I'm playing Geneforge 1, and I'm in the Southbridge area. There are two doors in this area with no levers and no way to open them. Generally, a door like this would simply open on its own when you get close enough -- they don't. I've looked the area up in walkthroughs and videos, and all of them show people just walking up to them and they open. No special instructions for them are given or shown.

I also noticed that in "The Tombs" area, none of the doors in that zone open either.'

There are incredibly valuable skill-raising items behind these doors, so I'd like to actually open them.

Did I miss something, or is this a bug?

In the Tombs area there is a "key" of sorts, you just need to find it... shouldn't be too hard. Don't know about the other area.

I'm always glad when someone takes the time to post the full answer when the OP gives up on a thread or someone says "nevermind" as when someone ends up looking for an answer via search engines you can be sure they'll get a page full of useless threads like the ones I mentioned with no explicit answer.

Thank you for the kind words, stranger. Hopefully someone else is helped by this one. For you latecomers: the "key" is in the tombs, and it opens the stuff in Southbridge. People who came in from the north/west will look at you funny if you ask questions, as they will have found it easily and never realized it was important.