The First True King: An Edgy Steven Universe AU

The First True King
A Stupidly Edgy Steven Universe AU from /co/

THE FIRST REQUESTS
Steven as a mad old wizard scaring the hell out of Pearl's kid with killer shrubs.
Steven stood over the shattered remains of the Crystal gems saying “I am pink Diamond and it’s time I crush this rebellion for good”
Yeah this but with Steven acting like earth is his colony, With PD eyes, Gem ships warping in, Standing with his diamond sisters, Preparing an extermination beam

STEVEN
>bara adult Steven
>brutal/tyrannical personality
Steven can use other gems like Dante can use other demons. As magical weapons.
How would he take to the Diamonds?
Would he ally with them or would he seek to overthrow them
i'm thinking ally, and his strange genetic composition would probably allow for some interesting new technological developments.
Could imagine being ruled by that fatass neckbeard. A sword in one hand & a cookie cat ice cream in the other.

PEARL'S DAUGHTER
I want 3 seasons of this pearl hybrid rallying the poor to overthrow King Universe. Using holograms to trick hollow knights and tree denizens away from grain supply trains and basically just robin hooding shit.
we can combine these two. pearl escapes servitude the only way she was shown how: by passing on all responsibilities to an unwitting genetic hybrid vessel.
So Pearl kid is the new hero to oppose the Tyrannical Steven?
>Name
Dian, after the Pink Diamond Star Dianthus Flower.
I feel like a Pearl kid would be way different from our Steven. I feel like she’d sort of resemble Will from Stranger Things, a shy, neurotic, yet deeply empathetic “sensitive child”.

THE DIAMONDS/HOMEWORLD
At least with that mindset Yellow would find the whole thing super lovely. Blue might be horrified though
however, they would probably be a bit afraid of him. I don't think he would be that stable, he could seek to overthrow other colonies if he takes over his too quickly, so maybe they try to indirectly stall him.
Maybe with some support from BD. I think shed be really fuckin scared of this, but would try to keep it low.
>support from BD
For this to work you kind of have to disable or hinder any sympathetic authority. Maybe there was a civil war on homeworld which lead to Earth becoming full of angry gems again.
Think VERY low key support, not an open war.
Like BD is WELL aware that this Steven shit is a fucking time bomb, so she grooms Dian in secret, teachers her stuff, very slowly and carefully undermines Steven's side as possible (with like, Bureaucracy) while building up in some backwater planet, where Dian is.
Endgame would be BD springing her trap when Steven goes conquer the backwater planet, but idk she herself dies in the siege. Steven is not defeated, but cosmically humiliated
Dian leads the new rebellion that starts to erupt all over the empire due to Steven's extremity. Its more stronger and way more inspired than ever cause a fucking PEARL managed to rise up and do it.
Yes exactly, a kind of shadowy mentor. Like Ahsoka in Star Wars Rebels S1.

OTHER GEMS
Hell we could work a new cast into this.
Yes, Dian as the mc. Shes gonna need like someone next to her. Holly Blue? i think shed be so hilariously bad at being mom it'd be great.
Maybe Jasper, who sees what kind of shit Pink Diamond has descended into. Some of the Off Colors could fir. Rhodonite would shine here IMO, itd be a good opportunity to actually grow some balls cause shes a bundle of nerves (consider that by gem type, shes supposed to be stronger that Garnet)
idk who else
>Holly Blue
this is actually better than Blue Pearl. She has more personality.
How would Steven use the other gems?
Peridot maybe like a gauntlet that can control metal.
Not use about the core CG
no no, peridot must be helmet so he can control metals with his mind.
Ruby and Sapphire must be each a gauntlet so he can control Ice and Fire.
ruby and sapphire could be used as a devious type of trap weapon. all that would be needed is something to toggle sentience on and off. embed one gem in one object, such as a wall of a heavy glove, and the other in a different object. when you turn on sentience, they will instinctively try to fuse, or be as close to each other as possible. if someone is between the two objects they are embedded in at the time of activation, that someone will be crushed/suffocated. once the victim is dead, the gems can be returned to their dormant state.
Oh oh and keep Pearl like alive, formed.
But brute force her with the Pink Diamond command power to do anything he wants.

