Red Diamond

**Red Diamond**, or **R.E.D.**, is a Steven Universe fancharacter and the first alien gem that came into existence. She was created by humans, though has become a forgotten fact by both humanity and gemkind.

She was first mentioned in a Tumblr post on August 2, 2020, but no artwork has been officially released.

## Backstory

> The R.E.D. (abbreviation for "Rock Exploration Device") is a giant, complex machine built by top scientist mechanics from a far, yet modern past, insinuating that the world of Steven Universe plays off on a rebuilt Earth that has failed to preserve its history.
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> She was created for space exploration and the retrieval of much needed resources from other planets, but when humanity abruptly came to its end, contact with her instructors did too and she became purposeless.
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> Eventually, her artificial intelligence kicked in and she began giving herself assignments.
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> Her going "rogue" led to the creation of more machines -calling themselves gems- mindlessly doing the work the humans once asked of Red Diamond. They became ever more conscious, which ironically resulted into the mindless worship of Red Diamond; who was seen as a deity that should be pampered and pleased at any given time.
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> Red Diamond never managed to understand the behaviour of her creations, as she never evolved to have emotions like them. When a Pearl brought up the concept of reassembling herself with a gem that could understand, or its compound, Red began experimenting with this.
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> She broke off 2 pieces from her core gem and imbued them with the nutrients of other planets, killing these in the process and turning the pieces blue and yellow, respectively. But when she could no longer reattach the now foreign diamonds, she realized to had shortened her lifespan with the careless experimentation, thus informed the Pearl of her assured demise.
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> Feeling guilty, the Pearl promised to care for the pieces for as long as it took, in the hopes new leaders would be spawned after Red had perished.
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> Red Diamond continued to lead her followers with a broken gemstone powering her body. Her mind, size, and red colour faded more with every day that passed.
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> One day, she collapsed, and her physical form retreated inside her once red gem. A small piece broke off as it hit the ground, and the little colour the gem still had filled it, while the larger stone became even paler. The Pearl took these into possession and played nurse for all 4 pieces.
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> The bleached, untreated gem reawakened soon after and immediately took on Red Diamond's role. Thousands of years later, the blue and yellow pieces awakened, who White Diamond accepted as her fellow rulers, though she would always have the final say.
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> A few hundreds of years later, the pink piece awakened, who White felt most connected to. She started treating her as her child, and Blue and Yellow Diamond mimicked the sentiment.
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> As these new Diamonds were born in a time where gems began setting up a culture of their own, pictures and stories were created about them, while Red Diamond herself had become a forgotten memory. Those who witnessed her had already been subjected to White's leadership; and sent to inhabited planets for its resources. As Red's gems were not built for battle, they met with mass-defeat and perished horribly.
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> Red Diamond's Pearl scolded White for fighting with living creatures and urged her to visit empty planets only, whereafter the only survivor with knowledge of Red was killed.
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## Personality

Red Diamond is inexpressive in her face and tone of voice, and only cares for the facts. She behaves much like an android and does not form opinions, though some of her calculated conclusions might be interpreted as such.

Because of the above, her more emotional and free-thinking creations take her for a stoic, unapproachable, but trustworthy deity. As Red doesn't have anything in her software to help understand their views and treatment of her, she lets them have their beliefs, as long it doesn't hinder their given assignments.

When she believed her lack of understanding could end up creating problems with directing her continuously evolving workers, she was willing to listen to the suggestions of another robot; and attempted to update herself.

While two pieces of her gem were imbued with the raw materials of planets with the intent to humanize Red, the two other pieces were not, yet managed to develop a personality regardless. The physical damage glitched some strings of code that ended up giving the same effect as the treated gems, though it's insinuated that the use of natural resources don't do anything, rather, that the gem pieces are incomplete versions of Red and don't have the code that gave her her restrictions.

## Powers

Red Diamond is primarily a cargo spaceship, installed with complex software that helps her problem-solve without human guidance. Her hair is able to extend itself, and can be best described as a winged rock container. The way it moves and the overall shape allows her to steer whilst traversing space.

Her mouth is the entrance to these containers, and not used to speak or emote in any way, making the choice to give her a face at all -as for a human form- merely an aesthetic one. Her long eyelashes once functioned as the transceivers that established contact with Earth, but have become useless after humanity became mass-extinct.

The long nails on her hands are like shovels and used to more delicately dig up specific stones. Her main tool to "dig" is the explosive beam shot from her gem. The temperature can be controlled and set high enough to instantly erase a small planet, making it an intimidating weapon, though she's never used it as such.

In her neck sits her battery and operating system, which has the classic form of a diamond and is made of the material. The contents are complex and can't be accessed, as this diamond will always break and take an operative piece of hardware with it, leaving nothing exposed to claim or inspect. This method enables Red to repair and reboot herself to the best of her capabilities.

Before her gem got split in pieces, she could not be fused with like the 4 Diamond leaders are shown to do in the original series, implying that its destruction deleted or glitched the lines of code that once prevented this. Since all of Red's gem robots can fuse and are based on a nerfed blueprint of herself -installed for means of self-repair- it means it's a present, but blocked function, also proven by the fact fusion is not "instinctual" knowledge gems possess.

## Appearance

Red Diamond is an enormous, feminine, six-armed, humanoid robot. Her hair is fairly bombastic, as it contains plenty of space inside and cogs to help it expand for different purposes (see: *Powers*).

She originally didn't wear clothes or anything resembling an attire, and one was eventually made and given to her by her followers.

## Trivia

* Red's gem followers all look like smaller variants of herself;
	+ Different features and body types did not emerge until Red herself got reborn into different gems and these took over production.
* "My Diamond", a greeting of respect the gems use in the original series, was in actuality a pet name Red Diamond's lead creator gave her;
	+ The term was used so often, it became ingrained in her and transferred to the minds of her creations.

## See also

* Plastic Pearl;
	+ Paul Maggio
* Digital Affection (Music video)