Twilight of the Gatekeepers

By mid - 2030s, I was making real plans to wind down our regime. Yet, external events accelerated things beyond my careful choreography.

In 2036, the war beyond our walls intensified. A coalition of militias and rogue states - seeing our city as a bastion of the old order - made a concerted push. The siege mentality returned. Information warfare spiked again. I recall ruefully thinking: “Just when I was about to let go, the world pulls me back in.” It became harder to argue for loosening controls when actual bombs were again going off at the periphery and traitors were suspected everywhere.

During this period, a younger generation in the Ministry, who had grown up with the Second Gate as normal, started to take more hardline stances. They hadn’t lived through the deliberations of its founding; to them it was simply how things are done. They respected me, but I sensed some thought I’d gone soft with age and my new openness kick. They believed total focus was needed to survive the war.

This generational tension came to a head in 2037 when I discovered a clandestine plan by a faction in the Ministry to implement what they called “Gatekeeper Omega Protocol.” This was essentially a blueprint to impose martial law over information: to cut off nearly all outside data flow (even intelligence that the Council normally saw), to place the city on a strictly one - way info diet (only Ministry - generated content). It was extreme, a kind of information iron curtain. The rationale was to prevent enemy propaganda entirely during the expected peak of conflict. But to me, it looked like a blueprint for an Orwellian nightmare, the final ossification of our control into something unrecognizably illiberal.

I confronted the ringleaders - two bureau chiefs and, sadly, my own deputy, who I had trusted for years. They argued passionately: “Adrian, can’t you see? We’re at war. We might not get a second chance if an information breach leads to sabotage or panic at the wrong moment. We have to be willing to be ruthless now, or everything falls.” My deputy added, “We can’t worry about feelings or ideals; it’s survival.”

I retorted that if survival demanded we become a totalitarian brainwasher, what were we surviving as? Mere animals clinging to life? The whole point was to save a certain vision of humanity - which included reason, debate, and dignity. If we jettison that entirely, we’ve lost even if we win the physical war.

It was one of the most heated arguments of my career. In the end, I put my foot down and squashed the Omega Protocol plan. I reassigned those involved to peripheral duties. But the trust was broken. And I knew if they dared propose it, they might also try it behind my back or after me.

The external siege continued. By 2038 the city was in dire straits. Martial law, rationing, conscription - the works. MinInfo kept pumping out morale - boosting news (some exaggerating minor victories to keep hope alive). Frankly, by then, propaganda overshadowed any pretense of balanced info. I justified it because war is war - in wars, you rally your side, period.

Yet, I clung to one resolve: I would not allow the Omega Protocol or any complete blackout of truth. I still let the Council members access broad intel. I still had our Devil’s Advocates around - though by then their role was diminished as survival dominated. I still insisted on internal truthfulness; no lying to each other.

In early 2039, as final assaults loomed, I recall walking through an empty Ministry corridor at night. The power flickered (energy was low). I saw our motto plaque: “Veritas in Custodia.” It looked almost mocking in the half - light. Truth in custody - indeed, we had caged truth for years. Would we ever release it? Would we even survive to do so?

I made a quiet decision: if the city were to fall or I were to be removed, I would preserve a record of everything - the truth - so that at least history would know we tried, and where we went wrong. I started assembling files (much of which informs this memoir). I left clues to our successors (if any) about things to fix if they rebuild - a sort of time capsule of lessons learned. This treatise itself grew partly out of that endgame mentality; I wanted to put it all down in case I didn’t get to deliver an explanatory speech or some official closure.

The Last Entry April 3, 2039 - This may be my last entry. Not by plan but by circumstance. The walls are holding, but tremors of change are inside as well. There are whispers that some factions in the Council are negotiating a truce with the enemy, others that an internal coup is brewing to install a military junta “for the duration of the emergency.” In either scenario, the Ministry of Information in its current form might be swept aside or repurposed for blunt control.

If that happens, what becomes of all our careful philosophy? Will nuance matter to the next wielders of this tool? Or will they simply use it to cement power without the qualms I had? The thought makes me shudder. I would almost prefer the Second Gate be shattered than misused by those who do not understand its burdens.

I have come to accept that I might not be the one to dismantle what I built. Perhaps history will do it for me. Perhaps an outraged populace, battle - weary and tired of half - truths, will demand a new era. I’ve heard the chants in the alleys: “Open the gates!” They mean both gates, I think - the physical and the epistemic. People want the war to end, the isolation to end, and yes, likely the information control to end. They yearn for normalcy, for a life where truth isn’t rationed like water.

I cannot blame them. I find in my heart a similar yearning. Oh, to live in a time where I could be just a teacher or a writer, not a custodian of collective reality…

I re - read parts of this manuscript. I see my justifications, my struggles. Will a reader in the future judge me kindly? Or see me as a cautionary tale? Likely both. I think I have been both principled and complicit, wise in intention and foolish in hubris.

Perhaps I’ll end with a direct message to posterity:

To you, reader of these memoirs, who stands possibly in a freer world looking back - understand that we did what we did because we faced horrors you may have been spared. But also learn from our errors: once you bend the truth for the greater good, you risk breaking it. Freedom and order must dance, neither wholly consuming the other. It is a perilous dance, as I have lived.

If the Second Gate stands when peace returns, I implore you: open it. Do so carefully, but do it. Let people breathe truth in all its wild, untamed forms again, because only then will your society be truly alive. Yet, do not forget the lesson of why we erected it: there are wolves in the night, and simply ignoring them invites ruin. So guard your knowledge, but do not imprison it. Trust the people with truth, but also teach them to wield it responsibly. That balance is the key - a key we sought but perhaps never found.

The last sound I write about is the distant thunder of something - perhaps artillery, perhaps a storm. Fitting either way. A storm is coming to sweep the old structures clean. I hope what we saved - the embers of truth and reason - will ignite light after the darkness passes.

• Adrian Calise, Curator General (perhaps signing off for the final time).