering Homeworld's practical, objective view of Gemkind: if you weren't built for fighting, you shouldn't need to have a weapon.
However, there is a single exception to this rule: Pearl, who albeit not being made for combat, is able to summon a weapon anyway. I believe there are two theories that could explain this contradiction. Either summoning weapons is an exclusive ability of combat-oriented gems, but Pearl was born with a defect that gave her this ability, or combat-oriented gems can summon weapons by default, but other types of gem can also develop this ability if they train hard enough.
Due to serious deficits this causes in every form of life and useful minerals the places used as Kindergartens literally sucked the life out of everything that was planted there during the brief attempt to return life to the area. Normal plants will not desiccate to the point of breaking down into powder or losing all stem strength naturally in a single day. It seems that the barren area within the Kindergarten is absorbing minerals and water back into the ground slowly revitalizing the area. Presumably if Gem production was more gradual no Kindergarten would go barren in the first place.
Oddly this might explain the Diamonds distaste for earth, if it's only wasteful practices that ruin Kindergartens and biological life to draw from is a necessity for Gemelogical life to survive it would be a slap in the face to the Diamonds themselves. After all take into consideration the distaste Yellow Diamond expresses in her tone for biological life when talking with Peridot. Over production on Homeworld due to Diamond egomania might well be to blame for the sudden colonization effort as well, if they accidentally drove the only source of Biolife on Homeworld extinct that would mean no more gems at all without expansion.
- Given that the Diamond Authority has thirty-plus colony worlds, and has had five millenia to put down new colonies after the loss of Earth, it makes no sense that the loss of one colony could have done so much damage that the Diamonds are suffering the kind of critical resource shortages Peridot implies. But it makes at least some sense that the Diamonds would want to make their servants weaker. Rose Quartz's rebellion was so successful in large part because the majority of the Era 1 Gems' powers and weapons came from the Gem itself, and so when Gems defected to Rose Quartz, they could bring most of their strength with them. The Diamonds now deliberately make their Gems weaker so that they will be dependent on Homeworld technology and support to function and be less of a threat should there be another rebellion.
- Obsidian:
- Fairly high-level Gems, used more as assassins/scouts than brutes like a Quartz or Topaz. Low toughness compared to other soldier Gems (because obsidian breaks easily), but powerful offensive abilities (because it's so sharp). Probably have pyrokinetic abilities like Rubies (since obsidian comes from volcanoes).
- Alternately, cheap "mook" Gems similar in rank to Rubies. As above, low toughness but comparatively strong attacks and probable pyrokinetic abilities.
- Jade:
- Artisans and crafters. Bismuths might have built the structure of the Moon base, for example, but it would be a Jade that made the murals. They also might be responsible for things like the thrones or the palanquins (or at least designing the aesthetics for such things, even if they don't actually build them).
- Amber:
- A more common and "cheaper" Pearl, used by Gems a bit too low on the hierarchy to have a Pearl.
- Alternately, Ambers could be historians and/or handle information management.
- So it's the middle of the war and there's a nice vein of Amethysts just out of the ground, ones that are manifesting unusually friendly and cheerful personalities, but are too loyal to their Diamond to be turned to the Crystal Gems. By sending them off to guard her Zoo, Pink accomplishes three things.
- First, they really are the Gems most suited for the job. Their friendliness and empathy will make them unusually suited to solve any problems that may pop up with the Zoomans, far more than almost any other Gems Pink could tap.
- Second, this gets them safely out of the line of fire on Earth.
- Third, this removes several unusually friendly and empathic Gems from Homeworld's forces on Earth, where their influence might keep other Gems from defecting.
- Confirmed on both counts.
- Peridot randomly manifesting ferrokinetic powers in "Too Short To Ride" doesn't seem to make any sense... unless you suppose that ferrokinesis was a power Peridot's gemline was supposed to have, but didn't receive due to the resource shortages. In that case, it's possible that she did have that power, but in a very weak form, so weak that she didn't even realize she had it until sheer desperation boosted it to a usable strength. Moreover, ferrokinesis is actually a very logical power for technician-caste Gems to have.
- Everyone else is jossed, though some of the Famethyst may have attended.
- Arguably confirmed with Jasper in "The Return" and "Jail Break". Along with being a type of gemstone, 'Jasper' is also a male name, and he certainly seemed more masculine than any other Gem we've met to me. Obviously this a matter of opinion, but for my money, Jasper's the first 'male' Gem we've met.
- Not confirmed at all. Jasper is referred to with female pronouns and though her appearance is less feminine-coded than the rest of the Gems, that doesn't mean she isn't at all.
- This one is complex. Now that we have a more complete view of Gem society, it's definitely jossed in its core thrust by Word of God saying Steven is the only male gem; 'appears to be' is complex and depends to an extent on the viewer's interpretation, but butch females are a thing and Jasper unambiguously uses female pronouns, as does every Gem but Steven. The core thrust of this WMG isn't just that there are Lady Looks Like a Dude gems but that (while gems are genderless) some are male to the extent that the ones we've seen are female, which definitely isn't the case based on what we know now.
- But this is made even more complex in Steven Universe: The Movie by the introduction of Steg, who is unambiguously male; but he only exists as a fusion and not as a "natural" gem, and doesn't really fit what the WMG was going for.