We establish an equiconsistency between (1) weak indestructibility for all $\kappa +2$-degrees of strength for cardinals $\kappa $ in the presence of a proper class of strong cardinals, and (2) a proper class of cardinals that are strong reflecting strongs. We in fact get weak indestructibility for degrees of strength far beyond $\kappa +2$, well beyond the next inaccessible limit of measurables (of the ground model). One direction is proven using forcing and the other using core model techniques from inner model theory. Additionally, connections between weak indestructibility and the reflection properties associated with Woodin cardinals are discussed. This work is a part of my upcoming thesis [7].

We show the consistency, relative to the appropriate supercompactness or strong compactness assumptions, of the existence of a non-supercompact strongly compact cardinal $\kappa _0$ (the least measurable cardinal) exhibiting properties which are impossible when $\kappa _0$ is supercompact. In particular, we construct models in which $\square _{\kappa ^+}$ holds for every inaccessible cardinal $\kappa $ except $\kappa _0$, GCH fails at every inaccessible cardinal except $\kappa _0$, and $\kappa _0$ is less than the least Woodin cardinal.

We give a level-by-level analysis of the Weak Vopěnka Principle for definable classes of relational structures ( $\mathrm {WVP}$ ), in accordance with the complexity of their definition, and we determine the large-cardinal strength of each level. Thus, in particular, we show that $\mathrm {WVP}$ for $\Sigma _2$ -definable classes is equivalent to the existence of a strong cardinal. The main theorem (Theorem 5.11) shows, more generally, that $\mathrm {WVP}$ for $\Sigma _n$ -definable classes is equivalent to the existence of a $\Sigma _n$ -strong cardinal (Definition 5.1). Hence, $\mathrm {WVP}$ is equivalent to the existence of a $\Sigma _n$ -strong cardinal for all $n<\omega $ .

We analyze the hereditarily ordinal definable sets $\operatorname {HOD} $ in $M_n(x)[g]$ for a Turing cone of reals x, where $M_n(x)$ is the canonical inner model with n Woodin cardinals build over x and g is generic over $M_n(x)$ for the Lévy collapse up to its bottom inaccessible cardinal. We prove that assuming $\boldsymbol \Pi ^1_{n+2}$ -determinacy, for a Turing cone of reals x, $\operatorname {HOD} ^{M_n(x)[g]} = M_n(\mathcal {M}_{\infty } | \kappa _{\infty }, \Lambda ),$ where $\mathcal {M}_{\infty }$ is a direct limit of iterates of $M_{n+1}$ , $\delta _{\infty }$ is the least Woodin cardinal in $\mathcal {M}_{\infty }$ , $\kappa _{\infty }$ is the least inaccessible cardinal in $\mathcal {M}_{\infty }$ above $\delta _{\infty }$ , and $\Lambda $ is a partial iteration strategy for $\mathcal {M}_{\infty }$ . It will also be shown that under the same hypothesis $\operatorname {HOD}^{M_n(x)[g]} $ satisfies $\operatorname {GCH} $ .

We prove several equivalences and relative consistency results regarding generic absoluteness beyond Woodin’s ${\left( {{\bf{\Sigma }}_1^2} \right)^{{\rm{u}}{{\rm{B}}_\lambda }}}$ generic absoluteness result for a limit of Woodin cardinals λ. In particular, we prove that two-step $\exists ^ℝ \left( {{\rm{\Pi }}_1^2 } \right)^{{\rm{uB}}_\lambda } $ generic absoluteness below a measurable limit of Woodin cardinals has high consistency strength and is equivalent, modulo small forcing, to the existence of trees for ${\left( {{\bf{\Pi }}_1^2} \right)^{{\rm{u}}{{\rm{B}}_\lambda }}}$ formulas. The construction of these trees uses a general method for building an absolute complement for a given tree T assuming many “failures of covering” for the models $L\left( {T,{V_\alpha }} \right)$ for α below a measurable cardinal.

If M is a proper class inner model of ZFC and $\omega _2^{\bf{M}} = \omega _2 $, then every sound mouse projecting to ω and not past 0¶ belongs to M. In fact, under the assumption that 0¶ does not belong to M, ${\bf{K}}^{\bf{M}} \parallel \omega _2 $ is universal for all countable mice in V.

Similarly, if M is a proper class inner model of ZFC, δ > ω1 is regular, (δ+)M = δ+ and in V there is no proper class inner model with a Woodin cardinal, then ${\bf{K}}^{\bf{M}} \parallel \delta $ is universal for all mice in V of cardinality less than δ.

We obtain an equiconsistency for a weak form of universal indestructibility for strongness. The equiconsistency is relative to a cardinal weaker in consistency strength than a Woodin cardinal, Stewart Baldwin's notion of hyperstrong cardinal. We also briefly indicate how our methods are applicable to universal indestructibility for supercompactness and strong compactness.