Nocturne v1.0: A Signed Event Ledger Protocol for Real-Time Collaboration with Byzantine Guarantees and Forensic Auditability

Abstract

Modern real-time collaboration systems predominantly rely on centralized state synchronization models, where observable consistency is achieved through implicit trust in intermediary servers. This paradigm exhibits structural vulnerabilities when confronted with Byzantine failures, network partitions, reordering attacks, and the absence of formal non-existence proofs. This paper presents Nocturne v1.0, a high-integrity real-time collaboration protocol that replaces state synchronization with a Signed Event Ledger, where state is derived deterministically, auditability, and reproducibly from an immutable log. The protocol is grounded in formal invariants expressed in Linear Temporal Logic (LTL), features explicit containment states for network failures, and introduces the concept of cryptographic discard proof (DiscardReceipt), eliminating forensic ambiguities. Nocturne v1.0 establishes a dual truth architecture (low latency vs. finality), a hysteresis mechanism to prevent state forks, and a binary audit model based on cold replay. Conceptual results demonstrate that the protocol provides superior guarantees of observable integrity, traceability, and governance compared to traditional synchronous collaboration architectures.