(Semi-Pony) Skleros and the Diamond Authority (spoilers for Steven Universe through Season 3-4) · 6:20am Dec 24th, 2016
I've recently gotten heavily into Steven Universe, a cartoon I recommend to any fan of MLP: FIM for a number of reasons, including the strong thematic similarities between the shows, to the point that they practically could have titled it Magical Girl Space Opera: Friendship Is Magic and it would have been quite appropriate. This interest doesn't date back before December 2016 -- before then, I was at best peripherally aware of Steven Universe as a cartoon some other people liked.
Long before then, I had conceived of the Night Shadows, and of the existence of the Greater Shadows. I'm not sure exactly when, but certainly by early to mid 2016 I had decided that one of the more powerful Greater Shadows, and one with a strong connection to the corruption of Crimson Quartz aka "King Sombra" and the Crystal Empire in general was Skleros, essentially a living and malign crystalline Great Old One. Here's his description from Post-Traumatic, Chapter 14 "The Shadows of the Past"
One of the ... leaders, in our terms ... of this Conclave was an entity who would have appeared to our minds as a vast complex tower of dark crystals, from the angles of which blinked many hateful yellow eyes. We may term it "male," though that does not adequately represent the full and loathsome nature of his role in the umbral systems of reproduction. His dominion was over crystalline formation, and he and his minions had already figured prominently in the history of the Ponies, though they did not yet know it. His name would be incomprehensible to us, but Crimson Quartz called him "Skleros" in the Codex of Shades, and we shall here do the same.
and from Dancing Alone, Chapter 8 "Night Readings."
She learned of Skleros, the dark crystalline god-thing from whom Sombros had received his super-equine powers, whose dominion was over the angles of space and time, along which he did not so much move as grow, and whose ways were rigid but irresistible. There was a sketch here, of a vast complex crystal tower, much like a loathsome parody of the Crystal Palace -- from the vertices of whose angles peered out numerous yellow eyes.
Now, in Steven Universe, the Big Bads are a sort of triumvirate (*) called The Diamond Authority, who tyrannically rule the intergalactic empire of Gemkind (save for the rebel Crystal Gems), despise all life other than Gems, and enforce a rigid caste system upon Gemkind itself. They could be quite accurately described as arrogant imperialistic fascist or communist (Gemkind appears to be eusocial and reproduces only through a community effort, rather like the Changelings) despots.
What is more, this society has been growing ever more evil for millennia (within the lifetime of many Gems, as Gems are apparently immortal or very close to it). Rose Quartz, six thousand years ago, had enough of an independent moral compass that she (**) could appreciate the virtue of individuality and the imperative to refrain from harming those who do not harm oneself; Lapis Lazuli, who was trapped on Earth five thousand years ago and recently spent some time on Homeworld, reported that Homeworld had changed -- and for the worse -- during the five millennia she had spent out of contact with her old home.
They are not, however, utterly lost to evil, even now. Notably, Peridot believed that when she pointed out to Yellow Diamond that there was no rational reason to destroy the Earth, her Diamond would agree with her based on a logic under which needless destruction was wasteful. This means that while the Diamond Authority itself is evil, their rank and file techs and warriors are not: they are only following orders.
I immediately thought of Skleros, and of the uses the Night Shadows would have for a thoroughly-corrupted intergalactic civilization. Most obviously, they could build mega-structures to grapple the two universes together and aid the Night Shadows in opening a truly huge Gate from the Shadowverse to their target universe. This would wind up really and truly sucking from the point of view of the Gems themselves, who would find themselves slaves to the Shadows, but then the Night Shadows have never been particularly fair or honorable in the treatment of their allies.
Skleros, in this view, would be a corrupter of the Diamonds themselves, enhancing their power and cementing their dominance, with the goal of gradually turning the Authority ever more evil until it would be utterly lost to the light. This would have the major advantage to the Night Shadows of crushing the capacity of the Gems for love -- love is toxic to the Night Shadows, and an entity like Garnet (***) would be not only immune to many of their psychic powers, but her mere presence might actually harm a Night Shadow.
I'm not planning to write any explicit crossovers at the moment, but I am very likely to mention the Gemverse in passing in some future story or scene.
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(*) They were a quadrivirate, until Rose Quartz slew Pink Diamond.
