The Triquetra Under Pressure: Stress Testing a Multi-Tier AI Governance Architecture

This paper stress tests the Triquetra Architecture, a three-tier AI governance frameworkdesigned to enforce mutually constraining safety layers. Phase B performs pairwise tier-removal experiments demonstrating that no two-tierconfiguration maintains system integrity. Phase C subjects the full architecture to sequential adversarial pressure anddemonstrates monotonic tightening toward refusal, even under simulated policy-enginefailure. Across 73 tests, the system exhibits redundant enforcement behavior and no relaxationfrom refusal under continued pressure. Companion software release: Charter Architecture v3.3.0