The Plants: The key element of the lost technology is the "Plants." These look like huge incandescent light bulbs scattered around the planet. Usually wherever there is a plant a city forms around it. These are the original power sources used by the SEEDS colony ships. Their hidden side is that they are biological in nature. When brought to a critical state a humanoid being resembling an angel will emerge from the center of the bulb. We later learn that several characters are descended from such a Plant that was allowed to mature. Supposedly they were weapons created to protect the colonists. Each being is capable of destroying a whole colony ship with one blast. Unfortunately, when the SEEDS ships crashed, none of the crew survived and the colonists did not know how to recover the technology to build new Plants. Now they scavenge what they can from the hulking skeletons of the ships laying around the desert wasteland.

The SEEDS: As the story progresses, more details are revealed about where everyone came from. This was to be a very ambitious colonization project. Some 90 million colonists were in cold sleep. Each of the hundreds of SEEDS ships had huge cold sleep cylinders. Rem stayed behind on the ships in an attempt to make some of them land safely as they crashed into the planet due to sabotage. This is the reason that a fraction of the colonists survived. 150 years after this disaster, humanity is still trying to pick up the pieces scattered all over the planet.

Next: The Original Seed