Michael Gray Griffith seemed more threatening a fortnight ago. Standing on a truck outside the National Press Club, triumphant warnings to the establishment flowed easily through the microphone.

The playwright turned COVID-19 conspiracy theorist was in his element. He was with his people; they were going to overthrow the system.

But the Convoy to Canberra has been blown off course since those heady days. Whether it holds together, and how extreme its tactics will become, remains unclear. Experts fear those lingering could be drawn towards more hardline views.

Now, Gray Griffith is forlorn. His speech is tentative, his eyes darting off camera. It's dark. He doesn't know if he can return to the Cotter campground. He hears the cops are clearing it out.

"You keep moving them on, you're going to have an awful lot of people homeless on the streets of Canberra, which is kind of poetic because Canberra's ultimately the reason for it," he warns.

Less than 48 hours after 10,000 protesters marched on Parliament, the last vestiges of their epicentre were being erased. Most of their self-appointed leaders were abandoning them.

Rumours began swirling that thousands of dollars had disappeared. One organiser urged supporters to keep the faith, livestreaming from what appeared to be a plush hotel room.

A realisation was dawning on those who remained in the capital: the revolution they were promised was not materialising.

The protesters had been reassured for weeks that the movement would not leave until vaccine mandates were no more. But the vast majority left last weekend, after being told to return on March 29 - budget day.

Australian National University researcher Simon Copland believes the protesters will "try again", but he's not sure they can sustain their energy without money and infrastructure.

Some simply have nowhere else to be, their beliefs having alienated loved ones or cost them jobs back home. That made Exhibition Park the best time they'd had in years - or "schoolies for adults", as one described it.

"The camp was more important than the protests for a lot of people," Copland says.

"It's where the sense of community and a sense of connectedness was established. That's why it was the breakdown of the camp that was so distressing for many."

Many are genuinely angered by vaccine mandates. But conspiracies - ranging from anti-vaccine misinformation to claims of elite paedophile gangs - help bind a sense of alienation from mainstream society.

Apparent COVID-19 symptoms were not the virus, many insisted, but the result of alleged long-range sonic weapons or radiation attacks by police. That claim was not met with derision from fellow protesters, but with floods of angry validation.

A reassuring cocoon where few beliefs were beyond the pale, Exhibition Park fostered a cult-like atmosphere among its residents.

But Copland warns against dismissing a large, and partly mainstream, group as an amorphous bunch of "cookers". The leaders may be motivated by money and notoriety, he says, but the followers are driven by diverse and "often unexplored" desires.

Unlike cults, which have deliberate strategies for conversion, Copland says the community at Exhibition Park sprung up organically through common grievances.

"They can bring you in and it's not by design ... it's the sheer force of the group around you, of everybody else ... having a similar version of the world to you," he says.

In the days after the commune was abruptly dismantled, anger and resentment bubbled to the surface. Their fleeting community had been splintered, and their political aims were on hold.

Protesters scrambled for shelter, but many fleeing to the Cotter River were moved on by police within hours. Public campsites as far as the Shoalhaven were suggested. Some slept in their cars.

A commune for some has been established at Caloola Farm near Tharwa, and leaders insist something more permanent is in the works. But messages on encrypted app Telegram, by no means a perfect barometer, appear to show a growing frustration among the true believers.

"They have told everyone to f--- off home and come back when people have driven from all over the country to Canberra!" the group's admin writes.

Copland warns the break-up of the Exhibition Park camp, and a feeling of betrayal by the leadership, could push those who still remain in the Convoy towards more hardline beliefs.

Many refusing to leave Canberra are already immersed in extremist propaganda. Those that aren't could potentially be exposed to it, he says.

"This sovereign citizen stuff becomes more appealing as an explanation as to what's going on and why they're suffering," he says.

"When other people around you are also supporting it, you can see how those narratives can really appeal."

The Australian Federal Police are already investigating whether any comments made during the protests rose to the level of incitement.

Former special forces officer and hardline conspiracist Riccardo Bosi has called for the overthrow of Australia's democratically elected government, regularly railing against "infiltrators", "traitors", and "slime".

Bosi is a significant figure within the movement, peppering his speeches - generally supportive of police and opposed to violence - with explosions of sudden menace.

"To our ASIO and AFP friends: when we get into power, and we will, we know who you are," he told nodding supporters before Saturday's rally.

"This is not a joke. This is deadly serious. We know who you are. There'll be a knock on your door."

Victoria University extremism expert Debra Smith says figureheads are unlikely to convert their dog-whistling into tangible action.

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But messy movements without a clear "end game" are ripe for channeling frustration towards extremism, she warns.

While many present at Exhibition Park will remember its "collective effervescence" as "a good party", others may always be "chasing that feeling of being something bigger than themselves".

"It's the emotions that drive it ... It's one thing to feel pissed off, but it feels a lot better to be pissed off with a purpose," she says.

"What these groups do is they help to make these bad feelings useful. People have real trouble sitting with these negative, paralysing emotions."

The vast majority of the Convoy to Canberra rallies have been peaceful, but its rhetoric is centred on wild conspiracy theories, like claims of an imminent government-led genocide.

Smith warns eroding trust in institutions makes it easier to justify violence, creating an environment in which a fringe loner may "take matters into their own hands".

"There's no sense that the laws need to be obeyed, because the state does seem to have abrogated its right to rule the population," she says.

"Most people who turn to violence see themselves as at the vanguard of something bigger. They have the sense that if they act, that act will be celebrated and remembered as pivotal in the history of the movement.

"There's real status to that."

But while implicit support for violence has popped up at rallies and online, Smith stresses there is a big difference between calling for it and committing it.

Assessing whether an individual is on a dangerous trajectory requires knowledge of their "behavioural baseline", she says, an impossible ask on the largely anonymised Telegram app.

"Is this a dangerous moment? I don't think that we know that. There's no crystal ball here," she says.

"The real challenge for the police in this environment is to sort out the difference between those who talk the talk, and those who might be willing to walk the walk."

Whether thousands will again walk the walk to Parliament remains to be seen. A crowd now scattered across the ACT region and the country will struggle to regroup.

But Gray Griffith insists they will. More are coming, he says, staring blankly into the dark.

"These people aren't going away ... They have nothing to lose."

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