I think a part of the issue was, everyone living outside the walls did not even try to kick the gates open as everyone assumed a big (cryptographically secure) lock was being used by all gatekeepers.

https://drmaciver.com/2022/05/learning-to-walk-through-walls...

Citing Terry Pratchett’s “Interesting Times”.

Its called a Potemkin solution, and there is a serious theory that most nuclear arsenals are exactly that: no-one has ever confirmed they can actually be fired.