After “Monster Reunion,” I’ve been thinking more about gem corruption. We’ve got a ton of new information about the nature of gem corruption in this episode, especially this line from Garnet:

And this interpretation by Steven of Centipeetle’s story:

Particularly the bit about the Corruption Event being described as “a song.” These two details, along with other details from before, are enough to piece together the true nature of corruption.

The show makes it seem, or at least makes it easy to assume, that “corruption” is some sort of supernatural force, like a curse or some kind of world magic. I’ve also seen fan theories comparing corruption to mutations due to nuclear fallout (a la Adventure Time, perhaps). But given these details, I think corruption is a lot more specific, and a lot more diabolical than either of those things. From the bits of information from this episode and earlier, I can conclude:

Gems are computers, and “corruption” is literally akin to a computer file being corrupted.

More under the cut.

First, the idea that gems are computers.

This idea has been floating around for a while, and it’s easy to see why. There’s the detail that gems’ physical bodies are actually projections, of course, not to mention the myriad instances of digital imagery surrounding gems and their technology.

It’s almost hard to argue that gems aren’t some kind of AI, or at least analogous to computers. Whether or not gems were created is beside the point (they certainly seem to be, but that’s a theory for another day). But let’s not just leave it at that. If gems are computer intelligence instead of network intelligence (like the human brain), what does that mean? What implications does that have?

Well for one, computers work in a fundamentally different way from biological brains. When brains store memories and information, their structure physically changes. Your neurons fire and form new connections, and those connections are literal physical presences in your mind. Since your brain can always form new connections, you will never run out of memory space. This also means that connections that are less active will be pruned away, and so we forget things with time.

Computers, on the other hand, store information non-physically. The only difference between a one and a zero is an electric charge, and those charges can be altered with outside forces. That’s why you should never hold a strong magnet near a computer, and why short-circuits are so damaging.

When a computer file is moved, or when a program interacts with it, the computer file itself does not actually go anywhere. Instead, it is copied to a different part of the computer, and then once it has been changed, the new version is copied back over to the old one, overwriting it. Of course, sometimes this copying process isn’t perfect, and errors build up. When these errors begin to cause random, unintended changes to the file, that’s called corruption. This can happen in any computer system. And if gems are computers, they’re certainly susceptible to it. But corruption isn’t physical damage; it’s all digital.

So what does this mean for corrupted gems?

Well, let’s look at the effects of gem corruption. Firstly, there’s the most obvious: the scrambling of body shape. Since gems’ bodies are projections, their body pattern must be stored digitally inside their gem. This basic body pattern can be altered when a gem reforms, but otherwise is left alone. But this means that the body pattern is part of a gem’s “memory” in computer terms, and can be corrupted.

Secondly, there’s the inability to speak. As we see at the end of Monster Reunion, this isn’t a complete destruction of language capabilities, as it’s revealed that Centipeetle can still write legibly. Instead, it simply seems like a very specific targeting of speech output. This may be just another symptom of a scrambled body pattern, but on the other hand Amethyst can still talk perfectly well while shape-shifted, so who knows.

Lastly, there’s the corruption of memory and awareness. This is the big one. Corrupted gems by and large don’t seem to be consciously aware of their actions, and when Centipeetle emerged, she seemed not to remember Steven at first until he started singing the “chaaaps” song. After that, her memory seemed almost flawless. She was able to write out everything, and even show Steven a very detailed version of how she got corrupted. She even retained her memories and consciousness after she reverted back to her centipede form.

This has huge implications. If corrupted gems truly were corrupted through and through, their memories and personalities should have been destroyed forever. Instead, corruption seems a lot more specifically targeted than originally thought. Aside from still looking like a giant centipede, Centipeetle is basically healed. All the CGs need now is a way to recover the corrupted gems’ body patterns, and with a little bit of patience they can probably start healing them very easily.

But what about the “song?”

It’s a common mantra in the hacking world that anything with an input and an output can be hacked. There’s the infamous “Phone Phreaking” of the 1960s and 70s where kids used toy whistles from cereal boxes to mimic telephone dial noises in order to get free calls. There’s the case of a team who used a robot wielding a Super Nintendo controller to literally reprogram Super Mario World on the fly, while people watched. These are both examples of people controlling data processing systems down to the most basic level using non-standard means. Altering or corrupting data doesn’t always need a keyboard and mouse; as long as there’s an input, there’s an exploit. There’s instances of sound itself playing a key role in corrupting data, too. For example, loud sound right next to a disk drive can cause latency which corrupts data, and ultrasonic frequencies can be used to hack into “air gapped” (non-networked) computers via their built-in microphones.

Music itself can be considered a kind of hacking exploit, too. It’s very complicated to explain, but music arises because of the way it interacts with a variety of systems in the human brain in unexpected ways. Octaves, for example, arise because of the structure of the inner ear is a spiral, and frequencies that vibrate one part of the ear may interact with the spaces on either side of it, causing it to be heard as the “same” note. Rhythms and tones interact with neurological processes like brainwaves, heartbeat regulation, and more, and a lifetime of listening to music will literally reprogram your brain to associate certain patterns and tones with different emotions.

But non-standard hacking is usually limited, especially if time is short. The Corruption Song signaled the end of the Gem War, after all; there probably wasn’t much time to come up with it. Perhaps the Diamonds really did intend to corrupt the gems right down to their memories, but only settled for corrupting their body shapes, speech ability, and general awareness to give the appearance of complete destruction of self. Figuring out the ins and outs of how music works on a gem’s mind probably took a lot longer than expected, forcing the Diamonds to play their hand with an effective but only half-potent weapon. Which means there’s still hope for corrupted gems after all.