#gem!falls

Kryptos, as Blue Diamond, controlled intelligence and civil services. The higher level gems of Kryptos’s court functioned as seers, council members, project organizers, and leaders. Blue Diamond was in charge of simple cases of injustice like petty court, and was responsible for providing the thinkers of gem society as well as gems who would serve as liaisons between different castes, colors, and sectors, different races, different planets. I headcanon color to be incredibly important in the rank and function of gems as well as the kind of gem, and so blue gems were the travelers, the intellectuals, the planners, and Blue Diamond and his gems were also in charge of record-keeping, archives, and other civil jobs like the gem equivalents of mailmen and librarians. Purple gems tended to be in the roles of civil servants and record keepers; blue gems had the higher jobs of overseeing projects (like a CEO does, in a way) and planning, researching, and keeping the more important records. The darker green gems that he controlled were in charge of research and technical execution. Green gems are all technical gems, even the warmer-colored ones under Yellow Diamond. The difference lies in who they serve. Green gems under Kryptos did their research mostly from Homeworld and existed to aid the elite thinkers and planners in making the best and most efficient possible plans, while yellower green gems were more field-oriented and served as technical officers involved in colonization. It’s also worth noting that saturation plays an important role in the ranking of blue gems; the more vividly blue, generally the higher ranked the gem was, and the paler the blue, the more they worked in civilian roles. Lapis falls on the lower end of the upper blue cast, as she is somewhere in-between pale and not. Aside from minor administrative and intellectual roles, Kryptos was largely in charge of the communications sector, and as Pearls exist mainly to serve as decorative secretaries when they’re actually serving more than an aesthetic role, Kryptos was in charge of the development of the Pearls before they were deployed to their respective sectors. White gems are primarily used in communications and thus served as ambassadors, secretaries, majordomos, etc, under Kryptos.

Pink Diamond was in charge of resources, technical services, and kindergartens. While all the Diamonds could easily sow a kindergarten, Pyronica’s job was to plan with the aid of Blue, and then deploy the gems who build the kindergarten and create them. Most pink gems fell into the worker class under Pyronica, and served to deal with resource management, distribution, and processing. They did the hard labor, and very rarely did any of them falls in administrative roles. She was originally in charge of just pink gems, but Bill later split the charge of red gems and some purple and white gems to her as well. White gems under Pyronica were changed from their original function of communications and made to heal and repair damaged gems, as all of Pyronica’s gems serve to either build or repair, or provide some sort of physical labor. Kryptos was the intellectual labor; Pyronica was the physical and nurturing work.

Yellow Diamond was in charge of military and government. He was the supreme Diamond, the absolute last word in an disputes, able to overturn the rulings of any other diamond. In charge of yellow, orange, red, and lighter green gems, as well as some pink, some white, and all of the black gems. Red, orange and yellow gems are almost exclusively warrior class, and even the nobility are created with the ability to fight significantly better than others. Quartzes also fell under his domain, even purple and blue quartzes. While mostly in charge of military, colonization, the court system and governing homeworld and assigning castes, he also had significant control over the communications system, as well as the kindergarten system. All reports, from both the blue and pink sectors, went back to him to ultimately be reviewed and approved or disapproved.  He was also in charge of inter connectivity, as the first goal upon conquering a new planet would be to lay down warp pads for the fast transportation of troops. His personal court consisted of a mix of colored gems; generals and tacticians in yellows, reds and greens, superior kindergartners from the pink sector, and seers and planners from the blue sector, as well as healers, communications gems, ambassadors, and others.

And as such, he is Peridot’s diamond. She is a kindergartner, meaning she does answer to the pink sector, but as a technician she would also answer to the blue sector. To avoid a power strugge, gems like her belong to Yellow Diamond, and their roles are centered specifically around populating new colonies and making sure the colonies remain functional and efficient.

We know that Peridot was created when Homeworld was suffering a resource shortage. Now, I headcanon that the shortage is not the cause for them going out conquering other worlds, but rather a direct effect; in order to conquer other planets and take their resources and grow in power, the gems needed to mass-produce other gems as well as technology, and then build upon these new worlds to stake their claim. To quote @poetofthepiano, “the creation of new gems entails using up the resources of that planet, the minerals in particular, to make new gems. This process permanently saps the useable minerals from the ecosphere, and the gems had to begin conquering other planets.” As a result, what we now refer to as Homeworld is actually the entire solar system that the original planet the first two Diamonds sprang from was in.

