Programme Summary
What the programme is, what it was asked to do, and the remit it did not ask for.
1.0 What GROUNDGATE Is
GROUNDGATE began as the controlling programme for the working aperture at the centre of the Sub-Basement 13 structure (designated GG-1) and has since become the controlling programme for the problem GG-1 turned out to be a single instance of: fixed two-way transit points between Earth and elsewhere, at least one of which opens onto the territory of a hostile power that now knows we are here.
Command's original remit — explore, recover, exploit — has been overtaken by the remit it did not ask for: defend. As of INC-GG-11 the programme is responsible for two confirmed apertures, an unknown number of unconfirmed ones, a near-peer enemy attempting to force a crossing, and a civilian population that has now seen what comes through and must, for reasons of state, be persuaded it did not.
2.0 How the Programme Is Organised
The programme is run from two detachments — Det. South, on GG-1, and Det. North, raised after NORTHGATE — with research subprogrammes and one external arrangement beneath them. The whole of it is reachable from the intranet home page; the short version is:
- Apertures. The aperture register, dial doctrine, and the inbound pressure on GG-1.
- Destinations. The destination database — eleven logged nodes, six surveyed to a designation.
- Operations. Every crossing the programme has logged, with outcomes.
- DEEPMARK (the Sounding) and IRONWRIGHT (captured Drûl materiel) — the two research subprogrammes; AUREATE, the external research-sharing partner.
- Dialling Discipline — the mandatory mental training without which none of the above is reachable at all.
3.0 Current Posture
- GG-D9 dialling: prohibited. We do not go there. The traffic is now the other way.
- GG-1: held by vigil. Continuous watch, composure as lock, power-cut as backstop. Inbound pressure rising.
- GG-2 (NORTHGATE): collapsed and capped, the workings above it brought down and the site sealed under a cover acquisition. Presumed re-openable from the far side. Under instrument watch.
- Aperture census: open. If there are two there may be more. A survey for further terrestrial apertures is the programme's first priority and its largest fear. We are looking for doors in our own house with the lights off.
- Public exposure: contained by narrative, not by secrecy. Too many people saw NORTHGATE to deny it happened; the entire effort goes to denying what it was. See Information Operations.