My Problems with Steven Universe's Alternate History

Why does Steven Universe have such a different history of humanity?

For those of you who aren't familiar, SU apparently does not take place in our Earth but a version of Earth where things took place differently. Here are some big and small examples:

>World War II never happened
>America wasn't colonized by Europeans till much later
>Kansas is now Hollywood now for some reason
>Russia has a giant crater
>And a bunch of other smaller stuff

I have two problems with this whole decision to change so much of SU's history from our own Earth's.

First, regarding the big stuff like WWII not happening and Russia being mostly gone. This really feels like a softcore version of Earth. One where past wars, racism (Thanksgiving doesn't exist in this world and I wouldn't be surprised if they say slavery never existed either), and other bad things humans have done have been written off as never happening.

It really presents a cookie cutter version of humanity which really hurts the theme of the show. Rose is always preaching how humanity is so great. but remember that's not actual humanity she loves. It's a version of humanity where any bad stuff that might make humanity as a whole look bad just never happened which makes everything black and white and easy to comprehend. Humanity = Completely good

That and there and there also the smaller stuff they made up like Kansas apparently being a big central for movie making and bunch of states having different names (Pennsylvania = Keystone State, Delaware = Delwarva, etc). These are not as big of a deal as the whole retconning history but they just add to the loss of my suspension of disbelief and my disconnect to the story when the Earth they keep praising is not actual Earth. The worst part is I can't actually see a reason to change the name of the states among other small changes other than why not.

Anyone in Sup Forums feel the same or actually like the alternate reality the SU writers put in place?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popigai_crater
twitter.com/AnonBabble

You're making a lot of assumptions when all the show has shown is that Russia's landmass got btfo at some point in history.

And for those of you who are about to say its because gems interfered with human history in this universe:

That's fine to have little changes here and there (I guess you could argue that big crater is justified) but I'd argue that they wouldn't have had to change that much like removing an entire war from history to show that gems had an effect on humanity

No, because it's an alternate universe, ya' dingus.

Staff like Matt Burnett have confirmed World War 2 as well as Thanksgiving and other holidays do not exist in the SU Earth.

You see different names for states in multiple episodes and Kansas is shown to be like the world's version of Hollywood in one of the Petey episodes if I remember right.

Rebecca Sugar wanted an alternative universe for extra leg-room for creativity, but sadly, the Earth itself isn't interesting at all.

Now that you point it out, I don't like how humanity is perceived as good, we humans are composed of equal amounts of terrible and terrific beings. We have had tragedies, victories, disasters, miracles, and everything that truly define us as a society of a planet.

The only reason Russia is fucked up is because of the gay abuse there, and it's obvious that Sugar hates Russia for that, so she decided to fuck it up for that very reason. Pretty psychotic, if you ask me.

Another thing that bothers me is how the North-West part of Africa has been broken off and welded into the East of South America, that's a rather weird thing to change from our current world. It also confuses me how half of Australia and the entirety of India is deleted, why did that happen?

>why did that happen?
fusions of mass destruction

It's the butterfly effect plain and simple. A small change in the past can lead to drastic changes in the present. Entire chunks of Russia not existing, a thousand year war which took place roughly just before the time of the pyramids in our world and countless humans killed during it. Leading to different rulers of kingdoms making different choices leading to different historical events.

My little theory on Russia being fucked is the Tunguska Event Plus potential gem ruins/equipment going extra nuclear.

Word on the street, and by that I mean fan theories, is that is where the flash happened and that is why the crater is there.

>The only reason Russia is fucked up is because of the gay abuse there, and it's obvious that Sugar hates Russia for that, so she decided to fuck it up for that very reason. Pretty psychotic, if you ask me.

Yeah, but from a writing perspective, even if the Earth is affected by gems, wouldn't you want to portray humans and their history rather closely if humanity is one of the big topics of the show.

