Citation Theater. The failure mode where sources are displayed near a conclusion but did not actually constrain, ground, or preserve the derivation that produced it.
Citation theater can look responsible: the answer has footnotes, source cards, links, or snippets. But if those sources were added after generation, were not retrieved before reasoning, or cannot be connected to the exact claim they supposedly support, the system is performing grounding rather than doing it.
The control is retrieval-grounded reasoning: retrieve governed evidence first, constrain the conclusion to that evidence, and preserve the derivation in an evidence bundle or decision record. Otherwise the output remains ungrounded confidence with stage props.