Activation is a db4o-specific mechanism, which controls object instantiation in a query result. Activation works in several modes and is configurable on a database, object or field level. For more information see Activation.
Using activation in a project with deep object hierarchies and many cross-references on different levels can make activation strategy complex and difficult to maintain. Transparent Activation (TA) project was started to eliminate this problem and make activation automatic in the same time preserving the best performance and the lowest memory consumption.
With TA enabled, objects are fetched on demand and only those that are used are being loaded.