The Trust Basin

The landscape once trust is built. Same shock, different outcomes: click the landscape to perturb both balls.

Trust Basin (deep, wide)

Coercion Pit (shallow, narrow)

Built trust is deep and wide. Perturbations are absorbed: the system oscillates but returns.
Coercion pits are shallow. Even small shocks eject the system entirely.

This is the landscape after repeated play, reputation and communication have reshaped it. In the one-shot Stag Hunt (Chapter 17) the shapes run the other way: coercion is the wider, deeper basin, and trust has to be built before it holds.

Shock size