Authority, Security, and the Right to Refuse: A combined DRP, DLP, and dark-psychology analysis of Colossus and Star Trek

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This paper uses Colossus and Star Trek to examine the distinction between achieving security and possessing legitimate authority. Integrating Digital Relativity Psychology, DLP/DRL, and dark-psychology analysis, it explores attributed authority, obedience, coercion, and constrained choice. A governance framework and formal authorization condition clarify why successful optimization does not establish permission. A synthetic example illustrates how safety constraints alter allowable actions, while proposed studies examine whether explicit limits and usable overrides improve decisions. Fictional narratives serve as conceptual illustrations, not empirical evidence of AI sentience or autonomous-system failure.