One mysterious but central aspect to the universes of Trigun and TRIGUN STAMPEDE is that of the Plants, huge pieces of technology of unknown origin that are integral to the continued survival of human beings on the desert planet known as No Man's Land.
While TRIGUN STAMPEDE explains the importance of the Plants early on, the original Trigun series took a bit more time to flesh out their significance and relation to Vash The Stampede. Just what are the Plants in TRIGUN STAMPEDE?
– The following article contains possible major spoilers for TRIGUN STAMPEDE. Read with caution. –
No Man's Land
To understand the relevance of the Plants to the TRIGUN STAMPEDE plot, it's important to understand the conditions of the planet that serves as the site of the series' sequence of events. No Man's Land (or Gunsmoke) is a dry, desolate wasteland where desert stretches as far as the eye can see in every direction. There is little to no vegetation, and water is a pipe dream. In the original Trigun series, the horrible conditions of the planet are a huge focus throughout the series' first half. In STAMPEDE, we see what happens when a settlement loses its Plant or its source of energy, as seen in the events that led to the destruction of Jeneora Rock and even in the slow demise of the Windmill Village. It's quite clear that No Man's Land is aptly named and extremely difficult to survive.
In the initial stages of the 1998 series, the effects of resource hoarding are seen with certain settlements being held hostage by capitalists who supply water and power to the residents of the settlement at high cost. If money and resources are important on Earth, they're several times more so on No Man's Land. The devastating effects of living on such a planet with no hopes of getting energy or water have also resulted in the formation of mercenary groups and gangs who are all desperate to capture Vash to make good on his huge bounty. Entire villages and settlements have tried their luck at capturing the outlaw with no luck, all in the hopes of permanently ending their suffering.
Lost Tech?
In TRIGUN STAMPEDE, the true debut appearance of Millions Knives is as early on as episode 3; and his goal is to retrieve the various Plants scattered across the wasteland. He cryptically makes the claim that the Plants actually belong to them (himself and Vash). Since the reboot series makes it a main point to introduce Vash and his older brother from the point of their origins instead of working backwards from the legend of Vash The Stampede, it's abundantly clear that neither of them are exactly human. Since his introduction in TRIGUN STAMPEDE episode 3, Knives has been going around and repossessing Plants across the wasteland, bringing unbridled chaos and destruction everywhere he goes. In the original Trigun, long before the destruction of Jeneora Rock, Vash's strange connection to Plants is visited briefly during his visit to Inepril City, where he is targeted by an assassin named Elizabeth, who hails from the City of July and happens to be a Plant Technician.
Elizabeth seduces Vash and gets him to help her in fixing Inepril's faulty Plant, but she leaves him trapped in the chamber where she thought he'd certainly die. Vash manages to calm down the Plant and escape certain death, to Elizabeth's shock and dismay. While this ability is yet to be seen in TRIGUN STAMPEDE, the new series does not hide Vash's relation to the mysterious technology. The Plants are a two-part system consisting of two cylindrical devices containing a mysterious fluid. In the original Trigun, some Plants took on the forms of chemistry flasks and beakers, while the ones in TRIGUN STAMPEDE have the aforementioned cylindrical shape and contain myseterious beings inside of them, beings from another plane. They consist of two-parts, probably because the cylinders are electrodes, with one for positive, coloured red; and the negative electrode being coloured blue. Even in the reboot, the Plants aren't uniform in their presentation.
Gods and Angels
Vash and Knives were discovered as infants by the crew members of one of many ships containing cryogenically frozen humans that form part of Project SEEDS. The intention was to spread humanity across the galaxy after the Earth was rendered unable to continue to sustain human life. Vash and Knives, while ideologically opposites, are both a form of independent Plant, which is why they are able to interact with them, and why Knives is adamant on taking them back from humans. This is also the reason why Knives considers himself a deity – the Plants are literally givers of life and their kin. Knives is also directly responsible for the deterioration of the relationships aboard Project SEEDS vessel Number Five, and its subsequent destruction, believing humans to be a kind of virus that should not be allowed to spread to the healthier parts of the universe.
In the landscape of No Man's Land, there are certain factions who worship the Plants as a deity. An example of this is seen in episode 5 of TRIGUN STAMPEDE, in which the unfortunate origins of Monev the Gale are explored, the Windmill Village from whence he hailed is a society that sees the Plants as a god in their own right. As a result, they try to appease their god through human sacrifice, since their plant was effectively just a regular windmill in its presentation and use. Knives uses Christian iconography and references in his conquest, referring to himself as a god and taking "that which belongs to us". Removing Plants from the various settlements means that Knives effectively kills off entire communities who rely on the plants for energy production and water generation, but it also means that he liberates his kind from the evil clutches of humankind.