1) If Bitcoin is split in two, core side will be at 1MB max block size at that time, and BU with an undetermined but bigger max block size.
2) Both "parties" will start dumping each other strongly. Chaos will reign and volatility could be so huge as to wipe ENTIRE order books up and down. (mainly down, even to 0).
3) All leveraged positions will be wiped on the peaks and valleys.
4) The difficulty will be much higher than the hashrate which, by itself, will create big delays between blocks. It is uncertain how big though.
And this is what I haven't seen anyone mention:
5) There will be a huge spike in transactions with people sending his coins to the exchanges. And I mean an unprecedently HUGE number of transactions. Orders of magnitude higher than anything we have ever seen.
6) Core with its 1MB max block and difficulty over hashrate combined will take ages to move the coins (which is not that bad because there will be less BTC coins arriving at the exchanges to be dumped), BU blocksize...well, I am not sure what it will do in that scenario, but it is possible that it will lead to additional hard forks/blocksize adjustment. Also Orphan blocks will be everywhere.
7) Even if in that scenario it seems that BU would be at an advange with its increased TPS over BTC, that will lead to more BUcoins arriving at the exchanges and being dumped by BTC supporters. The price of BUcoin will be much lower than BTC, at least for some time (days, weeks, months, maybe forever).
I could go on... but the only reasonable conclusion is that all this chaos and confussion will benefit noone (maybe to exchanges in the short period, due to the extreme volatility and huge number of trades) and that all this nonsense must come to and end now.
i think plenty of people agree with that sentiment - chaos is bad, contentious hard fork = chaos.
the problem, i think arises with HOW to stop the divide. as in, "ok, we're not gonna fork, but we're also not going to give in! our way or nothing!" which... well, stagnation, which is what we have, solution wise.
that chain will die.
not because he crashed its price
but because he expressed his preference
damn... if that happened ... wow. just, wow.