That's exactly what it is, neither the chip, sentomaru or Vegapunk actually has mind manipulation powers, the pacifists just recognize their authority, because they were programmed for that. The orders of those with higher authority overrule those with lower authority, it's just like comparing the orders given by a Sargent vs those of a private, the orders given by the Sargent are "absolute l" in comparison to those of a private. None of that means layers.
Anyways it doesn't matter since none of that was approved in the wiki.
The authority chip actively overrides the individual will of the person under control, forcing them to follow orders.
Sentomaru’s control being trumped by someone higher in the hierarchy like Vegapunk isn’t just a chain of command thing, it’s an
override that directly shuts down lower authority, regardless of intent. It’s not that the Pacifista ‘respects’ the higher rank—it’s that it’s literally
unable to carry out lower-ranked commands once a higher one is in effect.
That’s what makes this a resistance-based tier system. The authority hierarchy isn't just passive, it actively bypasses any control the lower level
should have had. If someone at Tier 4 (chip holders) gives a command, and then Tier 3 (Sentomaru) gives a conflicting one, the Tier 4 command doesn’t just get ignored, it’s automatically nullified. And the same happens when Vegapunk at Tier 2 steps in: even Sentomaru’s override gets overridden.
It's functionally no different than how VSBW works with hax layering—where one ability’s effect is outright resisted or bypassed by a higher-tier version. If someone can resist teleportation at Layer 1, but gets mind-controlled by someone at Layer 2, that’s a clear demonstration of layered resistance. The authority hierarchy works the same way: it’s a stack of overrides where each tier works based on resistances and nullifies the previous one. We see this with both the Seraphim and Pacifista.
And if you want to argue that several layers isn't currently accepted that's fine because it still counts as one layer at the bare minimum based on function. Bluegrass' by transitive property would be 2, and Yamato's already scales above this through Ace and Bonney.