Not really, if you're going to do an AU with that long ago of a divergence point, I'd go ham on it and have my way with history. And why keep it mostly the same? The point of an AU is the differences.

>Why did that happen

Homeworld was literally reshaping the world in preparation for turning it into a colony. The projected finished colony shows just how drastic the reshaping was going to be so moving, removing or repurposing the mass of entire continents is not that far fetched.

i hated how pearl went on about knightship as if she learnt it before the gem war

>This really feels like a softcore version of Earth. One where past wars, racism (Thanksgiving doesn't exist in this world and I wouldn't be surprised if they say slavery never existed either), and other bad things humans have done have been written off as never happening.
There wasn't WWII, but there definitely were wars in general.
There are tanks and fighter jets.

So I think its just another way to play with audience.
"Try to find all differences between SU world and real one"

Fine then, but personally then if you're gonna change history then go all the way.

The thing that annoys me is that the SU writers is that they think they can have their cake and eat it too. If you are gonna change history, do it but don't make it about the same human race as ours if it clearly isn't. Its not game breaking just slightly irking.

I still don't get why humanity is totally ignorant of the fact that there was a large scale war between Earth and an alien species.

Apparently the crew's logic is that it's ancient history and so ingrained into them that they don't find it interesting? But it doesn't feel right to me.

I think that what you complained about was very specifically the goal. I think that humanity was whitewashed because the story that they wanted to present was never about Steven and the gems facing the darker side of humanity. You can wonder, what is the united states government doing about doing about superpowered alien beings living in their coastal cities, how does the international community feel about these beings that can teleport to any point on Earth without forthought, what kind of religions and cults came up around the gems in the early days, why the gems are not helping rebels in Syria, yadda yadda yadda. and the creative team can just go "nope, different Earth, didn't happen, Fuck you."

You can make an argument that cutting this stuff away could make for a tighter, more on-point piece of work in the end, but this is fucking "70% Towny episodes" Steven Universe we are talking about.

Yeah you'd think that the gems would ever get approached by a military or government in all those years at least once.

The only political figure they ever meet is Mayor Dewey and he doesn't want anything to do with the gems except Pearl

If the war ended 5000 ish years ago, then it is ancient history, so ancient the records of which are crumbling and potentially unreliable. Considering that the Gem have probably been doing clean up operations all this time, its likely that the humans know but not enough.

Maybe the humanity of this world really IS better than us, BECAUSE of gem interference.

And I can't imagine Rose just sat on her big beautiful ass for 4500 years after the war. I mean she can't have been fighting gem monsters ALL the time, can she?

Actually it's weird. After the war, there must have been thousands of them - maybe millions. The world would have been profoundly affected by this. There is no life form on Earth that can compete with gem monsters, so they are all effectively apex predators, and many of them behave in dangerous, even insane ways.
We may even be looking at a minor extinction event.

Even if the Crystal Gems set out to poof and bubble them immediately, it would have been years, if not centuries before their efforts made a notable change for humanity and animal life on Earth.

Given the rate at which the Crystal Gems hunted and poofed gem monsters at the start of the series, there must have been hordes of them 4500 years ago. And even now, after thousands of years of doing this, it still often takes them immense effort.

(Which reminds me: there should be an episode in which they poof the Last Gem Monster on Earth.)

Anyway, I'd say it is very likely humanity is quite different. The world must have been like the world of 'The Walking Dead', except instead of mindlessly shambling corpses, humans were dealing with screaming, flailing, super-strong monstrosities.

