This has been discussed a lot in the past, and this has happened at the present time, BU has appeared and works, but it is still in development. However, it is not considered as a formal currency as BTC, it is only considered as an alt coin, and it is very hard to gain value as BTC. I have read a lot of news, there is information that the owners of BTC will be given BU with the same amount, I very much hope BU can achieve a good value so that we can invest and use.
BU and other NON-CORE nodes have no intent to bilateral split the network, they only activate with consensus of the node AND pool majority.
core however bypassed node majority and went straight for a pool majority vote,
but core DO have intent to bilateral split if core win or lose.
turning their winning 95% pools into 100% by orphaning off non segwit pool blocks using bip9.
turning their losing under 95% into 100% by orphaning off non segwit pools and non segwit nodes using UASF.
core are demanding anything not core to split off. out of fear that core do not get to be the bitcoin government.
they worry that having a diverse playground of decentralisation makes it harder for core to force LN down peoples throats to gather fee's to repay the $70m+ back.
LN can function without cores code. but core want LN to be the end solution forced onto people.. rather than just a niche side voluntary service only for those that need it.
if you look at the announcement by the exchanges. and the guy who wrote up the announcement(coindesk editor)
https://www.scribd.com/document/342194766/Hardfork-Statement-3-17-11-00amthen compare the names
http://dcg.co/portfolio/and then look at how much investment(now repayable debt)
https://www.crunchbase.com/person/barry-silbert/investmentsthings become much clearer