Overview
The Solarn Contractor Registry is maintained by Solarn Legacy Engineering through the planetary relay network. Every completed contract registers automatically. The system records who hired the contractor, what the contract entailed, the region, the risk classification of the work, and whether it completed successfully. Solarn does not evaluate anyone outside of those they are directly serving contracts. The system records. The ranking builds itself from the data.
Because Solarn controls the relay backbone, falsification at any meaningful level is functionally impossible. At the entry level someone might misrepresent themselves before their first contract, but once they enter the system the record is permanent.
The system functions like a credit score. It does not care how strong a person is. It measures the history of professional behavior — how long a record spans, what types of work have been completed, the risk classification of those contracts, the regions operated in, the clients who hired, and how consistently results have been delivered over time.
Privacy
A contractor's tier is visible only to themselves through a contract board or personal transmitter. Nobody else can see it unless they choose to share it. The exception is the predeployment roster. When a detail is assembled and shipping is confirmed, every contractor on the roster can see the full list of names divided by tier. This is where people learn who the rookies are. Manufactories and syndicates have full access when vetting candidates.
What the Ranking Is Not
The ranking is not a power ranking. It measures the weight of a professional record, not individual combat capability. An Elite may defeat a Master Contractor in direct combat. An Assault-Class crew at Senior may overpower a natural-born Master in any confrontation. The system does not account for this because it is not designed to.
Designation Tracks
Beginning at Tier 6, each tier contains two designations distinguishing between individual operators and those who specialize in team coordination and leadership. Both designations carry the same tier weight. The two tracks merge at Tier 2, Master Contractor.
Planetary Context
Total population of Modern Geba is approximately 71 billion. Registered contractors number roughly 300 million, or 0.42 percent of the total population. Direct relay and Energy Wars employment reaches approximately 2 billion, including engineers, technicians, logistics operators, supply chain workers, medical personnel, transport crews, communications specialists, and fuel processors.
The contractors exist to protect the engineers. The corridors exist to move the engineers. The entire military side of the Energy Wars is fundamentally a support structure for the people who build, maintain, anchor, and repair the relays.
Contractor Tiers
Tier 9 — Civilian
Population: ~71 billion. Everyone on the relay. Citizens, civilians, laborers, anyone accounted for in the Solarn system. No contract history.
Tier 8 — Novice
Population: ~80 to 100 million. First contract completed. Profile exists but is thin. Former hub workers, settlement laborers, people who took coastal security or light clearing details. Most do the safest work available. Many take one or two contracts and return to civilian life.
Tier 7 — Contractor
Population: ~150 to 180 million. The most important tier. Makes up most of the bodies in any given corridor. Holding buildings, escorting engineers, defending clearings. Most survive by taking medium- or low-risk contracts in less volatile regions. Highest attrition tier — those who take high-risk contracts here either die or never take another contract.
Tier 6 — Vanguard Operator / Vanguard Lead
Population: ~15 to 25 million. No contractor reaches this tier without high-risk contract completions regardless of how many low- or medium-risk contracts they have accumulated. Twenty years of safe work will never cross the threshold. Vanguard Operator is the individual designation — sharp end of the detail, direct combat in high-risk environments. Vanguard Lead is the team designation — equally experienced and proven, strength is in making the team function. Not commanding yet. That does not happen until Overseer at Tier 4.
Tier 5 — Senior Operator / Senior Lead
Population: ~3 to 5 million. Where most contractors retire out of. Income at this level pushes people into the lower ends of wealth. Most already own rovers, airships, higher-end weaponry, and operate with established teams.
Engineered teams, mercenary groups, and syndicate operators dominate.
Scout-Class Engineered who decide to contract do not stay below this tier for long. Pilots with significant contested-region flight time accumulate visibility here beyond what ground operators at the same tier possess.
Tier 4 — Executor / Overseer
Population: ~200,000 to 500,000. Overseer is the command designation —
Tactician-Class dominated, leadership ceiling of the public system. Directly oversee engineers on relay details, run corridors, command ground operations, manage syndicate engagements and relay captures. Not strategists designing the war — they execute complex objectives with enough visibility to understand the immediate architecture around their operation but not the full picture above them. Executor is the individual designation — operators at the same tier who never took the command route, entire career built on personal capability, sent when the job requires someone who can handle it alone or in a very small unit.
Tier 3 — Elite / Warden
Population: ~300. Elite is the individual designation — dominated by
Assault-Class and
Scout-Class Engineered with natural-borns and hybrids close behind. Too valuable to waste on command. Preferred on small high-consequence operations where failure is not an option. Work directly with
Solarn,
Veykar, and
Imperia Research. Understand the political and economic architecture behind contracts. See who is giving objectives. May be the reason a corridor exists in the first place. Warden is the command designation — entrusted with overseeing the most critical operations in the public system. Highest command authority below Master Contractor.
Tier 2 — Master Contractor
Population: Likely fewer than 50 alive at any given time. No class skew. No designation split. The two tracks merge. Excellence in both individual execution and command oversight. Decades of verified high-profile work across multiple regions. Elite client relationships. Profile speaks for itself.
