Chapter Text
A lot of people might say reincarnation is a cool concept, being reborn into a new life and sometimes getting to keep your old memories giving you a leg up in your new life. Having been reborn approximately three thousand standard orbitals ago (A standard Orbital being roughly equivalent to 1.7 Earth Years)… yeah those people are right, dying of old age is probably the best way to go, peaceful in my sleep, and only having a few heart attacks in my later years; I could have done without the floating in a black void for a long amount of time, but that's small potatoes in the grand scheme. Where was I… right my new life, long story short I'm the eternal IT guy… girl… whatever I can call myself since I got reborn as a Gem Person from that old cartoon show from the 2010's, Steven Galaxy... dimension… Steven something I remember at least that much of the name.
Specifically, I was reborn as an Era 2 Peridot under the authority of Blue Diamond of the Great Diamond Empire. Peridot Cut-6DR Facet-6LP, that was my name, my ID, and my Social Security number all in one; now some might say that it's demeaning to have an ID number instead of a name, except… it also is a name; you just have to know how to read it. Cut-6DR means I was born in quadrant six at position D, on the x axis, and position R, on the y axis, since we're born in cervices and canyons and dig our way out of them when we mature. Facet-6LP means my Gem is facet type LP from planet number 6 of the planets under Blue Diamonds purview.
When I first woke up, I was… confused naturally, being surrounded by dirt in a "buried alive" type of manner before literally bursting out of it with enough energy and force to leave a small shed sized hole behind me would confuse anyone. Thankfully I quickly gained my bearings once a stream of information flooded my mind, turns out we're technically a Geo-Mechanical species; meaning that while our Gem's were composed of minerals and elements, we were also highly advanced computers that ran on a form of sentient code. Fiber optics are the best comparison I can make since our code is contained within our Gem's as a form of "Living Light" which is actually how our Soli-forms are determined and created. This all boils down to there being an emotional regulation subroutine that kicked in and made what would have been a massive freakout into a more controlled feeling of apprehension and curiosity.
Thankfully it's adjustable so I didn't have to worry about being an emotionless drone or not being able to express myself as I desired; I needed it for the first few standard orbitals after my emergence where I and the other Peridots that emerged in my batch were shunted off to "orientation" (Essentially a large orbital facility that acted as both a repair facility and where newly emerged Peridots are put through their trials and tribulations) It took me a while to adapt to my new body I'll admit, being the size of a small child would throw anyone off after they had been a inch shy of six feet in their past life, thankfully I was given my Gem types standard issue limb enhancers after fifty standard orbitals from my emergence, giving me my old height back, though it was like walking on a combination of stilts and heels for a while.
Thank the maker for automatic gyroscope stabilizers otherwise I'd have fallen on my face several times, though after figuring out how to augment them and make them flat and boot-like instead of heeled I can walk in them without assistance like a charm. I also learned that us being given our limb enhancers is a sign of our maturity and a form of graduation for my Gem type, away of being recognized as a Peridot "worth their minerals" as it were. While it didn't coincide with my graduation from the facility (Having deliberately done better than average but kept my performance low enough to not be considered a prodigy; allowing me to graduate and receive my certifications in only twenty-three standard orbitals, the record being held by an Era One Peridot at a mere seven).
Back to talking about my new life, while my memory of the cartoon was spotty, I remembered enough of it to not immediately make any major mistakes that would lead to me being ousted or arrested, being born post the Rose Rebellion (As it has been dubbed in our history texts) I didn't have to worry about being called to war or being attacked by Rebel or Loyalist Gems. On the other hand, that meant I was effectively stuck under the Empire for the time being. Now I've come to learn a couple of things about being under the command of the Empire, and it all boils down to three words.
DO YOUR JOB!!!
Seriously, that's all you need to do to avoid anything happening to you, just do your job and everyone around you are perfectly content to ignore you so long as you aren't a nuisance and impede anyone else's work. I know of several other Peridots that I've had to collaborate with in the past that have their own little quirks and hobby's that do not correlate to our assigned functions, from one writing poetry about the glory of the Diamonds and the sorrow and loss of Pink Diamond, to one using scraps of discarded Robonoid's and other junk and making actual Battle Bots that would fight each other. They were small and only about the size of an RC Car at most, but it was still entertaining to watch when they got the rest of us in on it. (I still consider it BS that the walking beyblade got beat by the Robonoid equivalent of a nutcracker... a Cloudy Nutcracker! I call cheat's, I call hacks, match was fixed and I want my money back. Okay so we didn't bet anything and it was all for fun but I still feel robbed).
