The Ruby crew, or Cruby as they will henceforth be known, have spent a bit of time in the foreground recently, and while some believe they’re now lost in about the final frontier for good, I think it should be clear for many that this is not the case.

Between Garnet’s ability to track targets using her future vision (which she used to find Steven in Bubbled) and the fact that the Crystal Gems now have access to a ship to retrieve them one by one, it shouldn’t be especially difficult for the Rubies to be tracked down. The question of the hour is why? The answer here comes in the form of two entangled but unrelated words:

Regret and Resolution

For most of the series, Steven has been trying to prove he could fill the his mother’s shoes (not that she wore them), but now that he’s seen what she’s done, Steven is realizing that he doesnt need to be a better quartz, but a better person. No matter what Eyeball believes, Steven is not Rose. Rose would have left her there, and the Steven we know would not. He is going back for them. He has the resolution, and he has the means.

The crystal gems now have the Ruby Eye, and while space may be vast, they did manage to locate Steven, presumable with the help of Garnet’s future vision, which allows her to see timelines in which she already found him.

We know Steven would try to help them, and we know that they’re able, but can the Rubies be redeemed? How? If they are, where will they go?

Let’s take things one at a time. Yes, the Rubies can be redeemed. Sure, they tried to kill Steven, but who hasn’t tried to kill him? Lapis and Peridot sure did and they turned out nicely enough. Of course, not every gem who tried to kill Steven ended up redeeming themselves, Jasper being the giant dog monster in the room. So what separates Lapis, Peridot, and the Rubies from Jasper?

Sympathy.

Peridot and Lapis were never monsters. They were normal people put in bad situations and always portrayed in a sympathetic light. Jasper on the other hand was never portrayed as anything but a threat. She abused her allies and embodied every bit of pointless hate and violence the show as a whole has stood against.

In the end, the rubies are closer to Peridot than anyone else. Leggy is just confused and scared, Navy is affable and a tad too shy, Army is violent but basically harmless, and Doc is just a useless but lovable officer who can’t even remember how to count. That just leaves us with Eyeball.

Despite her fangirlling, her gullibility, and her tear-jerking unrequired crush on a gem she doesn’t even know is gone, only eyeball has ever been depicted as a real threat, and unlike her sisters she has a very deep and personal grudge against Rose. But then, Steven isn’t Rose, even if Eyeball doesn’t understand that. How could she? She’s is just a Ruby, a mass-produced soldier with barely any allowance for individuality. She doesn’t have an identity, but here’s the thing, she wants one

Eyeball: I’m Ruby 1F4 Cut-4ND.



Eyeball: You can’t take this away from me! I’m gonna be a legend! I’ll go down in history!



Eyeball doesn’t realize it, but coming to earth was the best thing that could have happened to her. Rose fought for earth because she wanted a place where a pearl didn’t have to be be a slave and a bismuth didn’t have to build spires. Eyeball had spent less than a day there before Steven gave her a name all her own. When she understands what she has, she will come around.

Now then, there’s only one object left on the agenda: Where will they stay? It seems like a silly question, but to be honest I’ve left this for last because I think it’s the biggest evidence we have that the Rubies will stay on earth.

Bismuth’s Forge!

It’s big enough to house five small gems, and given the intense heat, the Rubies are the only gems around that could live there. More than that though is the symbolic connection the crew has been planning for them since their first appearance

Did you think it was just a lame joke that Steven gave the squad of short, nearly identical gems the same name pattern as the Seven Dwarves from Snow White? Hell no it’s not!

Next you’ll be telling me it was a coincidence that Bismuth’s door resembled the magical door to the Mines of Moria, which the dwarves of Middle Earth built right into the side of a mountain in The Lord of The Rings

Think about it. The crew could have easily made the gem storage room the forge, explaining why it was full of lava, but they invented a new location now, fresh in our minds and unoccupied because it had a purpose: It’s there because the crew created it for them!