Lapis Lazuli is one of the biggest ongoing mysteries in Steven Universe. Who was she before she became trapped in the mirror, and why is she so extraordinarily powerful compared to other gems?

Today I’m going to attempt to prove just what Lapis’s role was: Lapis Lazuli was an explorer. The evidence and details can be found below the cut.

First, let’s take a look at what we know about Lapis: her abilities, her weapon, and her social status.

Notice how I made a distinction between Lapis’s ability and her weapon? Contrary to what’s been said on twitter, hydrokinesis is not quite Lapis Lazuli’s weapon. It’s a miscommunication, like saying Garnet’s hands are her weapon when you really mean her gauntlets.

Lapis had access to this ability from the moment we first saw her in the mirror, but it was only after Steven healed her gem that she produced her “weapon”

Lapis’s water wings aren’t just manipulated water: they’re a gem-produced tool that lets Lapis fly independent of any atmosphere at velocities exceeding the speed of light. This “weapon” is crucial to our understanding of what Lapis Lazuli really is, because it tells us that she is intended to travel enormous distances without utilizing a galaxy warp. In other words, she was designed to travel to areas that the gems have not yet colonized.

This explains why Lapis is extraordinarily powerful: Because of her speed, no other gem vessel could have kept up with her. She would arrive on any planet alone and be forced to fend for herself. Both on inhabited planets and in space in the form of ice, water is an abundant material and being able to manipulate it in large quantities would make Lapis an idea conquistador.

This would make Lapis a vital member of Blue Diamond’s court, and due to her job requiring her to frequently distance herself from gem society, it would easily explain why she has such an individual identity.

It also explains why she drew the octogram of the Blue Court as her first on-screen act utilizing her water control. She was identifying herself as a herald of Blue Diamond herself. Lapis Lazuli is basically the Silver Surfer of SU.

However, this has a darker implication. Remember this line?

“All they care about is the earth, but I never believed in this place”

Some people assumed she was asked to fight for earth at some point, but considering what we’ve figured out about her role, this suggests that Lapis Lazuli was the one who found earth and declared it free of intelligent life: an ideal site for homeworld colony. This would explain why Lapis was trapped in the mirror; She is the reason homeworld colonized earth!

Lapis Lazuli may be the most important character in Steven Universe