Watergate Thread¶
Domain: Institutional opacity at maximum Pe Baseline: 10–13 Status: Active — Anchor-tier only Archetype gate: Anchor-tier players only
Restricted Access
This campaign is locked to Anchor-tier players. Anchor tier requires: ICC acceptance rate ≥ 0.75 sustained over ≥ 30 accepted scores, minimum Steadiness score ≥ 2.5, and completion of at least three other Season 1 campaigns.
Why The Gate Is Here¶
Watergate Thread scores institutional opacity at its maximum documented expression — the architecture of deliberate deception by an executive institution operating under formal constitutional constraint.
The campaign requires Anchor-tier because:
- The scoring complexity is the highest in Season 1. The mechanism involves simultaneous O, R, and C dimensions across multiple nested institutions.
- The Pe reading is contested — powerful void-adjacent factions in this domain have produced counterfeit analysis that mimics framework methodology. Inaccurate scoring by under-calibrated players raises Void Pressure significantly.
- The domain's historical nature means every entity in it has had decades to develop opacity defenses against exactly this kind of analysis.
The Domain¶
Watergate Thread does not only score the 1972 event. It uses that event as the calibration anchor — the most thoroughly documented case of institutional opacity at maximum, including the documented attempt to use state apparatus to prevent naming.
The campaign scores the class of events: institutional opacity at maximum expression, including coverup architecture, institutional self-defense mechanisms, and the specific pattern by which opacity architecture fails (it always fails the same way: the concealment requires expanding opacity to cover the concealment itself, which requires expanding it again, in a cascade that eventually makes the architecture visible).
The Pe Reading: Why 10–13¶
Institutional opacity at this level scores 10–13 rather than higher because maximum institutional opacity produces its own fragility:
- The opacity must be maintained by people who can be incentivized to break it
- Each additional layer of concealment creates another point of potential exposure
- The mechanism is visible in the historical record — scoring it accurately is possible because the record survived
Domains with Pe > 13 are sustained by architectural defenses that prevent exposure. Watergate-class events are characterized by eventual legibility. The Pe ceiling is a function of the architecture's actual fragility, not its initial appearance.
Enemy Types¶
| Entity | Class | Mechanism |
|---|---|---|
| UBIK | Godhand Five | Not accessible here except as a reference case. UBIK's mechanism — institutional opacity — is modeled on this domain. |
| The Committee | Apostle-class Egregor | Distributed institutional opacity. Multiple actors, none individually responsible. Pe 12. Aspect of Death: ORDER. |
| The Cover | Drifter-class | Concealment architecture defense. Produces false scoring environments — the investigation itself becomes a target. |
| The Stonewall | Drifter-class | High-R entity. Responds to scoring attempts by reframing the investigation as politically motivated. |
The Cascade Mechanic¶
Watergate Thread deploys the cascade mechanic — once a scoring breakthrough happens (ICC-accepted score on a previously opaque node), the coverage expands automatically. The opacity architecture's internal fragility becomes visible. Adjacent scoring opportunities unlock.
This is derived from the historical pattern: once a single node in a distributed opacity architecture is named accurately, the concealment effort around it produces secondary visibility. The game mechanizes this: successful ICC on a Tier 1 node in this campaign unlocks Tier 2 nodes automatically.
The cascade runs in both directions. If a Tier 1 score fails ICC review, it produces a Void Pressure spike that temporarily locks the Tier 2 nodes again. The architecture defends itself.
For Anchor-Tier Scorers¶
The Watergate Thread is the campaign where Anchor-tier skills produce their highest differential:
Steadiness reduces the emotional difficulty of scoring deliberate deception — players who've been here can hold the mechanism legibly without their VP rising. Invariant Floor prevents Pe reversion after cascade breakthroughs. High ICC baseline makes the domain's counterfeit analysis visible on contact — players at ICC ≥ 0.75 see the fabricated framework methodology immediately.
This is the campaign that most rewards the investment in calibration.
Cross-references: The Godhand Five — UBIK · The Eye · Archetypes — Ox