steven-universe-mineralogy

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May I point out that it is all kinds of messed up to build an entire race that's optimized just for surviving under the worst case of workplace harassment the galaxy has ever seen. But think of the possibilities: imagine a cannon that automatically shoots pearls into your enemy's ranks! The missiles themselves would be highly durable, as well as being armed and ready for battle.

Not trying to be nitpicky. I loved the episode. But, she can survive this…

And this…

But getting lightly squeezed around the midsection causes…

I mean…yeah.

[steven-universe-mineralogy]

Cubic Zirconium (1st image) / Zircon (2nd image): Zircon, ZrSiO4, is an orthosilicate like Garnet. being an orthosilicate means that Zircon has tetrahedrons of oxygen around silicon and octahedrons of oxygen around whatever isn't oxygen or silicon, which in this case is a Zirconium atom. Unlike garnet, it shows up as tiny double-obelisk-shaped grains, gets coated in sediment, and then gets a new coating of zircon painted over that crud when the rock it's in gets melted down and becomes igneous. You can count how many times this happened and what it was in by counting the tree rings on it, and it looks neon colors with a big black outline under the microscope. Someone figured out how to make it on the cheap, and you can get ones that are snazzier looking than diamonds, called cubic Zirconium, which have nifty optical properties. In the show, Zircon and Cubic Zirconium would be radically different characters. Cubic Zirconium would be one of the Diamond's trusted lieutenants, a flamingly flamboyant lesbian, and a serious source of laser artillery. They'd be the one who dabs in leu of giving a speech in front of a bunch of freshly trained Quartz cadets. Cubic Zirconium was made as a gemnetics experimental prototype, and came out gay, lazy, and a little off around the edges. Zircon, on the other hand, would be a two-foot-high grunge rock beach bum with no taste, heavy eyeliner, and neon hair who hung out on the beach and caught rides with Jenny Pizza to all her concerts by climbing up the tailpipe and sitting on the engine for warmth. She'd be a fusion of at least five or six other zircons, each about six inches high. You don't get to be igneous without seeing some major shit, though: She's survived things that would break most gems and simply buckled down and kept going.

[steven-universe-mineralogy]

I'm back, suckers.

I went to school, got sick, left school, got kinda better, and now I'm here, gentle follower, to bring you the science of space rocks being gay.

[steven-universe-mineralogy]

Crocidolite

There’s several kinds of asbestos minerals, and Crocidolite is the kind that kills your lungs the fastest.  It comes from the glaucophane-riebeckite group, which normally are blue and won’t kill you, but since this is fibrous, it’s still blue and it totally will kill you.

As a character in the show, Crocidolite would have nanotech powers instead of a weapon, and, much like Peridot with her limb enhancers, would be greatly augmented by the deadly cloud of nanofilaments that surrounded her and formed into weapons and armor when needed.  She’d be a gemneticist whose self-experimentation went horribly, horribly wrong, and now she can’t be around anyone and is a social outcast.  After inadvertently poofing her loved ones, she flees to earth.  

Things get interesting when we talk about fusion.  Tiger Eye is Crocidolite that had parts replaced by Quartz, and it’s totally not deadly, since you’re basically encasing the fibers in glass. It has Chatoyancy, which means it gets a line of golden light perpendicular to the Crocidolite fibers when you shine light on it.  

Basically, Crocidolite fuses with Rose or Amethyst and you get someone with lasers for a weapon.  Instead of summoning a sword, Tiger Eye would be able to summon a beam of coherent light out of her gem, and then immediately be able to summon another one.  

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Peridot and Garnet

Both Peridot and Garnet are orthosilicates, which, chemically, are SiO4 with cations stuck on them, one cation for every 4 oxygen. While Peridot, also known as olivine, turns up in some metamorphic and igneous rocks, the different types of garnet are solely found in Metamorphic rock.  In terms of the characters, this totally makes sense; Garnet’s a fusion, and it’s fitting that something had to be changed and recrystallized to produce her.  Peridot/Olivine, on the other hand, used to be used to treat digestion problems, so it fits with her acting crappy to everyone.  I don’t know what their status as orthosilicates means for them being relatives; Garnet’s a living lesbian relationship, and Peridot’s a homophobic Dorito.  

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Surprise Cousins (mild spoilers about Too Far)

There’s three Quartzes running around the show.  Rose Quartz is pretty obvious, but then Amethyst is, as Peridot recently revealed, a kind of quartz with some iron thrown in, which kind of makes them cousins.  It makes sense that Amethyst would come live with her cousin.  The third quartz, however, is Jasper, and just as Peridot observed, she’s a large warrior, typical of a Quartz.  Jasper’s yellow chert, and chert is microcrystalline quartz, commonly know as flint, which is used to make spears and arrows.  Being made from spear-stuff, she’s a violent jerk of a gay space rock.  That’s why Jasper dislikes Rose so much; Rose, too, is Quartz, and Quartz is family, and there’s no feud like a family feud.  

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Pyrite

Pyrite's a sulphide, which means it has sulphur in it, and in this case, it means that its sulphur binds with moisture in the air to make sulphuric acid and destroy itself from the outside. It's called pyrite disease, and looks like drusy gray crud. Now imagine pyrite as a Gem in the show: She comes to Earth, finds out she's allergic to everywhere but desert, and her gem nearly shatters when Rose tries to heal her with water. She gets sent to live, fractured, gray, and incurable, on the dry, airless moon, and has been waiting for a cure all these centuries.