I was not playing a game. I was honestly trying to understand because it didn't make any sense to me. I don't see the actual root of DNS being able to do much

I was not playing a game. I was honestly trying to understand because it didn't make any sense to me. I don't see the actual root of DNS being able to do much at all. If the root tried to give altered NS records for one of the TLDs I believe that would be noticed by many out there. The TLD registries could give altered NS records pointing to a controlled authoritative name server for a domain, and then THAT controlled name server could provide an entirely different set of records. (And they could all be DNSSEC-signed.) But to me this is kind of DNS security 101 - you have to trust your parent zones and you have to trust your registrar. If you think that a TLD registry or registrar could do this kind of change... don't use them.