THIS STORY CONTAINS SOME MATERIAL THAT MAY BE SENSITIVE TO SOME READERS. In an alternate reality, times are bleak. The Earth--what's left of it--has been held hostage within the clutches of war. An ongoing war that has lasted centuries between the forces of Homeworld and a band of rebels calling themselves "The Crystal Blades." Read this dark, tense, and gritty first part of this three-part AU, where Steven Universe himself never came to be.