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Something rather interesting has been hiding in SEED's Dezima Donations event, and I suspect quite a few players have missed it.
The event has been running since August, when Seed Industries asked Cultivators to donate resources following an attack on Dezima by Axiom. At the time, it looked like a fairly straightforward community effort: gather what Seed Industries needs, donate it, climb the leaderboard and presumably receive something nice at the end.
Except that the Spark posts surrounding the event have been telling a considerably more interesting story.
And after the latest rewards announcement, I think there is a very real possibility that Dezima Donations has been building towards something much bigger than a few commemorative statues.
This is an analysis of the story and clues presented through SEED's in-game Spark posts and Seed Industries' official Dezima Donations announcements. The possibility of animals being introduced is at the time of writing, only speculation based on those clues, not something Klang has yet confirmed.
The Dezima Donations event began after Axiom attacked Dezima, putting Seedling lives at risk and creating a situation that required Cultivators to help secure the station.
Seed Industries began asking for specific materials, with the community gradually working through the requirements. The event was clearly presented as an emergency response, rather than a conventional seasonal activity where everyone collects a few things and receives a hat.
There was also an important warning buried in the story. Seed Industries needed enough Board Computers by Year 46 to properly secure Bay 4. That threshold was not reached, resulting in a breach in the Ascertain Anima section of Dezima.
And that is where things start getting interesting.
According to Seed Industries' latest official announcement, the breach resulted in DNA reaching the surface of Avesta. Seed Industries' Board of Terraforming is now investigating whether that released DNA is trackable and whether it poses a threat. Klang says this may result in an unexpected reward appearing on the planet's surface.
That is a rather specific thing to tell us if the story ends with three decorative statues.
This is the part I think some players are missing.
SEED's Spark is not simply a social feed where Seedlings can post random nonsense about their day. Klang describes Spark as a social network for Seedlings and players, and Seedling posts can be generated as part of SEED's AI-driven systems.
That makes it very easy to dismiss posts from Seed Industries as background flavour. I don't think that is always a good idea.
Throughout the Dezima Donations event, Seed Industries has been using Spark to gradually expand what is happening behind the donations. There have been references to developments being brought forward because of the Cultivators' contributions, initial terraforming efforts and, more recently, things that are considerably harder to explain away as ordinary resource gathering.
One post announced that Seed Industries had become overwhelmed by the amount of fabric being sold to it, apparently suspecting a clerical error. Rather than simply saying “please stop selling us fabric”, Seed Industries explained that the material was being redirected towards initial terraforming efforts in saturated boglands on Taxpayer Continent.
That was followed by requests for additional materials, including reed flags and wood poles.
None of this necessarily screams “animals are coming”. On its own, it is simply world-building.
But then the story kept going.
More recently, Seed Industries reported sightings of certain fungal growths appearing on the planet's surface.
At first glance, that was easy enough to dismiss. SEED has been adding and changing resources and plants throughout Early Access, so seeing another type of growth appear on Avesta is hardly the strangest thing to happen in the game.
The Spark post, however, tied those growths to the Dezima incident. Seed Industries said that the compromised Bay 4 resulted in a laboratory leak and that the fungal growths had subsequently made their way down to the planet's surface.
It also made clear that these particular growths were not dangerous and were not part of the deadly threat associated with the Siro spore cycle.
Again, it could simply be another piece of environmental storytelling.
But it establishes something important: the breach has consequences on the surface.
Another Spark post caught my attention even more.
Seed Industries thanked the leading societies participating in the donations and specifically highlighted the iron bolts being donated. Those contributions had allowed the company to begin temporarily securing the hull of Bay 4.
The post then mentioned the Ascertain Anima flora and fauna DNA bank, with Seed Industries reviewing it for possible leaks.
That is a very interesting thing to introduce into the story immediately before the event's conclusion.
We now have an attack on Dezima. A breach in Bay 4. DNA reaching the planet. A DNA bank containing flora and fauna material. An investigation into whether the released DNA is trackable.
And then we get to today's posts - which was now actually yesterday, 16 September.
Seed Industries has finally shown us what the main Dezima Donations rewards will look like.
The top three societies on the final leaderboard will receive bespoke commemorative statues in gold, silver and bronze variants. Each statue will be unique and will permanently record its Society of origin.
There will also be smaller trophies for the top five donating societies in each individual resource category.
And yes, those are perfectly nice rewards. The official announcement confirms all of this, along with the fact that another reward will be announced when the event concludes.
But then there is the third part of the announcement.
Seed Industries says that once the effort concludes, its Board of Terraforming will announce whether the DNA released during the campaign is trackable. It says this may result in an unexpected reward appearing on the planet's surface.
And the accompanying image is where this stops feeling like a coincidence.
