You may take a look at this video:
It's a gameplay from Assassin's Creed 3. What I want to show you here is the dialogues that the both of them speaks after 1:40 of the video.
I think that kind of explore the dilemma of decentralization and reflects on what you said. The sheep refers to Hivers. The shepherd refers to the "leaders" of Hive.
RE: Decentralisation, Open-Sourced Witnesses, and Hive