How to link a dynamic .so library to create a static executable?

[CZC]

I've made some progress and I am now able to link and run my test program under qemu.
I did the following to the original .so lib:

• patchelf --remove-needed all.so
• patchelf --add-needed libx.so
• Then with my own patcher I've removed all versions in the .gnu.version_r section and inserted my own "HOOK" version
• I've set all external functions to "HOOK" version in section .gnu.version
• I've compiled my own shared library libx.so will all external functions
  and I've versioned these functions using the linker option --version-script
• I've dumped libx.so with readelf and got the hash value which I then reinserted in the .gnu.version_r of the original lib

Functions in my libx.so then call the equivalent ones from glibc

int
puts( const char *s )
{
  static int    ( *fn )( const char *s ) = NULL;
  if( fn == NULL )
    fn = dlsym( RTLD_NEXT, "puts" );
  return fn( s );
}

I've also knocked out the .init_array and .fini_array sections just to make sure no code is executed at library loading time.

Now my program links and runs but as soon as I reference a function from the binary shared library (or if I manually use dlopen on it) the execution hangs:

Reading symbols from ./test...
(No debugging symbols found in ./test)
(gdb) run
Starting program: /home/zzz/test
[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
Using host libthread_db library "/lib/aarch64-linux-gnu/libthread_db.so.1".
Start main
^C
Program received signal SIGINT, Interrupt.
0x0000fffff4bfc434 in std::set_unexpected(void (*)()) ()
   from ./libscope-auklet.so
(gdb) quit

I presume it is the dynamic linker which fails to resolve the .plt/.got relocations and ends up in one of the library's function (std::set_unexpected)

I don't see a solution to this last problem so now I will investigate a way to convert that .so to a (big) .o.
This means getting rid of the .dynsym section and replacing all stubs in the .plt section - not an easy task.