Raven/Clearance
A Raven security clearance is a statement made by Raven about the personal and mental integrity of an individual and their susceptibility to outside pressure, including blackmail. Clearances are issued not only to Raven employees, but also to those needing to access any information that is protected by a Raven classification level, including employees of outside governments, contractors, and the Interdimensional Research Treaty Organisation (IRTO).
The clearance process is managed by the Vetting division of Raven's Internal Security (IS) department; the decision to grant or to not grant is also made by IS, with the exception of the Strategic Intelligence Office (SIO), which makes the final decisions for its own department. Being granted a Raven clearance does not automatically grant any individual access to classified information; access is on a strictly need-to-know basis as determined by job role.
Levels
Raven clearance levels match classifications. There are six clearance level, including Alpha, Beta, Delta, Epsilon, Gamma, and Sigma. There is also Star clearance, which acts as an add-on and provides an additional level of assurance for work with infohazards.
Being rejected for any level of clearance does not automatically result in the loss of any existing clearance in every situation: for example, an individual that is deemed not quite mentally resilient enough to deal with most sensitive work can still be employed at lower sensitivity levels. The entire process is based on risk management, with higher levels harbouring exponentially lower risk tolerances.
The lower levels of clearance (Alpha, Beta, Delta, Epsilon) are treated as more routine, while the extreme rejection rates of the higher levels (Gamma and Sigma) means that Raven must look for as many candidates as possible, and as existing clearance-holders are extremely valuable, and may not easily be replaced, every effort is made to retain them.
Alpha
Alpha clearance is the baseline level of clearance for any individual who seeks to deal with Raven, such as employees of contractors or those in non-security-critical parts of the technological supply chain. It encompasses a basic check of the individual's background, including police record, employment history, finances, social media, and political views, by Internal Security. The process usually takes around 1-2 weeks to complete, and the level permits unsupervised access to Alpha information, with occasional supervised access to Beta. Alpha clearance is marked on badges with a blue stripe. Alpha clearance is also required for any personnel who are to be on the premises of a bridge laboratory (or other critical site).
Beta
Beta clearance is a level of clearance that acts as the minimum for many individuals working in exophysics, such as Interdimensional Research Treaty Organisation (IRTO) employees, as well as employees of external contractors that hold DRAs or GSAs with Raven. It encompasses all the checks performed at the Alpha level, plus the individual’s travel history and personal relationships. It also includes an interview by an Internal Security investigatory officer.
The process usually takes around 1-2 months to complete. The level permits unsupervised access to Beta information, and occasional supervised access to Delta information. Lifestyle restrictions are placed on individuals starting at Beta, with the requirement of Internal Security being informed of all travel, as well as significant life changes such as marriage. Beta clearance is marked on badges with a teal stripe.
Delta
Delta clearance is the baseline level of clearance for Raven employees, and is usually issued to those working in lower security roles, such is in perimeter security, logistics, legal liaison, and public relations. It encompasses all the checks performed at the Beta level, plus the individual's medical history, and a psychological evaluation. Delta is the minimum required clearance level for all Reality Manipulation License (RML) holders.
It also includes more stringent interviews, including with the candidate's friends, neighbours, and family members. The process usually takes around 2-4 months to complete. The level permits unsupervised access to Delta information and occasional supervised access to Epsilon information, though this is highly unusual. Delta clearance is marked on badges with a green stripe.
Epsilon
Epsilon clearance is required for most Raven employees, and permits access to the majority of sensitive areas such as Black Mountain's Descent. It encompasses all the checks performed at the Delta level, plus Shallow Depth Memory Screening (SDMS), a scan of the individual's memory for consistency with their statements.
Individuals who hold Epsilon clearance are not permitted to leave their post without erasure of all classified information from their minds. Civilian personnel are also often confined to Raven accommodation and only allowed excursions during periods of leave, during which they are placed under extensive SIO surveillance. Individuals also must inform Internal Security of all new personal contacts.
The process usually takes around 4-6 months to complete. This level permits unsupervised access to Epsilon information, with occasional supervised access to Gamma. This level is where the success rate begins to decline, with less than 30% of candidates being granted a clearance. Epsilon clearance is marked on badges with a yellow stripe.
Gamma
Gamma clearance is required for the lesser number of higher sensitivity roles in Raven, such as those working in Calamity Mitigation, Reality Control, and parts of Anomaly Detection and Technical Systems. It encompasses all the checks performed at the Epsilon level, plus a much deeper dive into the individual's history by the Strategic Intelligence Office, much more thorough cross-checking of records, and the full documentation of their history. SDMS scans may extend to friends and family members.
The process usually takes around 6-12 months to complete. This level permits unsupervised access to Gamma information, but does not permit any access to Sigma. Success rates decline even further, with an average of 20% being granted clearance. Gamma clearance is marked on badges with an orange stripe.
