Oh heres a canon divergence i guess??? Gems are Not immortal. Era 1 Gems last a very long time--- laz is already half an orbit old and im guessing she'll last like another orbit before she runs out of energy. Even though I'm way younger than her i suspect she'll outlive me because I'm an era 2 gem. I'm only about an eigth orbit old but uhhhhghh yeah we were made in less than desirable conditions with not very many resources, so our energy well is much less expansive than that of an era 1's. It is possible to get more energy but it would need to be gathered from organic life, just like how a kindergarten works. And im not really in the business of destroying organic life anymore. It's not really worth thinking about, anymore, because my lifespan has been decimated (human bodies do not last very long), but if i had to make an estimate I'd last for like another quart orbit maybe.

When a gem "dies" it isnt violent or anything, though it would be cool if we could explode into confetti. Most gems have not died yet (if that makes sense) but some gems have very short lifespans (relatively, they would still last much longer than any human) and when they kick it , the few cycles leading up to it they will get slower and a little glitchier until their gem dulls and their form dissipates. Then you can recycle it or something but that's homeworld-thinking.

Also, it was a little hard to get in touch with how humans interpret time. A "day" (one earth rotation) is such an extremely short amount of time yet given great precedence here. Homeworld, the planet, rotates very very slowly, possibly due to all the terraforming but I'm not sure. One Homeworld rotation is about two whole earth years, yes. So that's about the amount of reduction we're talking about. Me and laz have only really known each other for a few CYCLES--- like two and a half cycles, which is nothing. A lot happened in those cycles and living on earth has made it feel like much longer and much richer but, still,,gemwise that is such a short time. I wish we got to spend more time together.