And as a result of their expansion beyond their star system to other galaxies, Homeworld began to suffer a resource shortage and the expansion grew more frantic. That’s part of the reason they were so desperate to wipe out the life on earth and extract every resource; earth had quality resources and conditions that they hadn’t seen on a planet since Homeworld’s beginning. In fact, the researches noted with some surprise after first establishing warp pads on earth, the planet had optimal resources and conditions to possibly grow...a new Diamond.

Now it takes an entire planet (the size of earth) with the right conditions to successfully produce a Diamond, and Homeworld is twice the size of Neptune and as such was able to produce two diamonds, two naturally full-formed, full power diamonds. Two engineered Diamonds that had a few corners cut were produced on much smaller planets in the star system. The first two, the naturally born ones, were Bill and Kevin, and the second two were Kyrptos and Pyronica, specifically made by Bill to be less powerful than him. Pyronica wound up being less powerful than Kryptos as well for whatever reason, but as long as no one was stronger than him Bill didn’t care. His creating two new diamonds following the shattering of his brother began Homeworld’s decline into resource deficiency.

Earth was Kevin’s colony and as such Bill claimed it for himself, and no other. He lost his brother when a race very similar to the gems on one of the planets in their star system fought back, and Kevin was shattered when he went to negotiate. Bill wiped them out and buried Kevin on the original Homeworld planet, then expanded the gem war machine over the entire star system to make Homeworld a web of seventeen interconnected planets connected by both warps, ship travel, and actual infrastructure. The gems continued to spread outward, but the abundancy of resources was indeed severely dwindling, until they harvested most of the energy from their own sun and left it at less than a quarter of its original power. Earth had lain overlooked and uncared for centuries, and now when they got back, humans existed where before there had only been a few multicellular organisms. The resources on Earth were immense and Bill immediately sought to claim them to expand his armies.

And that’s when the rebellion happened and he was shattered.

Now, unlike Pink Diamond, Bill was shattered at the very end of the rebellion. The shockwave of his gem breaking created a massive blast that damaged a lot of structures around them, and in a panic Kryptos and Pyronica fused and sent out an answering blast that struck the earth from afar much like a shot from the Death Star, and caused the corruption, not even caring if they clipped some of their own retreating armies in the process.

Peridot is a relatively new gem; she was brought into being shortly after Bill died, on homeworld, in a kindergarten built for Yellow Diamond. Peridot was immediately sent out to work, because now resources were indeed dwindling after so many gems had been lost on Earth. She was sent from planet to planet checking on kindergartens, and as she was too low-ranked to ever deal with a gem higher than her handler, she never met her diamond. Why would she? She’s a lowly technician, a peridot—she had a job to do and she did it. Her manager took care of her and relayed orders to her.

Communication about what happened on Earth was kind of stunted. The Diamonds removed Bill from the diamond authority, leaving the symbol merely Blue and Pink side by side; originally there was symbol that we know as the current Diamond Authority in canon, only with Blue in place of Yellow, Pink in place of Blue, and Yellow in place of White. (The four-diamond symbol never existed) Yellow Diamond’s gems were shunted to the other two, and Kryptos took over interconnectivity and military and gave Pyronica the rest. He knew he couldn’t rule without her, but he erased Yellow Diamond from history and forbid any mention of Yellow Diamond or what had happened. Any gems that had belonged to Yellow, or served under him, would be ushered on their way; new gems were immediately sent out into the field, and as a result never heard the truth. Some who were developed in a certain timeframe after his death on or near Homeworld seemed to know instinctively there were only two Diamonds and had no knowledge a third had ever existed; colonies far away from Homeworld weren’t even told that Bill was dead, lest they think to rebel as well. When Peridot emerged, she was of a batch made specifically for Yellow Diamond before his death. He was gone, but they couldn’t terminate the kindergarten and take the resources back, so out of embarrassment the gems in charge of that particular kindergarten sent the gems that emerged off as fast possible, leaving them with no memories of Homeworld and no actual knowledge of the current state of things. Peridot was updated on only what she needed to know via files and her manager, and knowing that Yellow Diamond was dead was not need-to-know. Which is why she was singing Yellow Diamond’s praises to Steven on the moon base and in the car. It wasn’t until she activated the Direct Diamond Communication Channel (not realizing that she was using Bill’s own communicator) and got hold of Kryptos that she realized something was amiss. And it wasn’t until later when she heard Jasper yelling that she started to have her suspicions, which were confirmed by Steven and Dipper, unfortunately. Dipper took them both to Bill’s tomb to get closure, as well as to get closure himself.

