213 Rich and poor

Like I said about the return of ur-fascism, in some places a significant part of the underclasses got caught up in this ideological trap. Even though the nekomemetic disease had always circulated freely, infecting the left and the right, regardless of the human carrier's politics, almost certainly those under the influence of ur-fascism were its favorites.

The spread of the disease was also fostered by distrust in the future, increasing from generation to generation ever since the Neolib period. Other factors related to a sense of helplessness, not to mention alienation and desertion, among the younger generation contributed to Gaia's advancing illness. In order to limit social explosions in traditionally wealthier countries, Gov Q centered the remnants of welfare distributed in various forms like a pitiable basic income.

As I said, the less educated and the most frustrated and marginalized of the underclasses, victims of ur-fascism's malignant seduction, often acted against their own interests by lashing out at migrants and sometimes ended up as cannon fodder in PoSt/ate wars. Easy victims of nekomemetic contagions, they numerically contributed to Gaia's toxic shock, while the vision of a potential multispecies rebellion capable of opposing the endless growth of chaos generated by Gaia's infection loomed from afar in MAT-sensitive humans.

The first decades of the 21st century were dotted with Summits to make people believe someone was countering the destructive process. Instead they were just cooking the books without ever changing the essence of the status quo.

Although Gov Q's top priority was the Great Escape, they couldn't afford to continue the fraudulent media-political manipulation of Gaia's condition forever. Increasing migration flows caused by wars and uninhabitable territories on the one hand, the revelation of the nekomemetic disease on the other, made this attitude unsustainable. Gov Q had, like in the past, played the metatechnics card, supposedly capable of solving every problem and production for the new big green market. China and the CCP, having somewhat recovered from the Spring Project, also adhered to this last, desperate chance. But all the potential benefits gained from partially abandoning fossil fuels were counterbalanced by nefarious factors and choices. Even though the rich countries of the North were able to produce low-polluting energy with the latest techniques magnetically confined nuclear fusion for a few decades, the permanence of traditional nuclear power was paid for by the multiplication of accidents and the widespread presence of the infected boils of abandoned and undecommissioned power plants. Electrifying individual transportation only perpetuated and reinforced extractivism. Plus nuclear fusion had another downside: the development of micronuclear warheads, widely used by the WorldForce as tactical weapons.

Thanks to its quantum computing power, Gov Q was also able to create simulations of less catastrophic prospects. In a few cases, it launched gigantic propaganda efforts, succeeding in slowing the growth of temperatures in vast areas. They used far-fetched technological subterfuge and resorted to gigantic – often contested – geoengineering projects, paid for with far worse deteriorations elsewhere. These were evidently violent instances of the nekomemetic virus that Gov Q fiercely denied on the grounds that there was no objective and tangible evidence. Indeed, Gov Q guessed that capitalism would not survive a generalized fight against the nekomemetic virus. Faced with this danger, the combination of technological solutionism with overwhelming power relations became indispensable to control the Autonomous Sphere. Moreover, there were no tests, vaccines or cures for an immaterial virus to be turned into the mercantile product of Huge Pharma.

But, once again, the presence of the nekomemetic pandemic was validated through MATs: some nonhuman species were even able to detect the disease in humans.

Even before MATs, the diagnostic capabilities of nonhumans had been proven. The highly developed canine sense of smell allowed them to detect the presence of tumors, malaria, Covid and other pathological conditions. Some birds, such as crows and woodpeckers, had also demonstrated remarkable abilities to diagnose diseases and identify contaminated food. Dolphins could detect the presence of tumors and other abnormalities in animal tissues. In all these cases, however, prior training was necessary.

MATs simplified the discovery of the nekomemetic virus by allowing many nonhumans to report the strength of the viral load in multispecies exchanges. So we discovered that virtually all humans were infected with the virus! In the poorest countries of the Global South, the most racialized and marginalized populations, often paucisymptomatic, were infected not by choice but by force; thus, although they did not contribute significantly to Gaia's decline, they suffered its worst consequences in the form of climatic imbalances, extreme weather events and a wide range of hardships, both locally and globally.

On the opposite side, the infamous 1% – integrated into Gov Q and holding the absolute majority of global wealth – consisted of the Big Sick with stratospheric viral loads who, lying through their teeth, proclaimed they were clean and vaccinated thanks to their green-washing attitude through their media channels. Not only did they deny the existence of the virus, they claimed that even if it existed, they weren't the carriers because they had created the green market and invested heavily in it.

However, the hope of creating multispecies alliances through MATs give rise to experiments and social struggles within the Autonomous Sphere's BSM movements and synchronized with the multitude of perma-alternative projects that already existed.

These struggles remained embryonic and marginal when compared to the great forces at play, such as the quantum power of organizing and controlling cooperation of Gov Q, or the subterranean energy of the pandemic and the highly visible energy of Gaia's generalized infection.

If a new balance had prevailed, perhaps the worst could've been avoided. But the high road was not well marked and the paths ahead seemed uncertain, long and winding. Some would prove to be impasses, others full of deadly pitfalls; still others presented unpredictable obstacles and difficulties. The latter included those that would emerge as a result of changes in relationships within living networks, particularly through unforeseen setbacks generated by MATs...