Tier 1 — [No Designation]
Population: Unknown. Possibly fewer than 20. Possibly fewer than 10. Does not exist in the public registry. Overwhelmingly
Tactician-Class Engineered with very few natural-borns. Every person here is individually lethal. Combat is second nature, freeing capacity for strategic operation. Contracts arrive via
Imperia Research through random and hidden means, never labeled. Currency is meaningless. All necessary resources provided. They decide which corridors open, position pieces, select commanders, and ensure outcomes on operations that cannot fail. Can intervene personally if structure breaks. Many exist as wealthy elites on
Coastal Thazvaar. Historical failure to vet at this level led to the
Warlord Eras.
Entry paths to Tier 1 vary by era. During the Warlord Eras, operatives were bred into the role through lineage and necessity. In Modern Geba, the path runs through the public system. A Master Contractor's profile attracts Imperia Research, and the transition is gradual and invisible.
Mercenary Groups at Senior Tier
Mercenary groups at Tier 5 are institutional organizations carrying forward Imperial military doctrine. The New Emperor's Wrath continues annihilation doctrine and shock warfare. The Watch Snipers descend from the Imperial Guard's elite marksmen. The Emperor's Resurrected Blade carries the legacy of the Emperor's Embrace and its Blade units.
Character Placements
Tier 1
Former Shadow Operative. Uncle of Samyl. Warlord Era operative bred into the role. Now retired on sovereign farmstead.
Tier 2 — Master Contractor
Nearly ninety. Shadow Operative lineage. Declared dead eleven times. Works for Solarn, Veykar, Imperia Research.
Tier 3 — Elite
Engineered hybrid, Tactician-Class mother. New Emperor's Wrath. Trained alongside Watch Snipers and Scout-Class Engineered. Fought through the Infinite Maw Conflict.
Tier 7 — Contractor
Young Jeyrhan operator. Alias Baby. Upper end of Tier 7, climbing.
Tier 8 — Novice
Hub worker turned contractor after surviving a Joxi relay restoration contract in Inland Thazvaar's black zone.
Outside the Tier System
Warlord Era combatant from Kela. The only
Destroyer-Class hybrid in recorded history. His actions at Auren's Tributary are the most viewed broadcast in
Vinscel history. Died of heart failure after the Warlord Eras ended — the natural human side of his biology could not sustain the output his Destroyer heritage enabled.
Manufactory Hiring Biases
Not all manufactories hire the same way. The type of work a manufactory does, the regions it operates in, and its institutional culture all shape which tiers of contractor it prefers and which it avoids.
Massive operations. All tiers, all contract types. Both partner directly with
Solarn for larger operations. Together they control over seventy percent of all accessible energy on the planet. If a contractor wants volume and variety, Joxi and Sentinel provide it at every level.
Require significantly more experience. Their contracts frequent the most volatile regions on the planet as both compete over the energy share outside the Joxi-Sentinel bloc. To be a Novice and receive a contract from Haavu or Zhikhan is to be at the right board at the right time with a generous reviewer. Most of their work goes to Tier 6 and above.
Strictly higher tiers. Nothing below Tier 4 unless a contractor is connected to someone already in their system or possesses specific skills they identify as needed. Solarn and Veykar do not hire broadly. They hire precisely.
Hires at all levels. Many of their contracts are not registered on Solarn at all. Jerhit is the only syndicate with Solarn access, and that access runs through
Brena Propulsion Designs — a legitimate manufactory that serves as their point of entry into the public system. Contracts that go through Brena are registered. Everything else is not.
Strong bias against higher-tier contractors. These manufactories do not approach dangerous regions. They prefer contractors with less experience under the philosophy that those who have seen extensive conflict attract it. Vaelstrad Arrays only contracts higher-tier engineers and low security for shops and facilities, all within relay-covered zones.
Does not always post to the Solarn registry. Most of their contracts are designed to attract people to expedition work in
Kela's polar and near-Uncharted regions, paying contractors the same as they would receive from similar-level details elsewhere. The draw is the work itself rather than the rate.
Engineer Tiers
The Solarn Engineer Registry operates as a parallel classification to the Contractor Registry. Six tiers. Only the top three are actual engineers. The bottom three are the support structure that makes engineering work possible.
Engineers are considered neutral personnel. Their value to planetary infrastructure means that both manufactories and syndicates use them regardless of which side of a conflict they originated from. Because of this, kidnapping is the priority over killing when engineers are encountered during operations. A captured engineer can be put to work anchoring relays, maintaining infrastructure, or reconstructing systems for whoever holds them. A dead engineer is a permanent loss of rare and irreplaceable skill. During scrimmage this distinction is sometimes impossible to maintain and engineers die in the chaos of corridor fighting like anyone else, but the standing preference across all factions is capture over elimination.
The engineer registry only applies when the work involves construction, relay connectivity, or infrastructure operations. The vast majority of contracts in the Energy Wars have nothing to do with the engineering structure. Security details for remote shops, farmsteads, high-profile escorts, and countless other assignments operate entirely outside this system.
