Steven Universe

Best episode in the damn show. TRAITOROUS CLOD!

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Theoretically, since they don't breathe it, and nothing else living there does, none of the old oxygen that was there before they hollowed out their home planet would be used up. I don't know enough about how planets work to know if they would still have an atmosphere after all they were doing though. Alternatively, maybe gems photosynthesize like plants.

But this does sound like another thing they won't really bother to explain.

edited 25th Jun '17 4:55:08 PM by xanderiskander

I meant, if they caused their planet to look anything like this◊, the atmosphere would be... well, not like it used to be.

I think the reason Homeworld is still intact as it were is that they can't afford to destabilise the planet,it is the centre of their empire after all,they have lots of other worlds they mine out after all

New theme music also a box

I figured, but it didn't look like homeworld was that hollowed out to me. Maybe we didn't get to see the worse parts like in that model of colonized earth, but I think it's also possible the reason they look for other planets is partially that they don't want to hollow out their main planet that much.

They weren't just going to strip Earth bare and abandon it, they wanted a permanent colony. The hollow Earth was going to be a stable structure—at least with Homeworld tech.

edited 25th Jun '17 5:22:39 PM by thatother1dude

Its semi implied that Earth would have had the latest advances in terraforming and etc technology done at it.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers

Maybe Homeworld's terraforming just isn't complete yet? We know what the end result is supposed to be, but we don't know what the timescale is. Forty years is a "short trip." Homeworld's Cluster took about five thousand years to finish- possibly more, depending on when they started it.

That would be very strange odd.

More likely is that it's pretty darn hard to terraform a planet while there is still an entire civilization (that you actually care about) on top of it. You don't just move that out of the way while you go hollow out a planet.

Or maybe Earth was a testing ground for new technology, and they would later upgrade Homeworld similarly if successful. Or maybe Homeworld is considered sacred, and strip mining it to the point as they planned to do with Earth isn't allowed.

Plenty of possible reasons, really, but I suspect the most likely is "the writers just couldn't be bothered."

Whew, this thread moves fast sometimes. To offer thoughts on the last couple of pages...

Re: the war in the original Transformers continuing for 65 million years without any progress on either side - I might be projecting a bit, but I think that was supposed to be commentary on the then-active Cold War between the US and the USSR. Particularly when the principals of the war are never deposed and never dying out, it becomes an extended metaphor for the sociopolitical situation at the time. Possibly not even intentionally; it might have literally been like a no-brainer for the writing staff (as noted under The Great Politics Mess Up, particularly at the point in time in which Transformers first came out, the idea of a near-perpetual Cold War seemed almost perfunctory).

Re: The Zoo and Saturn - I'd have to dig around, but I did the math at one point to figure out just how fast the Rubies' ship would have to be in order to get to Saturn at the timeframes Pearl mentioned. It's actually almost impossible to make a direct, uninterrupted shot from Earth to Saturn in that time frame - the speed required to do so is less than escape velocity, and craft tend to maintain that velocity after escaping the atmosphere (since there's, for all useful purposes, a complete vacuum out there, resulting in much less drag). Either the craft would be stuck on Earth because it couldn't escape the gravity of the planet at that velocity, or that ship would have gotten to Saturn way faster than 70 years (which others have pointed out by how quickly humans in the real world send stuff to Saturn even a few decades ago, let alone today). EDIT: Found it - my reasons as for why the Zoo can't be orbiting Saturn.

Re: Why all gems are understood - Translator Microbes aren't a Voodoo Shark at all. They're not necessarily literal microbes - the trope just describes when there's some way to automagicaly translate languages on the fly. It could be literal microbes, it could be psychic powers, it could be actual magic, it could be a fish that you stick in your ear, or whatever else you want it to be. There's a reason that the alternate trope name is Universal Translator. I'm fine with just saying that it's a default magical power that all gems have in part to always understand the Diamonds and in part in case they ever have an enemy that they need to overcome, which is much easier when you understand them. That's a pretty minor Hand Wave, all things told.

edited 26th Jun '17 10:12:12 AM by 32_Footsteps

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

> the writers just couldn't be bothered.

