The "Communication Hub" is an ancient place that was once used by the Homeworld Gems thousands of years ago to communicate through space. It was located somewhere in the middle of a desert. The place made its first appearance in the episode "Coach Steven", when Sugilite demolished it with her flail.
The Crystal Gems visited it again in "Cry for Help" after discovering a transmission from Peridot, seeing that she had managed to partially repair it and use it for transmitting messages to Homeworld for Yellow Diamond to receive.
Description
Not much is known about this place, considering its very brief appearance and history lecture in the episode "Coach Steven". The Communication Hub used to be a place where, at one time, Gems were able to send messages over long distances. The place contained many huge pillars adorned with triangular patterns.
History
"Coach Steven"
The Communication Hub had started to emit bursts of electromagnetic radiation, which, stated by Garnet, were hurting television. The Crystal Gems traveled to the hub and destroyed the structure by having Garnet and Amethyst fuse into a gigantic fusion Gem, Sugilite, who proceeded to reduce the place to rubble. Doing so, a chunk of one of the pillars destroyed the Warp Pad located by the site.
"Cry For Help"
When the Gems find out that Peridot is using the hub in order to contact The Homeworld, specifically Yellow Diamond, causing many of the TVs on Earth to intercept the message. The group travels there by warping with Lion, since the Warp Pad is still destroyed. The Gems find a tower crudely assembled out of pillars and slabs salvaged from the ruins. Garnet, worried that Sugilite will go out of control again, fuses with Pearl to form Sardonyx. Sardonyx carefully destroys certain pillars, rendering the hub inactive. The next day, they find the tower reactivated, so Pearl and Garnet form Sardonyx again to disable it and stop the transmission. When Steven and Amethyst stake out the hub though, they discover that Pearl was the one reactivating the hub after Peridot did. Garnet was furious upon learning this, and Sugilite was formed again instead of Sardonyx, demolishing the tower with a single punch.
Schematics for the Communication Hub are later seen on a Moon Base computer display during "It Could've Been Great".
Trivia
- Two fusion gems were formed for the same purpose, to destroy the communication hub, the two are Sugilite in "Coach Steven" and Sardonyx in "Cry for Help".
- A floating chunk of crystals are seen in the center of the first floor of the hub. Their function or relation to the hub is currently unknown.
- The hub was shooting beams of energy into space in a similar fashion to how other Gem temples shot beams of energy into space while being activated or destroyed (such as the Pyramid Temple).
- The energy beams could be a visible manifestation of the messages it is sending.
- This is one of the few places to have its Warp Pad destroyed (in this case by Sugilite).
- It is powerful enough to send a message all the way to the Gem Homeworld.
- Peridot complained that in "Catch and Release", she has not heard from Yellow Diamond yet. Which suggests the Gem Homeworld's tech is so advanced, it cannot transmit the frequency as it used to do.
- Sending messages from Homeworld to earth via Wailing Stone" too required some assistance, from "Greg Universe".
- It was destroyed by Sugilite in the episode "Coach Steven", but rebuilt by Peridot and later Pearl in "Cry for Help" before it was finally destroyed again by Sugilite in the same episode.
- Whenever this location is shown on-screen, it is twilight.
- Whenever the Crystal Gems warp back to the temple, it goes back to day, suggesting that the Communication Hub is located halfway around the world from Beach City.
- Another indication of the Hub's distance from Beach City is that, in "Cry for Help", Lion is visibly tired by carrying Steven and the Crystal Gems to the Hub via portal travel. The only other time using portals noticeably affected Lion thus far is in "It Could've Been Great", when he carried Steven, the Crystal Gems and Peridot to the Moon Base.
- Whenever the Crystal Gems warp back to the temple, it goes back to day, suggesting that the Communication Hub is located halfway around the world from Beach City.
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