EARTH AND THE CLUSTER
So, how do you want to edgify the cluster? It must still exist. Maybe have it infect the Earth and it's biosphere? Kill off a bunch of people? Give some of them limited gem powers so Dian can travel around without being a neon novelty?
Because I think it should be locked to Earth and a few Homeworld scenes. So we need an appropriately edgy Earth for Steven to rule.
I don't think it needs much changes, the Cluster is already super fucked up at it is. Thing is, nobody stops it.
What it needs is to slower
It emerges over several months, years even. Giant body part erupting violently in the middle of cities. Catastrophic earthquakes every other week. The atmosphere and world climate going to shit fast.
The Earth is just... done for in this AU. There are plans to save it early on, but eventually it becomes very clear its just a completely lost cause
Dian and BD have like their human refugees/colony of sorts but that's more or less it (Idea: The Zoo is the main base of operations for Dian, the humans remnants and BD to see them without rising suspicion)
Maybe the cluster does finally, fully emerge towards the last 1/4 of the show, being Steven's final trump card. He uses it as his mobile base, ala Death Star
Okay, I like it, but I feel like Steven wants to keep humanity as his subjects. He still wants to protect them, but in the way a Diamond would. I feel like he takes them to his new colony world. In other words, I don't think the setting really works scattered across the gempire.
Also, wouldn't the Diamonds try to halt that project? Their reasons for destroying Earth are gone?
Yellow kinda wants the Geoweapon
Also maybe Steven is the one that pushes, and hard, for it
since Steven is technically the one who bubbled the cluster, I think its containment should deteriorate with him. Kind of like >>100493315, but instead of limbs, it's more subtle. The bubble distends and leaks, like the faulty seal at the bottom of landfills, spilling over onto the earth's outer crust. The flora and fauna start to morph and change as crystal clumps work their way into earth's biology. the landscape changes kind of like in OP's pic. The ecosystem starts to become populated with weird bio-fusions born from steven's failing ideology.
It kind of works thematically too, since Steven is meant to represent earth, humanity, and the beliefs surrounding it. as he is corrupted by the legacy of his extraterrestrial aunts, so too will the earth.
it's actually a bird-like thing, indirectly mutated by the influence of the cluster encroaching on organic life on the surface.
it could have been an amethyst, though.

HUMANS
Neat, how has this affected humans? Does it give them really limited gem powers? Do they get barrow wight visions from the cluster shards that infected them? Or is it more like a cross between pinking and corruption and it just makes them stronger and stranger?
>The gems from warp 5 ambushed us in the night. Oh the spear through my gem!
shit, I didn't really think about that. if we're cranking up the edge factor, you could make some feral gem-human beings that run amok like zombies, or just have painful, gradual mutations. perhaps if humans live close to "breach points" where the cluster's influence is more powerful, their community crumbles and the citizens go a little kooky. i'm thinking like the pervasive influence of joy pills, from LISA.
I like it, then you can have communities that shun mutation and others that basically pull a children of Atom sort of thing.
And then there are the middle grounders who can sense gems nearby and can mess with their form if they touch them. But they's be like 0.1%. Gem monks I guess you'd call them. Then of course there are Steven's Knights. People who have died well in his tourneys that he's raised.
>gem monks
like the monks from samurai jack? defying aku's all-seeing grasp through sheer discipline?
i can dig it. tourneys sound cool as fuck, too
I like that human mutant. The fact that he doesnt seem to be in agony sells it to me. Horribly painful mutations are just so common nowadays
which Beach City citizens agreed to become one with the gems. Which would succumb, which could manage to stay the least affected. And of course, which ones would be chosen by Steven as his pink zombies
Kevin would join it fast to be hip
it might be that you CAN join steven's faction, and may gain enhanced powers because of it, but if you love near a breach point transformation may not be a choice.
Maybe someone in the town gets hurt, but instead of the wound scabbing over, it would crystallize, looking like a geode. Small but meaningful impacts on earth biology.
I think plenty of people would join out of fear of being torn apart by the new gemed ecosystem. Overall "joining" would be pretty bad in the long term. Im picturing it as not painful, but slowly loosing yourself. Eventually your body becomes too crystallized to move, then your mind just joins the cluster collective and you stop being an individual altogether.

PARENTS
So who's the kid's other parent? Did Pearl actually care about them or was it a means to an end.
i'm thinking greg, since he's be the human she trusts the most. his genes aren't inherently evil, and she has known him for a while.
pearl would probably manipulate the fetus in the womb using space magic or some shit so the baby would be sterile and stable, a little bit less human-like to prevent a situation like the First True King Steven.
I can dig it so long as greg is dead at this point
greg is definitely dead at this point
greg is maybe kept by Steven? that last one remnant of his past he despises but yet cant bring himself to get rid of
No, daddy is Jamie, just because the result would be the biggest drama queen ever.

STORY IDEA ZONE
The plot would be split into following Steven locking down, capturing the remaining CGs (a 2 parter episode for each capture, one going after Amethyst, later Bismuth another after Garnet, and then Peridot. Lapis is the final boss of his arc. Each episode highlights how much he has fallen, as a the antithesis of what each of these gems taught him), while BD tries to stall him as quietly as possible. Meanwhile Dian and her team being sort of an undercover team using covert method to slowly build up a rebellion. All the while BD prepares for the inevitable larger scale conflict to come
K, hold on. Timeline time.
So let's say the Diamonds find out Steven is Pink Diamond early and take him from Earth. They groom him, Yellow ends up with the most influence over him which disturbs BD. Since Blue loves Steven, her goal is simply to get him to listen to her again. What better way then through his Pearl (Dian isn't but Diamonds aren't good with keeping track of this hybrid nonsense). So she sends Blue Pearl to Earth to check in with and "mentor" Dian.