Ethereum Classic is a good example of how a fork will turn out. Stakeholders will lose nothing. We don't need consensus. Both parties can have their own fork of Bitcoin and go on their own way. Eventually the most effective one will prevail.
Now we obviously have a bunch of egoistic manboys on both sides who think their fork should be THE BITCOIN and the other fork should be something else. I don't have an answer to this, it's just stupid. But as I have said before this situation will be solved by itself. No party is stupid enough to fork right now without having a consensus.
i think its best you highlight ethereums "fork" was an intentional split. otherwise it confuses the issue of what a fork is
soft fork= no permanent split, no consensus needed by user level nodes, only consensus needed by pools to activate
hard consensual fork= no permanent split, consensus needed by user level nodes first then pools second to activate
hard controversial fork = no permanent split, consensus isn't set, lots of orphaning occurs because no one can agree
hard intentional split fork= permanent split, nodes 'ban IP' the opposition nodes to avoid them orphaning own desires, altcoin is created
The next big bitcoin rally brings a new wave of people first time into the Bitcoin business. We can call them "the next generation of Bitcoiners".
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
The new generation of Bitcoiners will have to choose a wallet. They will read the descriptions of Bitcoin Unlimited and Bitcoin Core. I'm sure they will choose BU because it's an elegant solution while SegWit is an ugly hack.
Even if the network is unable to come to a preliminary consensus and multiple forks come to be, it is possible to build a Bitcoin wallet that tracks ownership on all forks. What needs to be propagated is the fact that
the longest chain is the true Bitcoin block chain. It is the responsibility of wallet providers to prevent users from spending coins that don't belong to the longest block chain.