Not sure how this works.
If the witnesses were able to make a divergent blockchain right now, would we be able to fully escape the Tron's Black Sun? Or has Ned had some kind of secret ownership keys all along that locks up everything the current witnesses are capable of?
well it depends on if Tron/Justin is willing to use the Steem stake formerly owned by Stinc to just vote in his own puppet block producers. It isn't a secret key, it is just that Steem was never actually really decentralized - Steemit, Inc. just didn't use its huge stake to vote for witnesses. Nothing to say that Tron won't use the stake, and actually given Tron's reputation as more or less a centralized blockchain run by Justin / Tron foundation, I would be a little surprised if they DON'T use the stake.
Ninjamine... Not even once
The witnesses can fork current Steem, fork out the Steemit Inc stake, and having done both of that this new chain will effectively be rid of Tron's influence, yes. Of course, whether this new chain's token will be worth anything is a different matter.
Anyone can fork Steem doesn’t have to be an existing witness
Yes, sure, but no one's going to support a random fork.
If forked before Justin sets up his own witnesses? Before anything happens and the ninjamine is forked out?
He would have to set up a whole chain from scratch. That might work.
Justin already has his witnesses set up on Tron. He doesn't want to set up any new chain or fork, just move everything over to Tron.