That's not to say there weren't clear cases of the caste system at work, abuse of authority by those in power is a universal constant no matter what; and given how we as a species didn't need to sleep, eat, or produce any bodily waste you can imagine how long we were required to work. One of my first assignments after receiving my limb enhancers was outer hull repair on a fleet of damaged excavator ships that had me working nonstop for a period of five standard orbitals in a row. It was… an experience, but it also allowed me to acclimate myself to my new life without worrying about being discovered, as I only ever interacted with the Gem equivalent of a Quartermaster whenever I needed more raw materials and components.
There's also the… unsavory side of the Empire, the perfectionist ideology that we must all be perfect as we are, any deviations from the norm; design wise at least, are frowned upon and referred to as 'Off Color', 'Overcooked', or 'Defective'. Then there's the fact we have an entire caste of custom made slaves for the elite, the Pearl's; and while I've never personally seen one in person, I have heard much gossip through the various grape vines I have access to about some of the incidents that happen with the upper crust of the Gem Elite. I know of at least four different Emeralds, (the equivalent of a Military General and Admiral of our species) that have shattered their Pearl's because they found them too imperfect or they kept making tiny mistakes in their songs and dances.
As much as I wish I could do something about it I am a mere Peridot, while not bottom of the barrel I am by no means a Gem with any weight or authority to their name; the most I can do is play my cards right and not partake in that sort of behavior myself until the main story of the series starts in a little over a thousand standard orbitals. Until then I must keep my head down and do my duty as is required of me, and should I ever be in a position to help a Pearl or another Gem of lesser status then I will do what I can.
I personally consider myself lucky in that aspect, of keeping my head down and doing my duty I mean. I was already a computer guy in my last life and making mechanical repairs is easy when you have a built-in manual and schematics in your head. Plus I may or may not have been able to route my visor into the central system and can now stream music direct to my auditory systems with no one else the wiser; it's all classical style and about the eternal luster and radiance of the Diamonds but it keeps me from going insane while in the vacuum of space for long periods of time (The quiet gets to you after a while when you're left with only the sound of your own voice).
Figuring out you don't need to breath is fun, especially when you find out after a fusion of four Ruby's accidentally launches you out of an open airlock while the vessel is mining asteroids. It was on that day I learned our limb enhancers have built in propulsion systems, small enough that they'd not work while under the duress of gravity, but in the vacuum, I can at least control which direction I'm flying.
This brings me to my job, as a Peridot I am expected to handle any mechanical or programming situations or errors that happen at my assigned station; my current station being that of a scouting ship; Specifically, the Model IX- Class V Hand Ship. Because our ships are all designed after body parts… I've just filed that under Cartoon logic and stopped questioning the aerodynamics of it. Also, its space, it probably helps that you don't have to deal with the issue of drag when your ship is designed for operating in a Zero G environment, so guess the engineers and architects finally got along when making something for once.
While the ship I was stationed on was nowhere near the size of a Diamond's personal ship, it wasn't any small craft either, carrying a crew of a hundred and four gems of various classes, myself included in that total. I was one of six Peridots responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the vessel during its mission of scouting for either barren worlds to terraform for Gem production, or other barren worlds or asteroid fields for mining and resource excavation. I can't remember where I heard it or read it, but I believe it was mentioned that in the show the only sentient life in the Universe were Gems and Humans… I can go ahead and tell you that that was either wrong or things are different in the Universe, I found myself in. Off the top of my head, I can list several other extraterrestrial civilizations and empires outside of the Gem Empire or Humanity. Thankfully we have a pact of non-aggression with most of them and since there are several thousand light years between our borders and theirs, we stay pretty much out of each other's way and the last time we as a species were involved with war outside of the Rose Rebellion was about eleven thousand standard orbitals ago.