Russia's "giant crater" is this probably:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

Very little of inhabited Russia would exist in the crater

Rose doesn't love humanity because they;re good, she loves humanity because humans can choose to change

and you gotta remember the full extent of the influence
>massive war between godlike aliens circa 5000 years ago, the dawn of civilization
>people getting abducted by godlike aliens left right and centre
>several turbo-nuke like weapons used as indicated by geological devastation
>kindergarten's make previously fertile land uninhabitable
>when the war finally ends, a few of the godlike aliens stay behind and declare certain locations forbidden zones
>a huge number of godlike aliens are left as insane bioweapons due to corruption
>America wasn't founded until like eighty years later than it was in our world, it had no native humans, and wasn't founded by christian pilgrims like in our world
>no Russia means no Tsars and no USSR

according to the principles of chaotics its a miracle that society in SU is even slightly recognizable compared to our own

I guess you gotta point there then though there are definitely more creative methods the staff could've used to cover those plot holes or even just subtly implement them into the story without making it too focused on that besides just going "nope, different Earth, didn't happen, Fuck you."

No one ever said it was a good thing

Did I really inspire you, OP, into making this thread?, i'm honoured.

>The only reason Russia is fucked up is because of the gay abuse there

...Dude, you're supposed to take the pills EVERY DAY.

A blast capable of making a crater that large in 1921 would have led to a global extinction event. No. That's not it.

This is more likely. I still favor the "Siberia is where Pink Diamond emerged when she was born" theory.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popigai_crater

How much do YOU know about ancient history? There was nothing the humans could do.

Except make a religion. THAT is what surprises me most: that there are apparently no gem-based religions, especially based around Rose Quartz, who is practically a Mother Goddess archetype - plus she protected humanity first from giant alien warriors and later from alien monsters.

I feel like the main reason humanity seems so much softer is because the crystal gems accidentally domesticated humans, not to the same extent as zoomans, but still pretty badly.

Like if immortal beings who can defeat your armies say you shouldn't fight each other, that you shouldn't worship them and they haven't seen any indication of anything being there that you should worship, and most importantly, stay away from those weird ruins, that shit echoes on a cultural level, even if the CGs later try to make themselves forgotten.

Just because we know how flawed they all know doesn't mean ancient humanity would have the same understanding, so it seems entirely possible humans have been conditioned by the gems without the gems really getting what they've done (or they did realize it and that's why they really withdrew from humanity)

Wow. Humans worshiping gems and making religions out that. I know SU is a kid's show but they got away with that kind of stuff in AT and even just hinting at that would be a lot more interesting than the human episodes we have now.

>>America wasn't founded until like eighty years later than it was in our world, it had no native humans, and wasn't founded by christian pilgrims like in our world

Was the suggestion really that Dunce Dewey was the first European to set foot on American soil?

Also have we ever seen any indication of Native Americans?
>TFW there never were Indians in the Americas in SU world

Also: What do you mean, no Russia? You do know Russia started in what is now Ukraine, right? Not in Siberia?

Tend to agree. Quite a few religions have fairly violent beginnings. Of course, Rose and her band would have to be aware of this, and willing to break the Prime Directive, but can you really ignore the cries of the innocent?

I imagine Pearl would probably mop up slavery rings on the principle of the thing.

>The only reason Russia is fucked up is because of the gay abuse there, and it's obvious that Sugar hates Russia for that, so she decided to fuck it up for that very reason. Pretty psychotic, if you ask me.

Hard to argue against triple sevens, but I think the giant crater in Russia has more to do with the fact that the biggest diamond mine is there and if you look at Pink's mural in the moon base, she looks like if she was emerging from the ground.

If they can get away with having lesbians brainwash a young kid, I think they can get away with a kooky religion.

I do love your post man, but I found one serious problem with it, based on what the show shows us.

>And I can't imagine Rose just sat on her big beautiful ass for 4,500 years after the war.

Common sense in my thinky-brain says this should be true.

The show makes it very clear this is bullshit though. We see her not know what the fuck a baby is. Some people says that it's just because she's never dealt with a baby before. I counter with; She's preaching about how she loves humanity. She's been with us for 4,500 years. Rose has had to spend some time around humanity for loving us so much. Even a cursory glance and observation of culture (as made clear when Pearl mentions knighthood) could show what a baby is, or at the very least realize how it should be treated.

