The following article was submitted by Amir
Featured image sourced from Sunrise
Disclaimer: This article may contain spoilers for Gundam SEED/SEED Destiny!
The audience has asked for it (well, actually one person asked for it), so here you go! A quick rundown on everything you need to know about Gundam SEED’s interpretation of Newtypes, the SEED Factor.
Now, in the Gundam universe, super soldiers/enhanced human being/clones are pretty normal, and this includes the Gundam SEED universe or better known as the Cosmic Era. To understand what is this SEED Factor, we should first get to know a bit about the enhanced human beings which exist in the Gundam SEED universe, the Coordinators.
As stated earlier, Coordinators are genetically enhanced human beings, gifted with tons of enhanced abilities ranging from quicker learning, stronger body immunity, etc. This really makes those who are not Coordinators a.k.a Naturals hate them A LOT with reasons ranging from not approving of the process or just pure jealousy. And now we can get to the main topic of this article which is…
The SEED Factor!
In Gundam SEED/SEED Destiny, the SEED Factor actually stands for Superior Evolutionary Element Destined-factor. Man, that’s quite a mouthful. Usually, this factor is said to be exclusively available to Coordinators only, but then later in the series it is shown that some Naturals have it too (read: Cagalli Yula Athha).
SEED mode is described as when an individual who possess the SEED factor enters a state of enhanced awareness and physical abilities. In this state, an individual’s reflexes and information processing is pushed to the max. This is shown in the show with a series of animation of a seed falling, of which the color is usually matched to the user’s eye color, explodes into a shower of light just above the user’s eye.
Kind of like when Goku turns into his Super Saiyan mode but instead of a gravity-defying hair style, the eye of the pilot turns into a blurry shade of its original color of the pilot’s iris.
Now how does one activate it?
There are 2 ways to activate the SEED mode:
- Through sudden resolve on protecting their allies or to strike down enemies where it shows a falling seed bounces once before exploding.
- When the character has entered a battle with a fixed resolve. Pilots with this particular resolve can usually activate SEED mode at their own will and a spinning seed which explodes in a vertical nova is shown instead.
Kira Yamato and Cagalli Yula Athha can be seen using the first method in the earlier episodes of Gundam SEED but they did manage to switch up to the second method in Gundam SEED Destiny. On the other hand, Athrun Zala has been using the second method since his first appearance in the series (well, he is trained to master it).
In conclusion, SEED mode is basically the Gundam version of Dragonball’s Super Saiyan Mode. Do you agree? Comment down below on what you think of the SEED Factor!