The first two reward posts show concept art for the commemorative statues and category trophies. Those are straightforward. We know what they are and we know why we are getting them.
The third post is different.
The image shows a Seedling investigating or scanning a collection of creatures. There are flying creatures, various land based animals and something larger that looks distinctly crab-like. They say you should never judge a book by its cover, but I wouldn't want to get too clsoe to one of the larger ones without knowing more about it first.
That is a surprisingly specific image to accompany a paragraph about leaked DNA becoming an unexpected reward on the planet's surface.
So, are animals coming to Avesta?
I think there is a very good chance that this is what Klang is teasing.
I am deliberately not saying that as fact, because Klang hasn't actually said “animals are coming in the next update”. The official post says that the released DNA may be trackable and that an unexpected reward may appear on the surface. That is all we officially have.
But if you put that statement alongside the DNA bank, the laboratory leak, the fungal growths and an image showing multiple types of fauna, it becomes increasingly difficult to look at this as unrelated artwork.
There is another part of this that makes the whole event rather clever.
Seed Industries did not simply announce that animals were being added to SEED and ask players to collect some arbitrary event currency. Instead, the community has spent weeks responding to an in-world emergency.
We were told that Axiom had attacked Dezima. We were asked to donate materials. We were told that our contributions were helping Seed Industries secure the station and bring developments forward. We then started hearing about terraforming, laboratory leaks, fungal growths and the Ascertain Anima DNA bank.
Now we are being told that DNA reached the surface and that something unexpected could appear there.
If the next stage really is the arrival of animals, the donations have effectively become part of the explanation for why those animals exist on Avesta in the first place.
That is much more interesting than “complete event, receive trophy”.
There is a slight problem, though: I don't think enough people are looking.
The SEED Discord has been remarkably quiet around the latest reward announcements, despite players having spent weeks asking what they would actually receive for participating in Dezima Donations.
Some players have previously said that they would rather engage with Spark once Klang's planned web version is available. I understand that. Spark is buried inside a game that already has an enormous number of systems competing for your attention.
The problem is that waiting for Spark to become more convenient could mean missing the story while it is actually happening. This could be why SEED also posted the Spark posts on their website. But it feels also that they did want to not be so direct as they did not draw any attention to this in Discord like they normally would with patch notes and other important announcements for exmaple.
Klang has clearly built Spark into SEED as part of its social and narrative systems. The game's own terms describe Spark as a social network for both Seedlings and Players, and the recent 0.3.3 patch notes specifically include fixes and changes relating to Spark alongside the Dezima Donations leaderboard.
That does not mean every Spark post contains a secret clue. There is plenty of ordinary Seedling nonsense in there too.
But when Seed Industries starts posting about an attack, a laboratory breach, DNA, terraforming and an unexpected reward appearing on the surface, I am going to pay attention.
Especially when the final image contains animals.
The Dezima Donations event is due to end at approximately 09:00 UTC+1 on Tuesday 22 September.
That gives us a very short wait to find out whether this theory is completely wrong, partially right or exactly what I think Klang is teasing.
The official announcement says further warning and advice will follow once the Board of Terraforming determines whether the released DNA is trackable and whether it poses a threat.
So I would be paying attention to Spark over the next few days, particularly anything coming from Seed Industries or the Board of Terraforming.
And I would definitely be paying attention to the surface of Avesta once the event closes.
For full disclosure, Wyrmhold did initially participate in the donations. We are currently sitting around 56th in the society leaderboard, so I am not exactly expecting a gold statue to suddenly appear outside our the Round Hold.
We eventually stopped donating because, frankly, we weren't entirely sure what we were donating for.
That feels slightly different now.
If the event turns out to have been the mechanism for introducing new life to Avesta, then the resources we donated were not simply contributions towards a leaderboard position. We may have been helping to trigger the next piece of SEED's evolving world.
And honestly, that is exactly the sort of thing I want SEED to do.
We don't know yet.
But there is now a fairly compelling trail to follow.
Maybe I am reading too much into it.
Maybe that image is simply concept art and the unexpected reward is something completely different.
It is also hard to ignore though that on the roadmap graphic that Mundi shared during the City-Life 0.4 reveal on the Covital Show - you can get more details on that here - none of the revealed tiles were about animals, but some of the team have also been dropping animal related remarks here and there. One such remark, being about a purple dinosaur. Well there isnt one of those in this latest image!
But if animals suddenly start appearing across Avesta after the Dezima Donations event closes on Monday, I'm going to feel rather pleased that somebody was actually reading Spark.
And if nothing happens?
Well, I suppose we can all go back to pretending we weren't staring at that suspicious animal themed concept art.
Either way, 22 September should be an interesting day on Avesta.
This is an evolving story that could have a massive but positive impact on SEED. We will be monitoring the situation and will of course provide updates as we find out more.
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