Sigma
Sigma clearance is reserved for a very small number of extremely sensitive positions at Raven, such as roles in Adjudication, Internal Security, the Strategic Intelligence Office, and the more sensitive levels of Black Research. It encompasses all the checks performed at the Gamma level, but Full Depth Memory Screening (FDMS) replaces SDMS, and additional infohazard scans are performed.
The process usually takes around 14-18 months to complete, but only a very small number of individuals (less than 5%) receive a positive outcome. This level permits access to Sigma information, and very restricted amounts of access to Reality Critical (RC) caveat Sigma information. It also, where required, permits access to Sigma-classified areas such as the Sigma Unit in Black Mountain. Sigma clearance is marked on badges with a red stripe.
Upsilon
Upsilon is not technically a clearance level, but functions more of an identifier for integrated defence systems that are connected to all Raven computer networks and hence have access to all information. It has only ever been used for the badges issued to Vertex units, which were nonfunctional due to the units' direct connection with the facility security systems and served to only identify them to human personnel. Upsilon is marked on badges with a purple stripe.
Star
"Star" clearance is not its own level but instead an add-on to other high levels of clearance such as Epsilon, Gamma, and Sigma - for example, it is displayed as "Sigma Star". Star clearance is an assertion that an individual's mental fortitude is enough for work with certain types of viral infohazards, and as such these individuals may be assigned higher risk work. For example, Internal Security psychological handlers are Gamma Star cleared, because they interact with a large number of personnel during the course of their work and as such are more vulnerable to any of those individuals spreading an infohazard to them via speech.
The Star assertion is not tested for as part of the standard clearance process because it is very expensive to administer the required tests. When an employee is identified for a role or task that may require Star, they undergo specialist tests conducted by Black Research to determine their neurological resistance to infohazards. If they succeed, Star is granted. It must be maintained just like the employee's clearance level at yearly re-tests, as mental fortitude may change, but in general once the Star assertion is issued it is almost never revoked.
Compartments
Raven projects of high sensitivity are identified by a codeword, such as RIDGEWATER or CIMMERIAN. Examples that might have their own compartments include be Black Research exophysical weapons programs or physical security initiatives for bridge laboratories. Individuals are "read in" to such a compartment, which then gives them updated privileges such as additional rights to access computer systems and secure areas related to the project. During read-in, a PLANA (project-specific logical network access) review and PSRA (project-specific risk assessment) are completed, vetting the individual for any project-specific risks.
The opposite is done at the end of a project in a "read-out" procedure, where access is revoked. All project read-in and read-out requests go through Internal Security, which keeps detailed logs on every project an individual has ever had access to, including their read-in and read-out dates, which are retained for an indefinite amount of time to allow for tracing of who had access to the data of a specific project should there ever be a leak. Even Internal Security, however, is not aware of the nature of most projects; they are simply provided with the project codeword and project-specific risk criteria which is used to perform project-specific employee vetting.
For some extremely sensitive Sigma-level projects, such as The Labyrinth, being removed from
the project also entails erasure of all information relating to the project from one's mind. This is seldom done for most projects, as usually the value of career knowledge outweighs risk; but at the Sigma level, especially where Reality Critical caveat information is involved, no risk is ever too light.
Processes
Memory Screening
There are two types of memory screening at Raven: Shallow Depth Memory Screening (SDMS), which begins to be administered to personnel at Epsilon and above, and Full Depth Memory Screening (FDMS), which is only administered at the Sigma level.
SDMS is non-intrusive, and scans an individual's short-term and long-term memories. It is performed once for the initial granting of a clearance, and then on a bi-monthly cadence for clearance renewals. The process is performed by a machine that generates a memory map, performs an analysis on it, and then delivers a report with a four-category Psychometric Anomaly Score (PAS) which is assessed together with other information by decision makers.
FDMS is intrusive by the fact that it usually requires a brain implant (for organics) or an addon to one's SI core (for synthetics). This implant does not allow any live access to consciousness or memory, nor does it allow control over one's mind, but it does allow for complete read access when the data is downloaded, which is performed once every week for most Sigma-cleared staff, or once per day for a small number of individuals including High Council adjudicators. Scans are also performed each time an individual enters or exits the Sigma Unit.
Even though both types are very effective in ensuring an individual's integrity, they are not watertight. SDMS only captures conscious memories, so deep-seated psychological instability, repressed memories, or future intent to betray the organisation may not be detected, though false memories are usually detectable. FDMS is extremely hard to confuse, but there are still creative ways that a scan can be fooled; for example, an individual can cryptographically encode a memorised message with a key in their mind, and then either forget the original or not be told it in the first place. This is even easier for synthetics, who have additional mental processing power to work with.