The Diamond Authority had been dismantled about fifteen years ago and Earth was finding its place within the universe now that they knew that there were other species out there. There was obviously a lot happening on the gem side of things with their entire system of governance being reworked after being a dictatorship for millenium. But what about Earth? What did they gain from this sudden appearance of aliens?
The answer was a lot. Society was being upheaved for humans as well, but instead of a social change there was a technological and economic one. Once trade had opened up, warp whistles could be found on just about everyone's neck and warp pads were in every city and town with more being created every year.
But that's not what this story is about. This story is about what humans were able to give in return for all of the world changing tools like replication wands and tractor beams. It wasn't something obvious like resources or tools, but humans had something to offer that gems couldn't access anywhere else in the universe.
Death.
Death was a foreign concept to gems. The idea of your mind ceasing to be and simply becoming nothingness was something hard for gems to even comprehend. The closest thing that gems had to death was being permanently bubbled. But the issue here is with the word 'permanent'. Nothing truly lasts forever, and bubbles will eventually pop, putting the gem right back where they were before as if no time had passed at all.
The next option for not existing is being shattered. While this has the permanence of death it doesn't have the peace. It leaves the person in a state of eternal suffering and confusion unless someone is kind enough to bubble them. But as mentioned before, bubbling isn't really a permanent solution.
Harvesting is the final and worst option. It is neither peaceful nor permanent. You get to stop existing, but you remain conscious in a sort of permanent solitary confinement where your soul is used as a power source.
But for all her many faults, Rose Quartz discovered something that so many gems would want. A way to end their lives peacefully. It may sound grim and negative, but for beings whose only choices are living forever or suffering in some sort of eternal purgatory as a shattered fragment, nothingness is a truly beautiful third option that never existed before.
And it really was only humans that offered this out. While there were other species in the cosmos, they could not reproduce in the very specific way that would take the gem of the mother and incorporate it into the new child. A child that then lives on, carrying the gem of their dead mother.
That is what this story is about. This is the story of Earth, a small planet with nothing much to offer the galaxy to trade except for assisted suicide for a species that could never die.
This is the story of how the Earth became known as the planet of peaceful death and what all those deaths left behind. The story of the children born from those that used them to escape immortality.