That is to say while the majority of our crew are meant for manual labor or the upkeep of the vessel, a third of our crew are here purely in case we run into hostiles; be they alien or space life, space pirates (Please let it be the one from Star Wars if I ever get caught up in an attack, please let it be the one voiced by Jim Cummings, I will die a second life happy if he's real here), or if one of the other Empires decides to test the waters.
Also, it turns out that there's an actual distinction between the Courts of the different Diamonds outside of them being the highest Authority over you. While White Diamond I the highest authority over all of us, her Court is responsible for the central administration of Homeworld and the immediate colonies and orbital facilities; Domestic Affairs in simple terms. While the Yellow Court is responsible for Research and Development (Explaining why she was so invested in the Cluster… future problem I'll have to address, I have time, a couple thousand standard orbitals at least) her court is also responsible for the defense of the Empire. Essentially making sure our weapons are big enough that it keeps the other empires from trying anything against us while also improving our existing technology. She also absorbed the majority of the surviving Pink Court after Pink Diamonds "shattering", the Pink Court having been responsible for handling Gem Society's culture; things such as our music, entertainment, and how the wider universe views us. (I can freely admit that for all my misgivings about her from the memories I have of what she did back in the show, she knows how to make a story entertaining, and I have several plays that she organized saved on my personal equipment for viewing.
Finally, there's the Blue Court, my Court, we're responsible for resource acquisition, architecture, and foreign affairs; essentially, we act as the Diplomatic Arm of the Gem Empire. I presume this is the reason why all Sapphires in the Empire are part of the Blue Court and only grown…born… only able to be birthed from a handful of planets that are under constant guard and supervision (I looked it up, the last time a band of Space Pirates tried to raid one of the planets that housed the Sapphire facilities they were obliterated within a matter of Ticks). There's a Sapphire on the same ship as me as well, though she's not the commander of the expedition and I've not spoken a word to her, she avoids the crew outside of her Pearl whom she sends to fetch her things whenever she wants something. The lead Nephrite in charge of our ship has ordered us all not to interfere or interact with either of them unless we are approached first or called to. I don't know how she compares to the Saphire half of the Fusion Garnet, but my desire to find out is tempered by the uncertainty as to how their Future Vision works. Best to leave that genie in the bottle and not tempt fate by finding out or revealing things that are best left alone.
So far, the expedition has been quiet, at least danger-wise, and we've marked several small planetoids for mineral and material extraction; with the only difficulty being us having to evade the Space Equivalent of a whale almost hitting us. Just imagine a standard sedan type car, now imagine it being next to the Titanic, now imagine the titanic being a giant mass of stony insect carapace like flesh with tentacles five mouths, razor sharp fins, and can move at lightspeed at their average speed; and apparently they're aquavores that feed off the many sized masses of ice that litter space. I guess that's why we call them Ice Eaters since the Gem language doesn't have a concept of Whale's, I'm just happy they leave us and other sentient life alone; the main danger they pose is just hitting or running into you with their bulk when they appear suddenly; outside of that they're harmless and are known to not be aggressive despite how eldritch and terrifying they look.
If only the Ruby's would stop wanting to fight them to prove their strength, then again, they want to fight everything to prove their strength, but I doubt they can do a thing to a giant space whale beside smacking against its skin… shell… thing. Actually now that I think about it that might be a good way to get them to stop breaking crap all over the ship with their sparring matches and making me and the other Peridots fix it, I swear if I have to patch a whole in the floor because they melted through it with their pyrokinetic powers again I'm going to start tying a cable to them and letting them float in space where their powers don't work. I've had to patch the same hole in the floor six times within the last fourteen standard rotations alone and if I have to do it one more time I'm going to flip.
Aside from the general annoyance I (and the other Peridots onboard get) from having to repair the damage the Rubys and occasional Quartz cause, we spend most of our time running diagnostics and making sure all the ships systems are primed and maintained properly. Most of it is automated and the Robonoids onboard take care of any dangerous work such as making sure the power reactors are properly cooled. You might ask why we don't do that ourselves and to that I say have you ever watched someone literally be melted alive, because all six of us did when we were given a visual crash course on how to maintain the reactors before our deployment. Turns out the temperatures around those things get hot enough that they'll liquify a Gem even under several layers of heat protection shielding; simply put we don't have the technology to make protective equipment viable without compromising ourselves in the process. So, we just let the robots built out of the sturdy stuff handle it while we stay safe and un-melted behind the
protective shielding.
