Mazinderan wrote:
I think you are greatly underestimating the capabilities of Gem technology. Nothing but Rose's light cannon could so much as damage the Red Eye, and four of those did nothing to a modern Gem warship. It's true that we've never seen human military technology brought to bear in the show, but there's no particular reason to believe that bullets and missiles would be more effective.
Individual Gems can be poofed, sure, but that's not necessarily an easy thing. Lapis survived a spaceship crash, and Jasper survived the explosion of the ship's power plant and then the crash, without poofing. Pearl got poofed by a sword blade, but the hologram that stabbed her was later shown to cut down a tree with a balloon sword, so the strength involved may not have been merely human. About the only thing that suggests some Gems might be easy to pop is that Sadie was able to poof a Gem monster with a sharpened stick. (Connie poofed two fusion mutants, but she was wielding Rose's sword, which may have unearthly properties; we know it can deflect fireballs/energy blasts.)
Oh where to start.. first off, For the red eye, the only thing that was done by the gems was to (stupidly) throw Amethyst against it in order to hopefully crack it. The light cannon did destroy it. But the light cannon seems to be an energy based weapon. (a laser) hence it's name. Lasers are heat based and not extremely penetrative unless pushed against a surface for a long while. Plus the red eye was hit at a weak point and thus exploded.
Same with the gem warship. Gem metals cannot be very disimilar to human metals. As pearl suggested Tungsten for the drill, and Peridot agreed. Logically the peridoic table only has so many different elements, unless radioactive or unstable ones are created in a lab. But these more or less are not common metals.
As before, the light cannons were energy based, as was opal's arrows. (if were are talking about realism here.) then of course the heat based weapons would not work. on the armored ship. heat has to melt through objects, explosions negate the time. If there was a competant millitary, all they would simply need to do would be either bombard it with armor piercing rockets or warheads. And if that does not work, nuclear weapon impact would for sure.
As for gem durability, they are still rocks with a fleshy/soft appearing hologram. My theory is that they are able to punch object and surfaces softer than their gem type. Hence why amethyst could chip off pieces of peridot's communication tower. But materials stronger then them can go right through them. like swords and such, Plus humans have the knowhow to create armor, which the gems have little to no of.
Gems may have superior space traveling tech (for now) but humans have focused most of their existance primarily on war, and unfortunately, we have become quite good at it.
Humanity should have no problem against gems. When you compare all the alien forces that have gone against modern humanity and lost. (in a realistic fashion) (lost to bullets, rockets, disease, nukes, ect..)
Since SU is an animated series, and not very gritty. realism at times seems to slip, i mean look at these examples realistically and logically.
Independece Day: humanity used its air force and intel in order to defeat an onslaught of dozens of huge motherships and thousands of alien fighters equipped with laser technology.
Pacific Rim: before the Jaeger program, Humanity managed to sucessfully nuke and kill the enormous and thick skinned toxic kaiju: Trespasser, Hundun, Scissure, and Kaipech. the kaiju mutavore was later killed by piercing missile rounds via a jaeger.
Steven Universe: Humanity (via the crystal gems) seems to have a problem against a few rock people and their somewhat futuristic tech, (Mind you this tech is primarily used to capture and hold gems.)
Logically, humanity should win no problem, and those were only a few examples.