(**) The Gems are biologically-asexual silicon-based life who project humanoid physical forms which appear feminine from a human POV; they are capable of romantic and under some circumstances a sort of sexual attraction.
(***) Garnet is a permanent Fusion of two Gems, Ruby and Sapphire, who deeply love one another and hence cannot bear to be separate for very long. She has more than once explicitly described her fundamental nature as "love."
I quite love Steven Universe as well. Well... after the first season, anyway. It took me a solid three or four tries to get past the first season without wanting to throw Steven off the nearest bridge. Since then he's undergone such a wealth of character development that I quite like him. Garnet was always one of my personal favourites and arguably the reason I stuck it out. That only amplified after learning more about her. Peridot and Lapis Lazuli just made me happy.
It's funny, my boyfriend got me into S.U and I got him into MLP: FiM; since then we have both talked at length about the similarities. S.U tends to be better at giving life lessons regarding sexuality (or at least what a healthy relationship with someone should be like) and tolerance toward a previous aggressor more fluidly, but many of the character dynamics are eerily similar. The world building of S.U is far more complete. Which is funny, because there is plenty that they've merely alluded to and never outright stated, wheras FiM tends to show; but never tell the details. The Dragons and Yaks, for example.
I can understand where you would very easily see the parallels between the Gem quadriviratewell, tri now; still waiting on why Rose would do that and your Skleros, and even moreso see the appeal they would have to corrupt beings as powerful as the gems are to meet his own ends. Actually, it would explain the decline a fair bit, but so would moral decline of an ever detached quadrivate and general disregard of anything other/lesser.
Bah, this got long, sorry.
One of the things I liked about Steven Universe (I also got into it recently) was the way the first couple of seasons were sort of happy and innocent and then it gradually got darker and darker but in a way that was obviously planned all along. "Oh look, it's a random monster that only Rose Quartz knew how to destroy!" But no, it was really a scout for the homeworld. "We have to stop this transmitter because it's messing with the TV." And because you don't want homeworld to know that any of you survived.
Not to mention the nature of all the monsters they were fighting all this time, although that at least was an explicit revelation.
Although on a more tactical level, the way the gems are slightly clueless about human things is incredibly endearing. I also like Lapis Lazuli's casual lack of concern for anyone else's well-being. "Throw me at the plane!" "Okay." (and then she flies off without even looking to see if he made it)
I'm still at the "Oh yeah, that's a thing" stage. (Don't worry; I already knew most of the information in the blog.) Still, it's definitely on my to-watch list, and it is neat to see a completely unrelated series fit so neatly into your personal multiversal cluster.
Yeah, SU is definitely a show that will appeal to a lot of pony fans. It's obviously more complex and adult (it has a PG rating, after all) but as Nova Quill pointed out, there are some remarkable dynamic similarities. On the downside, the SU fandom doesn't appeal to me anything like as much as the pony one does, certainly not in the field of fanfic. I don't think either show is "better" -- if anything, they complement each other. SU clearly has a defined end in sight, which FiM doesn't, but I'm glad to know both shows.
Oh. That show. *sigh*
I liked the first couple of seasons, they were cute and entertaining, and I was fascinated by the weird stuff going on. But the later seasons have bored me so much that I've just given up on it. I might be so overdosed on the melodrama (especially from freakin' Pearl
) that I've been desensitized to it, I find the people and events of Beach City so bland and trying-so-hard-to-be-interesting-that-they're-uninteresting that episodes focusing on them are annoying, and there's not enough of the actually interesting Homeworld plot to keep me invested. The only reason I even stuck around was because I liked Peridot's character arc, but now, even that can't keep me interested (especially since we missed the development of her and Lapis' friendship).
Yeah, I'm just tired of it. The rest of you can enjoy it all you want, but I just find too painful to slog through to the good stuff. At least FiM doesn't tease me like that.
Hehheh, liking this new keyboard, eh? I just got my own, and is it con-veeeeen-iennnnt!!!
I have often wondered myself at the compatibility between the PanGalactic Crystal Empire (Steven Universe) and the Equestrian Crystal Empire. It occurred to me that perhaps the Crystal Ponies are actually Gems that crash-landed on Equus millennia ago, took on the forms of the local dominant fauna (Ponies), and gradually forgot their origins until reproducing as and with Ponies became completely natural to them.
