ClusterState consolidatedClusterState() {
        final ClusterState publishedState = stateVersionTracker.getVersionedClusterState();
        if (publishedState.getClusterState() == State.UP) {
            return publishedState; // Short-circuit; already represents latest node state
        }
        // Latest candidate state contains the most up to date state information, even if it may not
        // have been published yet.
        final ClusterState current = stateVersionTracker.getLatestCandidateState().getClusterState().clone();
        current.setVersion(publishedState.getVersion());
        return current;
    }
A "consolidated" cluster state is guaranteed to have up-to-date information on which nodes are
up or down even when the whole cluster is down. The regular, published cluster state is not
normally updated to reflect node events when the cluster is down.
clustercontroller-core/src/main/java/com/yahoo/vespa/clustercontroller/core/FleetController.java