If the reality Stone in Avengers Infinity War can warp reality, doesn't serve the same purpose as an Infinity Gauntlet with all six stones? originally appeared on Quora, the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus.

The other Infinity Stones are completely necessary in order to unlock the reality stone's full potential.

The Reality Stone has several limitations despite its auspicious-sounding name. Its domain is over the laws of physics, which makes its power the alteration of fundamental constants and relationships as well as transmutation of matter. That sounds pretty powerful, but it can only do this to things it makes direct contact with, and its changes revert if not maintained by contact with the stone. Its properties enable it to be manipulated like a fluid and to self-propagate by consuming material. This fluid form can potentially be transmitted over a long distance or manipulated by a host, but is limited by the speed at which it can be transmitted, the need for it to make contact and stay in contact, and the simplicity of the changes it can make. In this form the Reality Stone also has a frightful tendency to consume the body of the person it inhabits in order to self-propagate.

As an example, Malekith had exactly one thing he wanted to do with it, and that’s rid the universe of all light. To do that he would’ve needed to transmit the Reality Stone’s form across the entire universe and put it in contact with all matter. His means of doing so was the Convergence of the Nine Realms. Basically, with a series of intersecting portals to Asgard, Midgard, Vanaheim, Alfheim, Svartalfheim, Nidavellir, Niflheim, Jotunheim, and Muspelheim, he could send out the Aethir like a virus and have it convert matter to dark matter on a massive scale.

That is a Hel of a lot to go through to get one reaction. It likely would not be instantaneous, but would instead take a veritable eon to complete. At some point it would be a runaway reaction as the Reality Stone consumes the realms like a plague of locusts, but there isn’t a lot to guarantee that it would continue to work once the Convergence ended. Take note that for all the bluster, Malekith’s powers didn’t leave that much of a lasting mark anywhere. Meanwhile Jane Foster’s body reverted to its pre-infected state almost as soon as the Stone left it.

The other Infinity Stones provide a number of powers that complement the Reality Stone’s normal power set, ridding it of its limitations.

The Space Stone: Transmission Medium

The Space Stone’s power is manipulation, alteration, and transmission through space. It can’t transmute matter, but it can move it and it can propagate any affect to any location in space. With this, the Reality Stone no longer needs to touch or inhabit things in order to alter them. Its powers can be applied to anything the user wishes, on any scale. An event like the Convergence would be unnecessary to achieve massive, universe-wide changes.

The Power Stone: Energy Source

The Power Stone’s ability is to supply, manipulate, and absorb energy — in infinite quantities. The ramifications of this in conjunction with the Reality Stone are outstanding, in that it would no longer need to merely consume or transmute material. The energy supplied by the Power Stone could instead be converted into matter at-will, and it could likewise convert matter into energy. Likewise the Reality Stone becomes capable of altering reality in multiple vectors instead of exacting just one kind of change at a time.

The Time Stone: Permanence

The Time Stone has domain over the flow of time. Without this stone, the Reality Stone’s changes normally revert once its contact is broken — or, in the above cases, when the user of the Infinity Gauntlet is no longer actively concentrating on maintaining the reaction using the other stones. While its changes are more than just an illusion, they’re not normally much better. The Time Stone “locks” these changes into place within the time stream, and makes changes that would require the re-writing of the time stream fully possible.

The Mind Stone: Autonomy

The user’s imagination and ability to concentrate are clear limitations on the Reality Stone’s powers, even with the above capabilities applied. The Space Stone may be able to allow it to function over an infinite distance, but the user themselves can’t fathom changes of an infinite scope. The Mind Stone is itself a thinking entity with infinite domain over thought, enabling the Reality Stone to function autonomously, carrying out unfathomably far-reaching high-level commands that would require a myriad of changes in order to make sense.

As an example, Thanos could re-create the image of Titan from his memory without it, but the Mind Stone plus the others would be able to alter reality such that Titan never fell, and change history such that it flourishes in the exact way that Thanos wishes to see it in the present time. It would scrub through history one event at a time, making the exact changes that ensure the present-day re-write of Titan exactly matches Thanos’s fantasy with no other impact on reality outside of that one wish. That wound normally takes an unreasonable number of decisions, but the Mind Stone could make all of them for him.

The Soul Stone: Transmutation of Life

The nature and powers of the Soul Stone are the most nebulous and mysterious of them all. However, it is apparent that the Reality Stone’s changes are limited to physical ones. The Collector that Thanos puppeteers isn’t the real Collector, nor is the facsimile of himself that he presents as a trap for the Guardians of the Galaxy; they’re puppets that behave according to Thanos’s imagination. Meanwhile he’s no more capable of dispelling Drax or Mantis’s existence than he is of making those puppets real, autonomous individuals. The Soul Stone is what would allow him to overcome that limitation, letting him grant a soul to or take a soul from whatever he pleases.

All combined, these grant Thanos the power to — at last — alter reality on a universal scale, as opposed to merely transmuting matter or distorting gravity on-contact. In a sense, the Reality Stone only really achieves its namesake if the user has all the other stones, and it’s otherwise a bit of a misnomer. Then again, Physics Stone and Matter Stone don’t quite have the right ring to it.

This question originally appeared on Quora. More questions on Quora:

* Infinity Stones: Is there any hero who could stand against Thanos with his Infinity Gauntlet?

* Avengers: How could the Avengers have defeated Thanos in 'Infinity War'?

* Marvel Cinematic Universe: Why aren't any villains helping to defeat Thanos?

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