Trigun Plants

I'm hoping someone can help me here.

What are the plants? I think Knives says that humans created them, but out of what? Are they mutated humans (since they have a humanoid form, even the ones that aren't Vash and Knives) or out of some sort of alien or other-dimensional life form or not out of a life-form at all? They seem to be sapient.

Either way, I tend to sympathise with Knives in his anger over the way they are treated/exploited.

 

I been asking this myself. When my friend told me Vash and Knives were plants, I thought he meant they were like walking carbon dioxide breathing, cell doing photosynthesis like a plant instead of respiration like an animal plant. But when I saw the
last few episodes, I think when they said they were plants, they meant they are walking, breathing nuclear power plants. I mean how do you think they are able to turn their arms into a gigantic miniture nuclear cannon. of course this is just a guess.

 

Wow, a reply!

Thanks Uncle Sweetie, I made the same mistake myself, although I find myself wondering if Nightow is deliberately using the plants=green things/plants=industrial installations pun deliberately and they actually have features of both.

What I'm really not clear on is whether humans are completely responsible for the way they turned out to be, and are therefore the creators of Vash and Knives, or whether they are some sort of accidental discovery by humans.

And if humans created them why did they make them humanoid? There's a really horrible scene in one of the manga where a dying plant is tortured to wring the maximum power from her before she expires, and it's much worse because the plant looks like a human woman.

Not that it would be less horrible if it was a man. I'm being species-ist here, not sexist!