But she sees that baby, and goes "lolwtf this? A tiny human, lol! So cool. Never saw one before."

So two possibilities.

1) (Most Likely) the writers are pretty bad at keeping things consistent, sacrificing logical character evolution and storytelling for slapstick or what they consider endearing character traits

2) She did sit on her ass doing jackshit, catching the gem monsters here and there before hiding away. This also shows she did love humanity in the same way the 70 year old lady loves her cats. Which also lends weight to the idea that Rose Quartz is a sick bestiality-loving whackjob that thinks "that other animal has a nice rod. I'mma rock him."

Stuff you said about the potential extinction of man and hunting monsters? Spot on.

Holy shit, I never considered that.

>There is no life form on Earth that can compete with gem monsters
Sadie took one out with a sharpened stick

I really don't like cartoons that take the "oblivious/stupid humanity" approach like Steven Universe (and to use an example of a cartoon Sup Forums likes, Star Vs.)

Humans see magic and if they're not a main character they just stare like a dumb sheep and either scream or aren't interested at all. Those who are main characters are interested and they're the only ones. It just comes off as lazy. "We don't really want to have to explain the relationship between people and the unknown/magic... it's just a plot device for us, a convenient way to throw in some action sequences. It doesn't matter"

Say what you will about Gravity Falls, but the government took an interest when crazy extradimensional shit started to happen. Most cape heroes are either beloved icons or on the run from powerful organizations but there's clearly a response there, a statement about how humanity is handling this strange unknown.

Imagine X-Men, but Storm flies everyone around like a fuckin' bus and nobody gives a shit. Xavier uses his mind powers to get free ice cream at the local parlor as a throwaway gag and nobody cares. On a daily basis Cyclops wrecks up the nearby forest with laser beams and the world collectively shrugs.

It seems like this world's history must have diverged from our own many, many millions of years ago, just looking at that map. When Africa and South America tore apart, a much larger portion of the landmass went west with South America than in our history. Assuming the gems arrived on this earth a few thousand years ago, things were already significantly different by the time they arrived and not everything that's different can be put at their feet.

>Was the suggestion really that Dunce Dewey was the first European to set foot on American soil?
that's the impression I got. and when he found the crystal gems they said 'what the fuck are you doing? this land is no place for Humans' which sends the impression there were no native humans living there either

>What do you mean, no Russia?
I mean Russia as a superpower. Honestly it seems like no nation on SU Earth is what we would consider a superpower

And yet they still figured out space flight and satellites somehow.

Pink Diamond confirmed for being Russia-born.

The gems triggered second impact.

I thought she said it took her a long time to figure out babies were small humans, and considering how obvious that is, taking a decade to not connect the dots is shamefully long. While it's true she didn't understand an infant's lack of capabilities, that could be because no one was dumb enough to give their baby to the pink goddess.

Something that bugs me is that Steven is supposed to be this link between Gems and Humanity or a way for Rose to see what it's like to be human, but he rarely ever does the stuff a normal human boy does.
He doesn't really live a normal human life which kind of makes the whole half human half gen thing pointless. American Dragon did it well with showing Jake being able to be a link between the magical and human world. Steven doesn't really do any of that.

>There is no life form on Earth that can compete with gem monsters

Wasn't there an episode where Sadie of all people actually managed to defeat a gem monster with a stick or something?
I need to rewatch the first season.

Good point. He doesn't go to school. And, besides occasionally meeting with Beach City denizens he doesn't really do any human stuff.

In fairness, Sup Forums collectively cums for Avatar and while they make a big show of being "the bridge", Aang and Korra both didn't seem to be super comfortable with the spirit world. It's kind of the opposite situation, where the bridge interacts with humans almost constantly and it's just kind of expected that spirits get in line or get whapped on the nose

>lesbians brainwash a young kid

Are you for real?

