The Night of January 9: The Calm Before the Storm
The evening of January 9 began like any other meeting. The members of the SanchoNet Constitutional Committee (CC) gathered once more in the virtual room, ready to continue their work on the Cardano blockchain governance system. They had already learned how to create their private and public keys, each assigned to a specific role—membership, delegation, and voter.
Mike opened the session, his screen displaying a clean, well-organized flow of information. “Tonight, we’re diving into the next step—Certificate Signing Requests (CSRs). These will be vital for ensuring our credentials are recognized in the SanchoNet ecosystem. Once we create them, we’ll send them to our Head of Security to be signed by the Certificate Authority credentials, which will provide us with our x509 certificates.”
Jenny, feeling more at ease in her role, offered her support to the group as they began generating their CSRs. The technicality of their work seemed like the final piece of the puzzle—until the screen flickered, a slight but noticeable glitch.
Before anyone could respond, a series of notifications began flashing on the screen, each one more alarming than the last. “Network error,” “Transaction failed,” “Fork detected.” A ripple of confusion spread across the group as their screens were filled with the same ominous messages.
Mike’s voice cut through the growing panic. “What’s going on? This doesn’t look good. Hold on, let me check…”
A long silence followed as Mike quickly navigated through various channels, checking for any updates. Then, in a tone that was almost incredulous, he spoke again. “Guys… it looks like there’s been a hard-fork. A huge one. SanchoNet is down. I mean… it’s gone. The entire blockchain’s integrity has been compromised.”
Jenny’s eyes widened in disbelief. “What do you mean, compromised? How could this happen?”
Mike swallowed hard, staring at the screen in front of him. “The fork wasn’t accidental… it was planned. By Martin Lang.”
The room fell into stunned silence. Martin Lang? The name carried a weight of notoriety—someone whose ideas had always teetered on the edge of radical. But to disrupt the entire blockchain like this? It felt almost unimaginable.
“Martin Lang?” Jenny asked, her voice barely a whisper. “He… he did this on purpose?”
Mike nodded grimly. “Yes. Apparently, he believes a ‘purge’ of the system is necessary. A hard reset, as it were, to rid SanchoNet of its current structure. He thinks that by destroying the current order, it will force the community to rebuild, hopefully into something that can be forked using the Node V 10.1.4.”
“That’s madness,” Van muttered. “He’s destabilized everything, and for what? To ‘improve’ the system? We’re back at square one. How could he think this would work?”
Mike’s expression hardened. “As bad as this sounds, Lang might be right. Sometimes, you need a catastrophe to spark change. Maybe a breakdown like this is necessary. It’s the only way to shake things up, to tear down what’s broken and rebuild it from the ground up.”
The group fell silent, the weight of Mike’s words sinking in. No one had expected to hear him say this. He had always been the rational one, the stabilizing force in the group. Yet here he was, suggesting that perhaps Lang’s chaotic approach had some merit.
Jenny exchanged a glance with Jonah, then spoke up, her voice hesitant but thoughtful. “You’re saying this might actually be what SanchoNet needs? To just… let it burn?”
Mike nodded slowly. “I know it sounds extreme, but maybe that’s the point. Lang is forcing us to confront our own complacency. We’ve all seen the vulnerabilities in the system, and I’ve been working to address them for weeks. We needed to properly test Node V 10.1.4—”
He paused, his voice trailing off. “But I didn’t think Lang would go this far.”
Van looked at Mike, his brow furrowed. “What do you mean? What vulnerabilities?”
Mike leaned forward, eyes intense. He hesitated, then said firmly, “I can’t talk about it just yet. The time hasn’t come. When the fix is officially accepted by all, I’ll be ready to share what I found. Until then, all I can say is that Lang saw an opportunity to push everything into chaos, and he’s done it.”
Jenny’s face grew pale. “So, what now? Do we try to fix the flaws in the Node version? Or is it too late?”
Mike’s gaze shifted to the others, each of them grappling with the same questions. “We’re past the point of simply fixing the system in its current state. We need to move forward, rebuild the infrastructure using Node V 10.1.4, and hope that we can establish a new order—a better one, built on lessons learned from the failures of the past.”
Arcella spoke up, her voice steady. “Lang’s chaos is already done. Everything’s been destroyed. But with this new SanchoNet fork, we can rebuild. We still have a chance to stabilize things if we act fast. We need to create and submit our Constitutional Committee Cold credential NFT—this will be our anchor in the new world. We can use it to finally gain a voice as a Constitutional Committee member and have some leverage over this world.”
Mike nodded, his resolve strengthening. “Exactly. On January 16, we need to create that cold credential NFT—a script hash that can be used into an ‘Update Committee’ governance action that we will do on January 23rd if everything goes well. If we can do that, we’ll have a chance to rebuild, but we need to be quick and precise.”
The group fell into a quiet understanding. They had been handed a daunting task, but now, there was no turning back. They weren’t just fighting to restore what had been lost; they were fighting to build something better, stronger, and more resilient than before.
“Alright,” Jonah said after a long pause. “We’ve come this far. We’ll do it. We’ll rebuild. But we need to move faster, be more precise. We need to make sure this works, or we’ll lose everything.”
“Agreed,” Mike said. “We’re facing a race against time, but we’ve got the tools and the knowledge. Now, we just need to act.”
The meeting ended with a sense of urgency, each member acutely aware of the monumental task ahead. The world of SanchoNet had been upended, but they could still fight back. It was time to take control of their destiny and forge a new future out of the chaos that Lang had created.
To be continued…
