Time Machine, Hard Links, and Locked files

BACKGROUND:

Time Machine takes advantage of unix Hard Links to substantially reduce the size of each revision, by sharing inodes for unchanged files,

Brilliant!!

Get Info -- Lock

I have several files that I lock to prevent accidental erasure or worse, accidental edits. I need to mostly preserve the original version. They reside in a directory and the directly grows every week. The main thing is that I will ADD FILES, but rarely need to EDIT or DELETE.

I decided to "Lock" each of these files (hundreds), and only unlock them on a case by case basis when I need to do an edit (e.g. add markup to the .pdf).

HERE IS MY CONCERN:

It is my understanding the "Lock" feature works at the inode level. In other words, if there are 3 links to the same inode (created by "ln" or Time Machine), then all files associated with that inode get the "Lock".

This worries me. I have several backups of my files without Locks, and today I'm putting a Lock on them, and maybe tomorrow I'll remove some Locks.

What's going to happen in Time Machine when it encounters a Lock on a file that's an exact match, other than the Lock itself, to the previous backup.

Does it create a new inode for that file?

Or does it use the same inode for the file because it considers the files identical.

Or does it have some not so obvious mechanism specifically backing up flags indedpent of content?

My reason for asking should be obvious. I wouldn't want cause my backup drive to fill up 10X faster than normal, just because I lock and unlock files (heaven forbid, I change flags using -R. Yikes)

Fundamentally, my question revolves around what the definition a "change" in a file, relative to Time Machine.

Does Lock (in Get Info) cause Time Machine to create a separate inode (potentially filling up a backup disk much faster than expected)?