Agree with that mostly. It's kind of shocking if Greg was the actual point where she realized humans were not 'pets'.
(Did Rose convince or inspire Pink Diamond to create a zoo for humans before she rebelled? "My Diamond, I fear for the fate of these beings if we pursue the creation of this colony..."(later) "Look, I built a zoo for them! That was a great idea you had!" "B-but...")

Then again, she said "I'm not a real person". How native did she go? Did she start to think of humans as superior?? Because humans can grow and change, and they can become different things regardless of where they came from...

Also I just checked... Rose does not give an indication of WHEN she figured out babies are human. It could be before the Rebellion started. Another inspiration?

We NEED to see a flashback episode of what triggered it.

...Now, as I said before on another thread, time travel is a thing in the show. It's such a giant McGuffin it beggars belief. But where did the hourglass even come from, and if it came from Homeworld - the only logical explanation - why isn't Homeworld changing the past?

Anyway, Steven will have to meet his mother at some point. The combination of his intense longing for her - and by the way, thanks for the giant cock-tease that was "Storm in the room", Sucrose - and the effective existence of time travel in the show makes it dramatically inevitable.
How far in the past will he meet her?
>TFW Steven meeting Rose Quartz before the rebellion sets the whole damn thing in motion
>Connie has a fit when he explains it to her

Humanity, Fuck Yeah!

Kind of upsetting that we didn't seem more spirit world nonsense in TLA. Any time we did see them it was just plot related but I wanted occasional episodes where Aang had to deal with rouge or angry spirits like the episode with the giant panda.

>Pink diamond absorbed all of Russia to be born.
Now that's a scary thought.

...Yyyyeah, but... but... that was Sadie. She's like...

God damn it.

Russia didn't become a superpower because of Siberia. As you see, Siberia doesn't play a big part in the country's economy.

I am more interested in what such a gigantic inland sea would do to Russia's climate.

The only thing this map makes me wonder the most is how there's a side character who is clearly Indian when India was apparently blown apart.

Must've been a hell of a time for them Maheswarans.

Magic carpets man.

She can show you the world.

What's left of it, anyways.

You know, all this talk about humans and gems got me wondering.

Could modern Earth stand up against a full-on Homeworld invasion?

No.
Unless they have Torchwood or the MIB.

>Siberia doesn't play a big part in the country's economy.
isn't it still a major trade/shipping route?

Absolutely no fucking way. Even taking into account modern warfare, which doesn't seem to exist in SU, I doubt we'd have a chance unless our tanks were made out of Diamondium or some sort of shit.

Let's see...

Funny how no human for 10,000 years ever explored and tried to make use of gem tech/magic.

I'd imagine the Soviet Union would risk human lives to bring back ayy tech.

I'm not that guy but I am pretty sure most Russian shipping is via the Baltic, see St. Petersburg

India is vast. But "Maheswaran" is a Tamil, ie Sri Lankan name, but Priyanka is not. Forbidden love?

Key word: "shipping". Plus such a vast sea would crate new fishing resources. I would love to know more and I never will...

>Rome falls 1000 years earlier because "slaves are bad mkay?!"

If there ever was a Soviet Union. But I guess there could have been - as said, most of Russian life takes place outside of the affected area anyway, and if anything the Siberian Sea would create new resources, new possibilities.

On the other hand: No second world war, so maybe no first world war, either. No first world war, no Russian revolution, no crippling of the European hegemony or motivation for the USA to become a military superpower.

I realize none of this will ever be answered. The format of the show is all wrong for that. It's a vexation.

What the fuck does SU have against Australia?

Well, it would have caused a significant change in their society. But Rome wouldn't have fallen for lack of slaves. Our society has no slaves, we have poor people prepared to work AS slaves for, in practice, the same cost.

>All of Western Africa gone
>"What happened to Australia?"

Dude. Not cool.

I doubt the gems would be content with the other option of just mass genocide

>Ok, we can't enslave these prisoners of war or their families, guess we better kill them here

Rome and hell most ancient empires would have to go.

