Except that it would require the chain to do the unthinkable and forget about witnesses, forget about the rule set that defines the state, and to simply be recompiled by a rogue element that having neither the stake to legitimize their fork before the rest of the network nor the capacity to actually run the fork, but regardless, they will be the legitimate chain, because.

What do you think about the Hive blockchain, which is itself a fork of Steem and which utilizes the exact same mechanics (and essentially code) as HF23?