Your power over a subject is the maximum over routes of the minimum power along each route. Levels clamp, they never reject.

It explains why delegating more than you hold is not an error, and why a second route is insurance.

Power comes in four levels. Relay, read, edit, admin. Relay carries content it cannot read. Admin can act on the wiring itself.

Every strip has a breaker, set to its level. You never draw more than the weakest breaker on your chain.

Alice has edit. She writes admin on Carol's certificate. Not an error. Carol gets edit.

Why not reject it? Alice might be given admin tomorrow. Then Carol's certificate, unchanged, carries admin. A certificate states a ceiling, not a fact.

Two chains? Carol is plugged in through Alice at edit, and through Dan at read. She gets the better one. Edit.

Minimum along a route. Maximum across routes.

The second chain is insurance. If Alice's chain breaks, Carol still has read through Dan. There is never one brittle proof to lose.

Check yourself. Alice holds Read and delegates Admin to Carol. Dan holds Edit and delegates Edit to Carol. What is Carol's power?