They must really hate Abbos.

>Writing an entire essay over the setting of a children's show

No one likes Australia in cartoons. It's the rules.

It takes place in Sugar's safe space, where everybody is just an aspect of her childbrained self, nothing evil happens because that makes her inner child cry. All the conflicts boild down to misunderstanding because she can't project herself in real evil people, and assume everybody will listen and obey to her truth, that she can't conceive as relative.
tl:dr : It's a teen fiction from a middle class white girl whose biggest life drama was being late to school once.

You what mate?
Bloody hell...
Fukken pussies.

stupid cunt needs to get raped

>The only reason Russia is fucked up is because of the gay abuse there

Really? You think that's the only reason Russia's a shithole? Get out of your basement, dude.

...

FUCKING ZEEKS AT IT AGAIN

EVEN IN THE GAY ROCKS SHOW

M80 i'm new, what the fuck is a zeek?
Don't ya mean wog?

>in Sup Forums
>expecting good time management

>no holidays
Does it means that christianity and maybe other religions does not exist?

I briefly imagined a potential episode involving a secret experimentation program by the Japanese government attempting to create bioweapons by infusing humans with gem shards extracted from monsters (that are basically kaiju)

One giant reference to Akira mixed with Guyver, possibly introducing a counterpart character to Steven that was made to be a gem-human hybrid artificially rather than naturally.

It sounds weeb as fuck, but this is Steven universe we're talking about so I wouldn't put it past them to actually do something like this.

But most of north Africa is cared about.
And most of west Australia is colonized.
Not a lot of damage but still...

Affirmative...

Matt claim that to be the case.

I don't know.
Looking back at all the speculating in this thread I think its safe to say that the world building in this show leaves much to be desired.

Because Steven is the least curious teenager in history

You're all taking the setting way more seriously than you should. SU just doesn't have detailed, coherent worldbuilding because it's not a priority. The focus of this show is character, relationships, family, dealing with past and such. There is no government interference because plotlines fueled by "realism" would just move the focus away from what's actually the heart of the writing. There is no need to have worldbuilding just for the sake of it.

SO MUCH MORE!
But this is what I get...

Just Abrahamic religions for not being progressive. Maybe Jews can stay but only reformed ones that are pretty much atheists.

It's a Gundam thing, the shooty-stabby cartoon robbutts.
Space Hitler's faction, Zeon, throws a fucking space colony at the Earth. It hit Sidney and fucks up the continent.

And it keeps fucking happening, in every goddamn series.

Clearly all Space Hitlers, Diamonds included, just fucking hate Australia, man.

>No MSG OVA starring an angry Aussie GM pilot from Operation Odessa to Axis

>The only reason Russia is fucked up is because of the gay abuse there
Sweet summer child.

>entire world's ocean stolen
>no one gives a shit

Most of all not the writers

SU is not really a children's show though.

Well at the very least it could be "accurate".
Holy hell on a bike mate.

Humanity is just a plot device in SU and largely inconsequential in the grand scheme of the narative.

Because like all the shows by pseudo-intellectuals influenced by anime having an alternate world adds "more layers" and "mistery".

Also because these people are creatively bankrupt so the best they can do is ape and copy other stuff because they never had an original thought in their mind.
But the fanbase doesn't care as long as they can jerk off to stones and claim that the "emotional" moments in the show are well made and "meaningful"

That's not the only option though.

If Jared Diamond (sic) is correct, there were maybe 300,000 "Abbo's" in all of Australia, and whatever affected the continent seems to have mostly struck the desert.

>You what mate?

I noted your apparent attention for Australia as contrasted with your utter lack of concern over what happened to Africa.
Mate.

>SU just doesn't have detailed, coherent worldbuilding because it's not a priority
just say "they don't care because they are incompetent" at least it wouldn't make you sound like an hypocritical ass licker