Gem Physiology

## Introduction

**Gems** are an extraterrestrial species of highly advanced beings that play a key role in Steven Universe. Gems are an

   intergalactic race which 5,750 years ago maintained several outposts on Earth, with plans to completely colonize the planet, but were driven off by Rose Quartz's rebellion, leaving the Crystal Gems, and the corrupted Gems, the only Gems on the planet.

## Ability Overview

Gems are characterized by the gemstone embedded somewhere on their body, which is analogous to a CPU. Gems have many abilities, which can vary from Gem to Gem, including weapon-summoning, the power to 'store' material in their gemstones, and the ability to use their gemstones like a flashlight. However, all Gems share a few of the same abilities. These include:

* **Superhuman Physical Characteristics:** Though this can vary from Gem to Gem, all Gems have significantly greater strength, speed, and durability than humans.
* **Inorganic Physiology:** A Gem's 'body' is a projection of energy, while their gemstone is made of a similar material to stones/gems. Neither are organic.
* **Immortality (Types 1 and 3):** Gems do not age, and thus do not die of natural causes like humans, and if destroyed, their bodies will quickly regenerate. However, they can still be killed if their gemstone is destroyed.
* **Regeneration (Low-High):** When a Gem suffers a fatal injury, they "poof," releasing their physical form and retreating into their gemstone in order to create a new, undamaged form. Gems can also quickly recover from injuries that do not destroy them without being forced to retreat into their gemstone to regenerate, such as lost limbs.
* **Fusionism:** Gems can combine bodies and minds to form a larger and more powerful Gem with all of their components' gemstones on their body. Fusions inherit all of their components' weapons, and may combine multiple weapons into new forms - for instance, Pearl's spear and Amethyst's whip together forming Opal's bow-and-arrow. Fusion Gems can unfuse willingly or fall apart for a number of reasons, and they can fuse further without unfusing first. When Gems in a given Fusion have incompatible personalities, or have conflicting motives for fusing, and for whatever reason do not (or can not) terminate the Fusion, it results in an unstable fusion. When this happens, the constituent Gems risk losing touch with their individual personalities the longer the fusion persists.
* **Pocket Reality Manipulation:** All Gems have a pocket dimension of infinite size contained within their gemstone. This dimension houses the energy used for their physical form and can be used as a means of dimensional storage, allowing Gems to produce anything stored within their gemstone at a moment's notice.
* **Bubbling:** The process where a Gem encases a specific object inside a bubble via contact or energy projection, and either takes it with them or transfers it to wherever the bubbler considers "home". Items and Gems that are bubbled remain inactive until released.
* **Gravitational Adaptation:** Gems are engineered to adapt to a variety of conditions and their bodies will also automatically alter themselves to fit the conditions of whatever planet they're on, such as adjusting to local gravity and air pressure.
* **Self-Sustenance (Types I, II, and III):** Due to being inorganic beings Gems have limitless stamina and do not need food, water, oxygen, or sleep in order to survive. They can, however, still eat and sleep if they so desire.

## Era 1 Gems

Era 1 Gems are Gems that were created before Rose's rebellion against Homeworld. Gems of this Era had access to more colonies and resources, while Gems produced with fewer resources during the Gem Homeworld's Era 2, such as Peridot, lack these abilities. These include:

* **Shapeshifting, Size Manipulation, Body Control, and Biological Manipulation:** Gems' physical forms are hard light projections from their gemstone which can be customized at will, with their only constant feature being their gemstone and color scheme. They are capable of Changing shape, and size, Extending their limbs, and even creating functioning biological components such as a womb or digestive system. However, shapeshifting is not permanent and Gems will usually return to their "default" form eventually. Sufficiently skilled Gems can shapeshift into forms with additional functions, such as Amethyst shapeshifting into a working helicopter in "Message Received".

## Total Resistances

Due to their unique physiology, Gems have a natural resistance to a number of different abilities. These include:

* **Age Manipulation:** Gems (With the exception of Steven) do not age physically, and would thus be unaffected by having their age altered.
* **Biological Manipulation:** Due to being inorganic beings, Gems lack biological material and are thus immune to biological manipulation.
* **Blood Manipulation:** Due to their physical forms lacking blood, they are completely immune to blood manipulation.
* **Bone Manipulation:** Due to their physical forms lacking bones, they are completely immune to bone manipulation.
* **Gravity Manipulation:** Gems have the innate ability to automatically adjust to changes in the level of gravity, such as the difference between the Earth and the Moon, and presumably planets with higher and lower gravity than Earth, and are thus immune to moderate levels of gravity manipulation. However, they have not yet shown to be able to resist significantly high levels of gravity, such as that of a black hole.

## Partial Resistances

Gem physiology also allow for a number of abilities to be partially resisted, usually in the form of physical bodies being immune but not their gemstones are not, or due to the mechanics of certain abilities in other works of fiction. These include:

* **Acid Manipulation:** Due to their physical forms being artificial projections, they are capable of regenerating any damage caused by acid. However, their gemstones are unable to regenerate and would likely be heavily damaged or destroyed should they come in contact with acid.
* **Matter Manipulation:** Due to their physical forms being artificial projections of light, Gems are immune to most forms of matter manipulation. However, their gemstones are still susceptible to damage through matter manipulation and cannot regenerate.
* **Mind Control:** While most forms of mind-based abilities would affect a Gem, due to lacking a brain, biological mind-altering abilities would not affect them.
* **Petrification:** Due to their physical forms being artificial projections, Gems would be completely immune to petrification in the traditional sense of converting organic matter to stone. However, some methods, such as magic, reality warping, and matter manipulation that can directly affect their gemstone would likely still work on them.
* **Poison Manipulation:** Due to their nature as inorganic beings, Gems are immune to most poisons.
* **Pressure Point Attacks:** Due to their physical forms being artificial projections that lack internal components, Gems are immune to pressure point attacks. However, their gemstone could be considered a weak point that can be targeted.
* **Size Manipulation:** Due to their physical forms being artificial projections that can change shape and size at will, Gems would be able to reverse any alterations made to their body by an outside force. However, they cannot change the size of their gemstone, so manipulating the size of their gemstone would likely have adverse effects on a Gem.
* **Soul Manipulation:** Due to their nature as inorganic beings, soul manipulation can work to a varying degree depending on how it is shown to operate. This is often a case-by-case scenario and completely dependent on how said soul manipulation works and what it is shown to work on in its own verse.
	+ For this resistance, there may be verses in which souls are not exclusive to organic beings or where soul-based abilities work on things that are inorganic to have a soul, and therefore, machines and AI can be soul haxed. Since there is no rule for how "souls" work, so each verse can be different when it comes to this.

## Shattering

In order for a Gem to "die" one must destroy their gemstone completely and totally, an act referred to as Shattering. When a Gem's gemstone is cracked, their physical form will deteriorate and "glitch," making their physical form unstable and rendering them incoherent. Shattering a Gem fragments their consciousness entirely, splitting it among each individual shard of their Gem, effectively rendering them conventionally 'dead'. However, this is not true death, as Gem shards can still potentially partially regenerate given the proper circumstances, often only producing seemingly random appendages. Even Gems with damage as severe as the Smoke Monster, a Gem whose gemstone was ground into dust and mixed with ink to make paint, are able to be an active threat. Regeneration can be prevented if a gemstone is bubbled or otherwise constricted, such as within a mirror.