Jasper hadn’t once mentioned Yellow Diamond during their entire travels together, even though Peridot brought him up from time to time. She was too angry. She’d come out of the earth flexing and gone right to the top of his ranks, and then shortly after joining his army and being in awe of him she’d watched him die right before her eyes. She was always made to be one of his generals, but she adored him, almost the same way Pearl adored Rose prior to her affections for Rose becoming romantic. Strength is everything to Jasper, and Yellow Diamond had all of it. He was the perfect example of a warrior, and she was made to serve him, why would she ever consider anything less? The fact that Rose and the rebellion dared to defy the Diamonds, Yellow Diamond especially, infuriated her. Rose was a big name, and she wanted to best Rose to please her Diamond. And then Rose came out of nowhere and, despite all his strength, all his cunning, she put that sword straight through his forehead and he shattered into three pieces--two pieces might, MIGHT be saveable, for a Diamond, if all the healers on Homeworld tried.

But three?

And now Jasper was shunted into Pyronica’s service and sent to do the Diamond’s bidding, knowing that the Diamond she was made for is dead and gone forever. It wasn’t something she wanted to talk about, especially not to Peridot, and she was under the impression that Peridot was either in denial or for some reason had never been told that Yellow Diamond didn’t exist anymore. And if no one had told Peridot then in Jasper’s eyes she didn’t deserve to know. Her mission nowwas to destroy Rose, even if it meant disobedience, even if Rose was stronger and had probably never once heard Jasper’s name; the one who had ended her Diamond must pay.

Any gems who looked up to Bill, who saw him as their Diamond or were made for him, were shunted into other roles on Homeworld, given away to other Diamonds, and their loyalty was less than freely given. Plenty didn’t care, some even were glad he was dead, as he was dangerous and cruel. But the ones who admired him as a warrior, like Jasper, or as a paragon of perfection, like Peridot, or even Rose Quartz who respected his power and strength, they all were unhappy about his death and therefore it was a better idea, in cases like Peridot, to never let them know that the gem they were so loyal to was gone...or their loyalties might go elsewhere.

That’s not to make little of Peridot’s character arc. When Kryptos came up on the other end, she was confused, but not insolent, and respectfully referred to him as her Diamond and have the salute. Even though Yellow Diamond was the gem she was built to serve, she is fully aware that she belongs to Homeworld and all the Diamonds have rank over her and deserve her loyalty. She was respectful to Kryptos, in fact more than she was in-show, as Kryptos was not her Diamond and she did not feel as completely comfortable with him. She knew Kryptos was the Diamond in charge of planning, intelligence, logistics, and to be honest she was slightly grateful she got him and not Yellow Diamonds; she knew Yellow Diamond was prone to being dangerous and temperamental and certainly not always logical (he was perfect enough in other ways for her to overlook that and still consider him flawless) but Blue Diamond, he was a good one to tell a plan to, he’d listen to her--and he didn’t. And he displayed cruelty she had honestly only expected from Yellow Diamond--and she wasn’t about to lie down and let anyone blow up her earth, not even Yellow Diamond had he been there.

For Peridot, finding out is a real blow that momentarily has her angry at Steven for what his friends did, angry and hurt and scared. The Diamond she was made for is dead—has been dead the entire time and nobody ever told her. The perfect Diamond, her hero—gone. Why wasn’t she told? What is wrong with Homeworld? So many things come to light then, and she realizes that the Diamondsare actually far worse than she feared, even if she identifies as a Crystal Gem now; part of her always believed there might be a chance to go back home, maybe even make Homeworld better.