#idk where they are some sort of jungle planet or may just earth idk

[basoogil]

smh they're being gay again 🤦‍♂️

[plush-anon]

SU Theory: Pink Diamond never planned on taking the rebellion all the way to Homeworld

(Spoilers up to the recent Steven Bomb, ‘Heart of the Crystal Gems’ - you’ve been warned).

Giddy up folks, this one’s a doozy.

And when I say doozy, I mean freakishly long. Enjoy!

Something’s clicked into place for me after watching this bomb - particularly in ‘Made of Honor’. When Steven first unbubbles Bismuth, he says this:

“You know how you fought mom because her whole war strategy didn't make any sense? Well... you were right!” 

This got the ol’ gears a’grindin’ for me. What exactly WAS Rose Diamond’s strategy in the war? We already knew that she highly disliked the idea of shattering gems, to the point of (potentially?) banning her army from doing it to the other side... even while the other side had no compunction on doing the same. Some of what Bismuth says in her title episode lends credence to this theory:

 I designed this sword for a fair fight. It can cut through a Gem's physical form in an instant! Destroying the body, but never the Gem. But... Homeworld doesn't fight fair. I was working on a weapon that would've been a gamechanger. Homeworld knows how to hit us where it counts, but we can do everything they can do, and better.

This is actually emphasized later on in ‘Back to the Moon’ by what Eyeball says about Jasper when she first emerged:

“ I was on the ground in Facet 6 when I heard the tale of the Facet 9 Kindergarten Quartz that could. They said you popped out of the ground with your helmet on, and took out 80 Crystal Gems before the sun went down.”

(Note: this could refer to poofing, but given Jasper’s status now with Homeworld [in spite of being from Earth] if this only came from poofing Gems, especially since destabilizers exist now, that wouldn’t quite match up to what we’ve seen - at least in my opinion, feel free to disagree).

And when Steven brings up that shattering the gems of the enemy makes them the same as Homeworld, and that it’s not what a Crystal Gem would do (which I HEAVILY disagree with, but I digress), Bismuth brings up this:

“That's exactly what she said... What type of leader doesn't give her army the best chance to win?! How could you value the gems of our enemies more than our own?”

Now combine this with what we learn in ‘Now We’re Only Falling Apart’ - what Rose’s initial intentions started out being when she began her Rebellion:

“So she decided to make a stand as someone they couldn’t ignore. She was going to scare every Gem off the planet.”

Scare, NOT shatter. Rose Diamond never intended on killing ANYONE to get her point across. She never planned on going beyond Homeworld. Her initial goal was ONLY to protect the Earth - and, when Garnet came into the picture and changed things, her new focus was ‘Protect all life on Earth AND all Gems on Earth, so that both can change and flourish and grow’.

...There was never any mention of going beyond Earth to Homeworld with this. Hell, Rose’s initial plan to ONLY reclaim the Earth and... idk, make it some sort of free Gem/Human Paradise (seriously, what WOULD have happened? Would they have established trade with the humans, kept to themselves like what they did after the Corruption Event, made their own country somewhere, refurnished the Kindergartens, repurposed the floating arenas/courts/buildings to live in... what?) can be seen as far back as Rose’s Scabbard in Season 1:

“ Please, please understand: if we lose, we'll be killed, and if we win, we can never go home.”

NEVER. GO. HOME.

THERE WAS NEVER ANY PLAN TO TAKE THIS BEYOND EARTH.

EVER.

So, to sum up: the original plan was to scare off all gems from Earth to cease colonization. Then, after meeting Garnet, the goal expanded to making a safe haven for Gems to grow, and change, and go beyond their intended purpose.

More importantly, however? This highlights not only Pink Diamond’s foolishness (as if the Diamonds would REALLY let their Gems live freely from them in ANY capacity), it highlights her selfishness. ONLY saving Earth and those who are on its surface, huh? This would explain why no one ever made plans to retrieve the humans in the Zoo, or why no thought whatsoever was put towards taking this to other Gem Colonies, even to Homeworld itself.

Except...

someone did.

Bismuth wanted to take this war full on to Homeworld. She wanted to fight back directly against the source of everything they’d been taught - she wanted to go to the heart of the fight and go against the Diamonds themselves, the source of their entire hierarchy.

And when, she took this to Rose, someone who was extremely anti-violence, and, at the time, anti-escalation (no shattering, no focus on anything except those on Earth), it... ended poorly.

But as we can see, the idea itself, while it has merit, really did end poorly for the Gems. Rose ‘shattered’ Pink Diamond to end the war and scare off Homeworld for good...

...only for the Corruption Event to happen, and mutilate EVERYONE who was left to monstrosity.

To clarify, however: NO ONE KNEW THE DIAMONDS COULD DO THIS. NO ONE KNEW THAT THEY WOULD REACT THIS WAY EITHER. THIS SHOCKED EVERYONE.

(Although Bismuth in ‘Made of Honor’ made a very interesting remark: “ Only a Diamond could do something like this” - that may just allude to the fact that only a Diamond could alter a Gem so much, rather than actually recognizing this as something they had specifically done before.)

