Prior to this technological exploit of an accelerated revisiting of the past, we had to make do with a handful of images from the old satellite repertoire  that documented, for example, the disappearance of the Aral Sea, the deforestation of the Amazon, glacier melting, coastline erosion or the sprawl of senseless megacities in the desert such as Dubai, etc.

Simulations had already been made of the creation of the continents and so the taikopirates expected to see what was happening before their eyes, even if there were a few divergences from classical continental theory. However, it was in the last moments, corresponding roughly to the last five short centuries, that in a flash they witnessed a decay that was a whole different story from what had happened in the previous aeons, even considering the periods of mass extinction. It was a flash infection compared to the timelines of the great changes in the past. It was like a sepsis, a toxic shock, that spread rapidly, attacking and destroying the balances within the biosphere's living networks. The taikopirates and the hacker groups that supported them were aware that they held a veritable media bomb, with unpredictable consequences, should it explode. But, following their nature, instead of keeping the discovery hidden they decided to spread it over the net.

After initial dismay, Neolib Gov officially denied the validity of this finding. It refused to acknowledge this horrifying news with the same stubbornness of an earlier era when it had long denied human responsibility for global warming.  Later, it secretly accelerated preparations of the AltaSphere for the Great Escape and for increased productivity on Earth. Only in academic circles did people begin to debate whether this infinitesimal period highlighted by the time machine, marked by the presence of the alleged infection of the biosphere, deserved to be classified as a geological era. Some "experts" were against it, considering the enormous disproportion of the times compared to other eras; others favored the label because of the significance and speed of the changes taking place. In the end, however, it was agreed that this was not a crucial aspect. More significant seemed to be the way it suddenly developed. Modes that prompted many to deny that it was a "natural" process. Since no deus ex machina had intervened, they favored the thesis that the strange ecosphere disease was the advanced stage of a septicaemia – toxic shock – that decimated many of Earth's living networks. Impressive was the exponential speed with which it expanded. A progression characterized by ever-expanding local epidemics created a kind of gangrene in inhabited areas, necrosis over vast areas on the skin of the great plains, and  leukemia of waters that poisoned and infected all fluids. The atmosphere itself seemed to suffocate the planet, as if enveloped in an asphyxiating embrace, changing its thermal balances and leading to radical shift in the climate we had known.

The confirmation of a possibly deadly infection, more lethal to certain webs of life than to the permanence of the biosphere (which had, in fact, survived many previous collapses), triggered an onset of panic in the human species.

It isn't that we hadn't noticed the changes and worsening of the situation, but not to such an extent. This was an advanced and seemingly unstoppable, incurable process.

It was still necessary to get to the bottom of what was happening by going beyond the brief snapshots of the available images. With the intervention of the usual hacker communities, it was possible to further modify the spacial time machine so that the spin on the past was calibrated to the last five centuries. In this way, the effect of the expanding infection on the Earth's crust could be documented much more accurately and it showed the dynamics of the previously described phenomena in detail, documenting the reasons for the extinction of so many species and the danger that loomed for the human race. One could see, for example, how the great rivers that crossed the continents had gradually become gigantographs of the Seveso, a small river in Lombardy that never expected to pass into history. The accelerations in time evidenced by the orbital time machine were impressive: advancing deserts and shrinking glaciers; widening patches of alopecia in forests; expanding cities and land-destroying human habitats like an inkblots on the Earth and rising tides of plastic in the oceans. As the final stage of sepsis approached, it looked very much as if the system-world of the human species would dissolve like a sand castle by the sea, yet leave behind al its poisonous remnants. In order to do something about it, it was first necessary to understand what was the origin of this pathology that was advancing by leaps and bounds affecting the main elements of the geosphere: land, water and air.

Eventually, even academics and experts gave their verdict: the previously diagnosed thesis of an ever-expanding infection of the biosphere was confirmed. This infection was also generating an immune reaction of disproportionate intensity that was turning the many webs of life into a destructive storm right before the eyes of a stunned humanity. Who was causing the infection to which the biosphere was reacting? Subsequent examinations of the footage obtained by the time machine showed how the signs of terrestrial infection were highly differentiated, complex and affected all components of the biosphere, often in relation to concentrations of human presence. But as it worsened, the infection seemed to have become an autonomous, global entity that spread on its own accord and threatened to be fatal to much of terrestrial life.

Reviving the old Anthropocene theory, it was assumed that the pathogen came from human multitudes. An additional hypothesis of an autoimmune pathology of the biosphere was coupled to it. The latter had survived mass extinctions, perhaps due to large meteorite falls or high volcanic eruptions, global gas emissions that obscured the Sun and poisoned the atmosphere of much of the planet. But this was something different...