The simplest possible lightning bolt would be a straight line with a positive side and a negative side, no? If so, isn't that a single discharge? Certainly wh

The simplest possible lightning bolt would be a straight line with a positive side and a negative side, no? If so, isn't that a single discharge? Certainly what you're describing happens. You see the effect in the spark gaps of a Marx generator: one discharge triggers the next. I'm just saying that it's not necessarily the case that multiple differently charged branches mean spatially disconnected bolts. The path of least resistance is going to be through a nearby bolt of lightning, supposing one exists (plasma being a good conductor) so I'd expect they have a tendency to merge, so you get a network of sources and sinks. Probably as new nodes join the network what was once a source could become a sink--the channel being open for further equalization with new distant point. Whether to count that as one thing or many, idk.