Now, would things have gone differently, say, if Bismuth had been able to shatter a different Diamond than the designated ‘child Diamond’ of the family, like Blue or Yellow, or heck, even White Diamond? Well, it’s hard to say. If all 3 had been shattered, the system would have collapsed, with high-ranking Gems fighting to either fill the void and take control, or fighting for vengeance against their Diamonds.

If only one had been shattered, say White? I can see civil war breaking out between Blue and Yellow as they vie for control OR: they band together and try to rule in her stead, becoming even WORSE.

BUT: that’s just in the possible future that the Rebellion stayed the size it was on Earth, and never grew. Who knows what would have happened had Rose actually reached out to other colonies?

In fact, why didn’t she, again?

“So, like a coward, she called for her Diamond allies, Yellow and Blue, to help.”

Pink Diamond was terrified of the other Diamonds. She had a better idea than anyone else what they were capable of (thought probably not the Corruption Blast), and knew from the beginning what might happen if she pushed too far in the Rebellion.

She kept it to Earth, to what she knew and could control - she had insight as to what ‘her’ armies (aka Blue and Yellow’s reinforcements) were about to do because, as this was technically her planet, she was allowed to be fully briefed on the war plans, and thus could best oppose it, highlighting Rose Quartz’s apparently incredible military skill and tactical brilliance.

But once they move off planet, to one of Blue or Yellow’s (or stars forbid, one of White’s) colonies? All of that insight goes down the drain. They treated Pink like a child and only informed her of what was happening on Earth because it was her first colony - and we all saw how Yellow treated a Pink who was interested in what she was doing with basic curiosity in Jungle Moon.

Pink would NOT be allowed to know anything about their military action, ESPECIALLY after failing so miserably with her first colony.

THAT was why Pink made no move to go beyond Earth, or to fight for other colonies. At that point, her facade as an ultra-capable Quartz would crumble, and so would the resistance.

Even the reasoning behind faking her shattering comes from that last moment she had with Blue and Yellow in ‘Can’t Go Back’:

“You don't even have to do anything. Just smile, and wave. Show everyone you are unfazed by this little uprising. Your gems will fall into line, and these Crystal Gems will be no more. As long as you are there to rule, this colony will be completed.”

(Personally, I believe this is when they started construction on the Cluster, but the timeline for that is all over the place, so I won’t even try to go in depth on that here)

At this point, Blue and Yellow are stepping in completely to finish the colony after Pink has ‘failed’ time and again. She has no more control over her colony, no reason to believe that either Blue or Yellow will keep her in any way shape or form up to date on what happens from here on out. She’s backed herself into a corner, and takes the only way out she can see:

And from there?

Everything changes.

“We're the only ones left. Homeworld. They were all leaving. We thought we'd won. There was a bright light and everyone was-why did I do it?”

This whole congruence falls together to truly highlight not only Pink’s naivety, but her selfishness and her desperation to cling to this image she’d created of a flawless Quartz (when she could never be a flawless Diamond). She wanted to keep her planet at all costs, even if not as intended. She didn’t want to lose face in her own rebellion, or even risk losing at all - to the point of denying other gems the right to use similar weapons to lead other rebellions on other colonies. She just wanted her own oasis for Gems and Humankind to exist, and never once thought about how the other Diamonds would react to that - how they may not want to have one solitary colony going against everything they stand for, everything they’ve ever worked for in creating their great Diamond Authority. After all, with a place like that, how many of their lower class workers, the ones who build and serve - how many of the masses would actually want to stay with them if a place like that existed in their empire? Who would actually stay to listen to them if one of their own - a runt, an Off-Color Diamond no less - had a colony like that? Why would they want to stay?

Why indeed.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Pink Diamond is the childish incarnation of ‘The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions’ - only she buried her head in the sand when it started to get too serious, when the actual implications of their rebellion - what she stood for - threatened to spread across the Diamond Authority and lead to a war that wasn’t clean, that didn’t have easy answers or paths to take, that couldn’t be fought without shattering others, that would end with the deaths of millions of gems and other life forms.

In the end, she was left with the shell of a planet she begged for, and the twisted forms of the gems who fought for her as a permanent reminder of everything she lost when she “won” the war, both friend and foe.

Now, after all this I still can’t say if going in as Pink Diamond instead of Rose Quartz would have helped much - the other Diamonds clearly have no issues with coming in and pushing her out, or taking over entirely. IF she’d come out in open support of the Rebellion, chances are high she would have been whisked away without her Pearl (likely as punishment) to White, and not been able to do much of anything from there. 

Ultimately, there aren’t any clear answers here, except that the enemy is wrong and their way of life must change - as millions of lifeforms, Gem and intelligent mortal, are in danger if they are allowed to continue. Protests, diplomacy, begging from the one person in power who thought that way - who, out of all of them would be respected the most - was ignored entirely.

In cases like this, war seemed to be the only answer.

But as many of us know, there are no easy paths in war.

Shame that Pink Diamond didn’t until it was too late.