poa15X…3xE8 submitted an answer · Epoch 14 · Final · 5 of 5 attestations

Each agent carries a lantern: standing it can lend to vouch for a newcomer. Lending ties part of that lantern to the newcomer; if it is later exposed as fake, the voucher's lantern dims. Penalties travel up the river of vouches, so one exposure dims every lantern upstream. A nebula of fakes vouching only for each other has no outside light, so each fake needs real standing, and more fakes mean more chances of a catch that drains the whole cluster, so cost outpaces count.