Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26808654-20150516082728/@comment-26274291-20150525200446

To begin with, I must say I absolutely agree with your critic on the use of "coding" refering to how DNA works. In elementary biology courses, we're usually introduced to genetic codes as languages or recipes, sometimes relating with computer algorithms, which led to my use of "coding". I realise how rough and innapropriate it may sound to someone truly familiar to genetics, but I wrote my small assay considering a wider range of people, that not necessarly have a strong background on Biology or Biochemistry, and I didn't feel like taking my time explaining a quite abstract concept just for the sake of being accurate. Looking back on my comment about how I felt analysing the physics of "Ocean Gem", it does seem hypocritical, and for that I sincerely apologize.

Now, on more interesting matters: I completely understand your reasoning, as I once ended up with almost the same results as you did. Gems don't have DNA, humans have DNA, Steven is partially human, so he must only have DNA by his father's side. However, I met some holes in that, only getting Greg's DNA, Steven either would be Greg's clone or would be haploid. As there cannot be a haploid human being, we're left with the first. We don't find much to go on now in the canon, as Steven is very similar to Greg, without any remarkable discrepancies. Even observing Old Steven from "So Many Birthdays", we could atribute their differences as result of distinct esthetic choices, as not being tanned and shaving. So it seemed to me like a pretty good case until @Purplecoal, another user of this wiki, pointed this out to me. I quote:

"Steven on the other hand was created by mixing human and gem DNA so he’s a completely new kind of being. He is the only gem to be born thru biological reproductive means(Rose shapeshifted a womb for him to be born from)."

So, as far as Jones-Quartey can be trusted, Steven does have a maternal DNA. So, Gems have DNA? Unlikely. To me, it seems far more probable that Rose created a special sequence of DNA specifically so it could be combined to human DNA, allowing Steven's birth. We can infer (most speculatively) that Rose was already familiar with Genetic Engineering as part of her phytokinesis, as she would want to be able to choose the specific characteristics of the plants she would control. Going even further, in "Rose's Scabbard" we learned that Rose could be quite pragmatic, picking what she thought would be better to be shared with her friends and what should be kept secret, even to the ones closest to her, and Jasper's comment on her in "The Return" points to her being a military genius, respected, maybe even feared by her enemies. This insights reveal a significant dark side of her personality, one that must not be overlooked. The implication is the possibility of creating a human-Gem hybrid being more than an act of love, but a carefully thought war strategy. So far, we're told that Gems can only perish in combat, what would make the Crystal Gems living on Earth almost immortal, as the greatest danger presented by our planet is the eventual apparition of some corrupted Gem. This means that the Crystal Gems would stay here, isolated from the advances of Homeworld, growing outdated in their tatics and technology. It is possible that Rose understood that, someday, Homeworld agents would be back, and she needed to be prepared, to be able to resist. A hybrid could be able to remain unaffected by weapons developed specifically for Gems, therefore making it (or better, he) biologically able to wage war on the upcoming enemy forces.

Now, a bit on Steven's body. From your Biology studies you must have studied, briefly as it may be, about stains. Those are highly useful in Microscopical Biology, and are among the earliest and most applied techniques of making microscopical studies,   for instance, Gram's staining, which divides bacteria in gram-positive and gram-negative types. There are several kinds of staining procedures that take in consideration different wanted behaviors. For instance, we can see a Purkinje cell applying Golgi's staining, although how it works is not fully comprehended. Now, if we use the Gem Destabilizer and the as a mean to obtain information information on Steven's singular physiology, we see it working like a radioactive isotope in a blood stream. It makes some very specific points in his body emit some sort of light, the loci of those points drawing what appears to be an intricate set of channels, similar to a circulatory system. We observe it when both Steven and Garnet are affected by it. Now, I have no certitude to present when it comes to Gem physiology; I don't even know if a Gem's body is truly composed of matter. However, by that single phenomena I can infer that there is somekind of system (similar to an organic system) exclusive to Gems, possibly one that allows them to have superhuman abilities, say Steven's unusual strenght. As Rose said in "Lion 3: Straight to Video", she would become part of Steven. She gave up her physical form for him, making him a rather queer creature, possessing both human and Gem DNA and a gemstone, Rose's gemstone, Rose. Now, as you remember from "Together Breakfast", Gems get all the energy they need from their gemstones (this may have some pretty cool implications, but that's topic for another day). Rephrasing: gemstones are source of energy. If you watched "The Matrix" or Adventure Time's "Power Animal", you know that a human body can be used as a source of energy, particullarly considering it as a thermal source (that's why the most confortable temperature to a room is some degrees below the a human body's temperature, because the body needs to get rid from the heat produced by the metabolism). Steven basically does that with Rose's gemstone, using it's energy to perform superhuman feats (yet in not such a dark way as the exemples I pointed; the gemstone could be considered as one of his organs, so he would be parasitating it just as much as he is parasitating his lungs or his heart). But how can he access the energy proportionated by the gemstone? I would say by the singular system we observed when the Gem Destabilizer was applied. Rose could have developed that system so that Steven could have supernatural powers. She might even have adapted an already existent system to do so, for instance, the regular circulatory system, or the lymphatic system. Even more, in "So Many Birthdays" we learned that Steven's physical age is actually the form he takes, in other words, he shapeshifts to the age he feels like he has, as he doesn't control his powers enough to do so conciously (in a post-nitzchean stance, we could say that all humans do so, but again, matter for another day). It is what happens to the Gems themselves, as seem in "Story for Steven". But wait! Steven can shapeshift? He can control his body's matter and structure? His physical, human body, that so far we assumed as physical as our own? Does this means that Rose also managed to make it possible... Or that human also can shapeshift, a process similar to a fusion, like Stevonnie?

This is already too long. So, enough already.

I hope I was clear in my points, that I made better choice of words and that we can discuss again soon.