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Biters just froze in place. Even the nest does not animate. Here are the conditions:

Build no radars, nor roboports. (Do not even research radars)
Build a rocket silo, and a landing pad.
Depart Nauvis with the engineer.

Indefinite remote view to Nauvis is somehow still possible. (unclear why. Where's the radar feed coming from?)
Find a Biter nest that's in view. It will become frozen-solid as soon as the engineer departs from the surface

Related conditions:
This was observed in a "hard pacifist" run: Do not kill ANYTHING. Do not even let pollution reach the biters. Do not even come close to any biter
The rest of the base runs and animates normally. Even a close-by conveyor belt still moves items
The worms still animate

That might be related, but not 100% the same thing.

From my experience in previous saves, biters are very well active and attacking the base on Nauvis while I'm on a different planet. But under these circumstances, they do not. (It's as if the bug in the reference was imperfectly fixed)

Apart from this, is the fact I get viewership of the planet, without a single radar or robo-port, is also suspicious

After more experience with the game, I think I understand the "bug" better:

Chunks that have:
* Never been polluted
* Never been subject to bombardment
* Not in the vicinity of the player

Will "turn off" biter AI. (Worms still active)

This explains why in normal runs, the biters are alive and well, and expanding, despite being well outside the pollution cloud: The chunks have been bombarded in the past