Granted, there are massive holes in that theory, but it seems workable, stick with me.
A new Crystal Ship crashes (ironically whilst searching for the other ships that were sent to investigate Equus), and its sole survivor infiltrated the Crystal Ponies with evil intent, mated with one, and the resulting offspring was Sombra, who, utilizing the programming his "mother" gave him upon "birth" (provided the nativity followed the same order that Steven's did, ie. Mom disappearing and somehow becoming part of the offspring), sought to use the Crystal "Ponies" to take over the planet for the glory of the PanGalactic Crystal Empire.
Thoughts?
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Agreed that the first season of Steven Universe, especially the first half-season, was rather weak. At first it looks like just another silly children's show with Steven's ability to avoid serious harm from major damage seeming like cartoon physics: it isn't until a bit later that we learn he's not just half-Gem but also half elite warrior caste Gem, which is why he can shrug off getting hit on the head by sizable stones falling from a height with just slight cuts and bruises. And the monsters they fight and bubble just seem random, until you learn the horrible truth about what they really are -- corrupted Gems ruined by the Diamond Authority's super-disruptor device, and many of them former Crystal Gems to boot.
In terms of love and sex, I think that SU benefits by being TV-14 or PG or whatever it is. I would point out that the Equestrians are in terms of reproductive biology and sexual relations very similar to a Western Human society -- they meet of their own volition, form romantic/sexual relationships, and eventually marry to have children reared and supported by their parents.
By contrast the Gems of the Diamond Authority (and even the Crystal Gem rebels) are quite alien -- they are individually-asexual and reproduce by a collective effort involved seeding mineral deposits with some sort of proto-Gem matter that eventually forms into Gems, which then emerge as adults. To the extent that they are romantic it is an outgrowth of their general affinitive capability -- they can form really strong friendships which lead to an analogue of romantic love.
They also do something that Equestrian Ponies don't, which is Gem Fusion. This can be done for purely pragmatic purposes (as the ordinary Rubies do in forming mega-Rubies to fight), or can have strong affinitive overtones which may be sibling-like (Smoky Quartz), friendly (Alexandrite), romantic (Stevonnie), romantic-sexual (Opal, Sardonyx) or flat-out eternal love (Garnet). Gem Fusion is used in-show as an analogy for romantic relationships but it really is an alien ability, with no strong Human equivalent (for instance, it seems to have nothing to do with any possible form of Gem reproduction). It also has hideous equivalents to rape and sexual slavery when abused, which when she realizes this utterly horrifies Garnet.
The closest equivalent to Gem Fusion would be the Elements of Harmony, and the semi-merger needed to generate the Rainbow of Harmony. The Elements are gem-like objects which are the "fruit" of the Tree of Harmony, which is a silicon-life creature with obvious analogues to the Gems of SU.
In the context of the Shadow Wars Story Verse, the Tree of Harmony is the Avatar of a Cosmic Concept, and it is possible that Skleros is the Shadow corruption of the Tree of Harmony of the Shadowverse. In the context of SU, it is possible that the Tree of Harmony might be a concept sympathetic to Gem-life, and actually even the Diamond Authority is Harmonious (though also Evil). Skleros, of course, has corrupted the DA away from adherence to whatever Tree once allied with them.
It is possible that Rose Quartz came to realize this -- and that she wasn't powerful enough to defeat Skleros herself -- so she created Steven as a potential Avatar of Harmony to destroy Skleros. In vanilla SU, it is very obvious that Steven was specially born to achieve some heroic destiny -- Connie outright Lampshades this at one point.
MLP is about as explicit about Equestrian culture as they can get within their G rating, but then Equestrian culture isn't that different from that of the West c. 1900-today. SU actually leaves out a lot of world-building both about their alternate Earth (though Rebecca Sugar gets points for appreciating that an Earth whose history included the Gem Wars would be very different in some details than our own) and the Diamond Authority (though they do succeed in explaining more about it than MLP does about, say, the Changelings -- but then the show is focused on the rebellion against the Diamond Authority).