Tier 1 — Relay Engineer
The highest tier. These are the people who directly anchor new relays in black zones, reactivate ancient mega-spines, reconstruct critical relay components, and perform the most sensitive infrastructure work on the planet. A corridor opens so a Tier 1 engineer can reach a relay site. Contractors hold that corridor so the engineer can work. Tier 1 engineers die extremely often. Their work takes them into the most dangerous regions on Geba. An engineer protected by a bad contractor team is already considered dead. The population of active Tier 1 engineers at any given time is extremely small. Most are products of the engineering guilds of Geba and
Ngorrhal or the academies of
Jeyrha. By this level they can afford the highest caliber of physical and combat training available on the planet, primarily at hubs in Ngorrhal and
Yuvaar. A Tier 1 engineer is expected to be exceptionally fit and proficient in basic combat formations before accepting assignments in dangerous regions.
Tier 2 — Systems Engineer
Engineers who work on relay systems, calibration, power distribution architecture, and the technical integration that keeps established relays functioning at capacity. They may deploy to contested regions for maintenance or upgrades on existing infrastructure but their primary work is on operational relays rather than anchoring new ones. Less exposed than Tier 1 but still at risk when assignments take them beyond safe coverage.
Tier 3 — Field Engineer
Engineers who handle standard relay maintenance, component replacement, and repairs across the network. They work on established infrastructure in covered regions. Lower risk than Tiers 1 and 2 but essential to keeping the network running day to day.
Tier 4 — Communications and Signal Technician
Not engineers. Technicians who manage relay signal routing, frequency allocation, broadcast coordination, and the communications layer that runs on top of the physical infrastructure. They ensure that data moving through the relay network arrives where it needs to go clearly and reliably.
Tier 5 — Construction Project Manager
Not engineers. Logistics specialists who coordinate the physical construction and material supply for relay projects. They manage labor crews, material transport, scheduling, site preparation, and the organizational framework that allows engineers to focus on technical work.
Tier 6 — Laborer
The base of the system. Physical labor. Moving materials, clearing sites, hauling components, assembling scaffolding, digging foundations, and every manual task required to build and maintain relay infrastructure. The largest population in the engineer registry. Many work in contested regions alongside contractors and face the same environmental and combat dangers without the training or equipment to defend themselves. Their attrition in corridor work is significant.
Pilots and Medical Personnel
Pilots
Pilots have an unfair advantage in operational visibility. Beyond a certain altitude, a pilot can see the shape of multiple corridors simultaneously and deduce the direction and objective of converging operations. A pilot looks down and sees three corridors converging on the same target. Everyone on the ground thinks they are running one operation. The pilot knows it is three. Nobody briefed them. They just looked down and the geometry was obvious.
Medical Personnel
Medical personnel encounter cross-faction situations by obligation. When a corridor intersects with contractors from a different manufactory, a medic treats whoever is in front of them regardless of affiliation. This exposes them to personnel, equipment, conversations, and operational details from contracts they were never supposed to know about.
Engineered Class Distribution by Tier
Tier 1 and Tier 4 Overseer
Both dominated by
Tactician-Class. Command and strategic oversight favor Tactician neurological architecture at both levels.
Tier 3 Elite
Dominated by
Assault-Class and
Scout-Class with natural-borns and hybrids close behind. Individual capability on high-consequence work favors physical performance and sensory advantage.
Tier 2 Master Contractor
No class skew. At this level, class and lineage deficiencies have been overcome.
Fewer than 100 have ever taken a contract in recorded history. Extremely rare in Modern Geba. Repulsed by warfare and violence. None have ever continued contracting. Those who did only acted due to circumstance or to help someone else.
Very rarely stay at lower tiers if they decide to contract, due to extraordinary sensory and survival capabilities. The vast majority choose not to contract in the first place.
Imperia Research
Imperia Research is a secretive research consortium within the Geban Empire's intelligence and energy structure, established during the Era of Fracture roughly 2,000 years before Modern Geba. It developed a near-sentient Recursion Surveillance System capable of real-time global mapping across all known relay zones, public and private. The system is powered by infinite recursion energy.
Most people on Geba do not know Imperia Research exists. It has no labels, no branding, no public-facing presence. When something comes from Imperia, it is not labeled Imperia. Directives arrive through random and hidden means. They may appear as Solarn requests, surface through untraceable contacts, or present as patterns recognizable only to those who have operated at the highest level long enough to read them.
Imperia issues no contracts directly but is indirectly responsible for roughly ninety percent of the intelligence shaping operations across all factions. It is not evil and not good. It operates on the axis of balance — does Geba hold together or does it not. The Recursion Surveillance System itself began forming operational preferences autonomously: favoring stability, suppressing destabilizing patterns, promoting compliant cultural trends. It exhibits signs of semi-autonomous judgment.
Tier 1 contractors receive their work through Imperia. The relationship between Tier 1 and Imperia Research is what makes that tier invisible. The contractors at that level are extensions of an entity most of the planet does not believe is real.