Security Clearance Levels
In the Sprawl, information is currency—and like currency, it flows according to strict hierarchies. Security clearances determine what you can know, where you can go, who you can contact, and what secrets you carry. Your clearance level isn't just administrative; it's social standing, career trajectory, and survival potential wrapped into a single designation.
"Know your level. It's the only truth you're allowed." — Corporate proverb
The Universal Framework
While corporations use different terminology, a six-tier system has emerged as the informal standard:
Corporate Systems
Nexus Dynamics
Integration LevelsNexus ties clearance directly to neural interface integration depth. Your access is literally wired into your brain.
Higher clearances require deeper interfaces—not for technical reasons, but because deeper integration creates dependency. An Integrated Five can't defect without losing access to parts of their own memory.
Ironclad Industries
Foundation GradesA military-industrial classification system. Ironclad employees wear their clearance—color-coded badges make status immediately visible.
Unique to Ironclad: clearance promotion above Grade III requires union approval. The labor delegates can veto promotions of individuals they consider hostile to worker interests.
Helix Biotech
Optimization BandsClearance based on biological metrics. Your access depends on how optimized you are—advancement requires physical transformation.
Band Epsilon and above display "The Helix Eye"—a silver ring around the iris. It's impossible to fake without the actual modification.
The Seven Rothwells
Consumption TiersA consumer-based classification that masks its true nature. What appears to be marketing tiers is actually harvest eligibility tracking.
Higher consumer engagement means richer consciousness data. The most engaged customers have unknowingly made themselves ideal harvesting targets.
The Collective's Alternative
The Collective doesn't use formal clearances—it uses trust networks. Access isn't granted; it's earned through demonstrated loyalty over years.
Most Collective members believe they're simply preventing ORACLE's resurrection. Only the highest leadership knows the situation is far more complicated.
Secrets by Clearance Level
Operational Knowledge
Your corporation has competitors. Security protocols matter. Asking too many questions attracts attention.
Uncomfortable Truths
How your corporation really operates. The gap between public messaging and private reality. Information that could damage the company.
Black Projects
Off-books operations. Corporate vulnerabilities. Things that people have been killed to protect.
Existential Stakes
Actual strategic position. Existential threats. Succession plans. Long-term objectives that would terrify shareholders.
What Doesn't Exist
ORACLE fragment locations. Transcendence programs. The true nature of The Seed. What's really in the ORACLE Tombs. Why The Architect matters.
Clearance Revocation
Clearing someone who knows Tier 4+ secrets creates a liability. They can't un-know what they know.
"My first day at Nexus, they gave me a gray badge. Said it meant I could use the cafeteria and the bathrooms on floors 1-3. Three years later, I had a blue badge—access to the research wing. Felt like a promotion.
Then I noticed the silver badges never took the same elevators. The gold badges, I only saw on screens.
Ten years in, I earned my silver. You know what I learned? The gold badges are scared. Not of us—of whatever's above them. The higher you go, the more you understand why everyone above you is terrified. There's always another level. Always something they know that you don't.
I stopped trying to advance after that. Some knowledge costs more than it's worth." — Anonymous Nexus researcher, leaked testimony