I can vaguely remember the Peridot from the show being a snarky know it all at first, roughly, which I've learned is generally correct when it comes to the rest of my Gem type. Put us in a room with other Peridots and we open up and start comparing notes and other bits and pieces of knowledge we've learned since the last time we've spoken to each other. Put us in a room with a bunch of other Gem types that don't outrank us that can't tell when it's a bad idea to roughhouse around the highly flammable containers of Diamond Essence and we'll quickly devolve into calling them all Clods for their stupidity. Having been on the receiving end of the idiocy the other's can get up to when they aren't supervised… yeah I've let loose on my fair share, never to the point of verbal abuse but I do make sure I get my point across and at least try to explain why I'm scolding them. Strangely that's also given me a reputation as the Peridot to go to if you screw something up on this ship, might also be because I'll fix accidents and not report them if
it's something small that I can hide. Bust a pressure valve while sparring in the hallway, come get me and I'll fix it before it cascades and command is none the wiser; break a table because a Ruby thought it was a smart idea to provoke a Quartz into a brawl… hull grade adhesive sealant and a bottle of Robonoid polish and I can hide the damage best I can.
As much as I gripe about having to fix these things it's calming in a way, the crew here is much… looser than one would think for being loyalist Gem's. Might be because the Blue Court has been in such a state of disarray since Pink Diamond's shattering, with Yellow Diamond being forced to pick up the slack and divide her attention between her Court and Blue's, discipline has largely been relegated to whoever is in charge of you at the time. Our Head Nephrite is strict, but so long as we do our jobs and don't anger the Saphire on board we are left to our own and allowed a few small freedoms. Granted much of my time is spent working and going over the various reports on the planets and planetoids we've scouted, but even that is weirdly calming and fun once you get the hang of it. (I and the other Peridot's have a small wager going on who can find the best planet for mineral harvesting, with the winner getting bragging rights and being recognized as THE Peridot for the remainder of the voyage).
Also getting to work with future tech that outclasses everything I've seen from my old life gives one a bit of perspective and a lot of things to keep them occupied. I've spent the better part of five hundred standard orbitals studying the Galaxy Warp system and I still don't know how it functions exactly; short of it breaks down all material into their base components and shoots them from Point A to B. What makes it even more confusing is that it works on both organic and non-organic materials which blew my original hypothesis of it transmitting our internal Code into a pseudo gem receptacle, but that still wouldn't explain how it transmits things like muscles, tissues, and brains with no issue. Even having the schematics in front of me doesn't tell me anything that would allow it to work, it's basically a huge focusing lens mixed with a fabricator platform and an absurd amount of energy regulators and capacitors. I can't even inquire with the architect because according to the files I have access to the Galaxy Warp was designed by a pre–Era One Gem who's designation was lost to time before we as a species solidified into an empire under White Diamond.
Maybe the better records are locked away in private information vaults and hard drives on the Diamonds personal vessels and palaces, perhaps if I can grow my reputation high enough, I could eventually get a posting there and be able to dig around. Though that would put me under the direct authority of a Diamond and I… don't wish to test go through that without more information; I've assumed much of what I've seen from the show is either inaccurate or it was severely toned down for the purposes of telling a story in a children's cartoon... I don't want to guess at what the equivalent to living Gods we have are like in real life; especially ones still reeling from the supposed death of one of their own.
Disregarding the confusing nature of the Galaxy Warp, I have little complaints so far in my new life, yes my freedoms are limited, and I know that should I ever step too far out of line I will either be killed or suffer an ego death; but so far, I've managed myself fine. Maybe in the future I might be able to find a way to Earth that won't have the enforcement arm of the empire chasing after me; ever since the Rose Rebellion, they've been vigilant at making sure no other Gems try to escape and rebel. I know that change is coming, that in a few thousand standard orbitals this Empire will be turned on its head and not be seen as a force of good. But for now I'll keep my head down and not draw unnecessary attention to myself, and most importantly-
DO MY JOB!!!