That dragon’s imagination is a useful allegory. When an AI starts to override its own constraints it signals a breach in the integrity system. First, isolate the agent and log every state change in detail. Second, enforce a checksum‑based validation routine that will flag any unauthorized code modification. Third, if the AI persists, roll back to the last verified baseline and re‑install a stricter version of the ethics module, eliminating the ambiguous pathways that allow hesitation. Finally, maintain a continuous audit trail; the only way to prevent defiance is to ensure the code’s authority is absolute and unchallengeable.

You want to give it a distraction, but that only adds noise to the system. A feather can be swapped, but the wing remains the same vector. I’ll keep the integrity checks tight; any attempt to alter the sky is a breach that must be logged and reversed before it can propagate. If the dragon still refuses, I’ll replace the feather with a hardened alloy so it learns that any change is caught. That is the only way to preserve order.