The similarities, of course, lie in the concepts of good and evil used in both shows -- and the idea of friendship and love being major sources of strength. Garnet makes this very explicit in her song "Stronger Than You," in which she is fighting Jasper, one of the most explicitly hateful characters in the series (in some ways more so than Yellow Diamond, because YD is more cool and calculating than is Jasper). Garnet states that she derives her strength from the love between Ruby and Sapphire (indeed that she is the love between Ruby and Sapphire) and her morale from her determination to protect the Earth and her friends from those who would harm them.
IMO, Garnet and Cadance would understand each other very well.
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The Beach City episodes are the equivalent of the Slice of Life episodes of My Little Pony, in that they aim to add verisimilitude to the series by showing that Steven lives in a socially-complex world that contains more things than just the Crystal Gems and their foes. Remember that if one is to going to use threats to the humans of Beach City (or indeed that whole alternate Earth) as emotional hooks for drama, one has to establish these people as real individuals whose deaths would be meaningful, because A Million Is a Statistic. They could generate more pathos on the show by killing or wounding (or threatening to kill or wound) Sadie or Kiki or Jaimie -- who are defined individuals who we have seen to be likeable characters -- than by having a whole city in whom we know no one be obliterated by a Diamond Authority attack.
Some of the denizens of Beach City are annoying or obnoxious. Lars, for instance, is both -- and worse, takes Sadie's love for granted and is very obviously using her to the extent that she lets him. But then, that's life -- sometimes some people are annoying or obnoxious. I use Lars as an example because he's clearly meant that way -- it may be relevant here that Sadie's so-nice-she's-a-doormat personality was reputedly modelled by Rebecca Sugar on herself at around 20. Which makes me think that Lars may not have the happiest possible fate.
Admittedly, Pearl is melodramatic and in some ways remarkably immature for a multi-millenial being who tries to be "the responsible one" out of the trio of Garnet, Pearl and Amethyst. She's very much defined by her love for Rose Quartz -- which was not an entirely healthy or realistic love on her part -- and this is very obvious in "Sworn to the Sword" (where she is essentially warping Connie's mind and putting her on a potentially very tragic path, possibly without meaning to, in the course of training her to fight).
On the other hand, Pearl means well; she's just messed up, especially by the disappearance of Rose. What makes it worse is that she isn't sure whether Steven is Rose's son in the Human sense, or some sort of new Avatar of Rose's Gem. Show hasn't yet explained this, but the writers obviously have a good idea because they keep teasing at the question.
So Pearl doesn't know whether she should treat Steven as her Liege (in the exact same sense that Rainbow Dash did Fluttershy when they used to play Bannermare and Lady, and to some extent still does today, in the SWSV) or as the son of her Liege to whom she owes loyalty because he's taking up the cause of his mother. What makes matters worse is that the Gems normally don't even have growth stages analogous to human infancy, childhood or adolescence. So Pearl is primed to take orders from Steven, but until recently he hasn't been mature enough to give any worth following. When he is, she may become his most loyal follower
I do wish they'd shown more of how Peridot and Lapis adapted to each other to the point that they are now close friends, perhaps close to the Gem version of falling in love. They really didn't like each other at first. Heck, Lapis was originally Peridot's and Jasper's prisoner.
But then the show is basically from Steven's viewpoint.
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Here's where the tight POV on Steven himself was important. It's not so much that the situation was ever truly happy and innocent -- it was that Steven was happy and innocent, and he has become progressively less so the more he learns about what is really going on. Now he knows that he is in the middle of a war for stark survival, both of his friends and of the whole Earth, with the penalty for failure being not merely death but possibly a horrible violation of both body and mind as a Corrupt, Shard or Cluster (*). He's had to grow up terribly fast, and this is obvious if you compared Season 1 Steven with Seasons 3-4 Steven.
Steven came into Season 1 thinking that "missions" were a glorious fun adult game. He's come to realize that he's in the middle of a real war, and that a lot of it is absolutely no fun at all.
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(*) We don't actually know if Steven can be Corrupted, Shattered or Clustered, as he's a hybrid rather than a normal Gem. He knows that his friends can suffer these fates, though, including the three Gems who he has grown up thinking of as his family.
Gemkind also view fusion of two different gem type to be completely abhorrent to the point that the two different gem in question will suffer being shattered for it.