I just played the Disease in a game, and want to ask a couple of questions.

On the first turn I managed to get four bases on a planet, so could spread on subsequent turns.  I was on the Red system.

When Red came up, I spread, leaving me three on the planet.

Then a Special came up (most cards in hand or break to the left), and that left me against the Red player as well, so I spread again.

Later on, I Rifted 4 tokens from the Warp, and put them on my original Disease planet, which allowed me to spread twice more and win.   I was able to fend off people trying to smash my power by killing my home planets.

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It appears the Disease can spread whenever the Destiny pile is flipped, even if someone turns over their own color and flips again -- correct?   Or if the card is skipped, does that stop the Disease from spreading?

We're correct that if a Special card points to a particular color, even if it's "break to the left," the Disease can still spread, yes?

When retrieving tokens from the warp, the Disease can place them on any planet, and so can position himself to spread again, also correct?

I'm just asking because my victory got relentless and inevitable -- all I had to do was wait for that player to come up in Destiny a couple of times and I spread for the win.    Or is that the point -- is the Disease that powerful?

Yes you played it all correctly: Disease spreads on any destiny cards (normal, special, or wild) that result with another player being the defense, on any destiny card that is drawn whether used or not, and can (just like anyone else) put retrieved ships on foreign colonies.

Disease is definately a very strong power; there's a reason it's labelled as red alert. You have to not invite it on offense and really fight hard on defense to stop it getting one colony, or you may find it turns into three or four down the road.