Given how we know very little of Homeworld I think it's too early to make an assumption like that,but I agree for the most part that for a species that doesn't need to breathe to originate from a planet which has a breathable atmosphere is more then a little odd,maybe Homeworld isn't necessarily their planet of origin but one they decided to call 'Home'

New theme music also a box

I didn't say they were—they're just called "microbes" in the sense that they're unobtrusive.

I also wasn't calling the whole trope a Voodoo Shark, just that it would be in these circumstances.

Pink Diamond's apparent interests in humans gives some reason for Homeworld to develop a universal translator (the Zoo and Aquamarine's missions are the only Homeworld activities that require talking to humans). But there's no reason to give such an ability to every gem and especially not to leave them turned on, both ways, at all times. Unless Homeworld finds it imperative that any sapient species be able to eavesdrop on their personnel.

@50984 I was a little terse, so let me more fully explain - using Translator Microbes in Steven Universe wouldn't be a Voodoo Shark at all. I can think of at least three reasons (always be able to understand the Diamonds no matter what, understand enemy communications, any possible intelligence gathering) off the top of my head that gems in general would have some sort of power (psychic, magic, technological, or whatever other reason you want) that would allow them to speak and understand any language they encounter. None of those potential answers breaks immersion to me at all - it's a pretty simple Hand Wave. Sure, there are plenty of implications for some of those (like the idea that there's some enemy to the gem race out there that we've never seen) that raise further questions, but those aren't necessarily getting answered in the scope of the show. But that's pretty much true of any answer - eventually, you're going to have an answer that will raise questions that aren't going to be brought up.

The Voodoo Shark point is a bit of a YMMV issue, in that what breaks immersion for one person may not break it for everyone, but I don't think that Translator Microbes are going to be that point for this show.

For the point about potential eavesdroppers... well, given that the Diamonds clearly had secure communications gear (look back at "Message Received" - the Crystal Gems didn't know about the secure Diamond Line until Peri started talking about it), eavesdropping doesn't seem like it was on their list of concerns. Even beyond that, they probably just dealt with it the same way nations at war have dealt with wars against countries with which they share common languages (including countless civil wars) - codes and secure channels.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

Stevens bubble generates its own atmosphere.

Your momma's so dumb she thinks oral sex means talking dirty.

The best explanation for gems speaking English is that spoken "English" is mutually intelligible with the gem language, it having become the Lingua Franca of Earth, while written "English uses a different writing system than the homeworld standard.

It's the same way that if you knew how to write Kanji (Katakana?) you could use the characters to write words in phonetic English (until you need an "L" or "R" I guess).

The main issue with that theory is that, although humans may have spoken Gem thousands of years ago, the modern languages should have completely diverged given the timespan.

Let's be honest, the Gem/science fiction stuff is completely incidental. Like, barely even qualifies as Window Dressing. You could change the Gems to Elves or Faeries and change very, very little.

My various fanfics.

So, like, anybody heard about new episodes? Somebody in another thread mentioned something about a new episode on July 3rd but I've heard no word about it from elsewhere.

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?

There was a title that showed up on Zap2it ("Onion Family"), but consensus is that it was a false alarm (the site also lists names of marathon blocks, and there was one with that name that aired last summer).

That's because CN is doing premiers this summer, weekdays at around 3 or 4 PM EST, and the schedule lists a Steven Universe episode that dat at 4:30.

However, the schedule doesn't list episode titles past July 2nd. One shouldn't even assume the shows listed to be accurate to the final schedule.

It also lists the shorts (like "Video Chat").

If it's an actual new episode, there will be an episode number on it.

Cartoon Network couldn't tell it's asshole from it's armpit.

Easier to wait for leaks than to wait for them to figure themselves out.

Your momma's so dumb she thinks oral sex means talking dirty.

I'm tired of Onions for now. This had better be good.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

We just explained that's not a new episode, it's just another one of those themed blocks of reruns CN does at lot of with this show.