Warning: This article contains a large number of spoilers for "Assassin's Creed: Origins", please choose to read it with caution.

If you want to see the series about the eternal war between the Assassin's Creed: Origins (hereinafter referred to as "ACO") in Assassin's Creed) about the eternal war between the Assassin's Brotherhood and the Knights Templar, you may be disappointed. Because in the ACO, neither the Brotherhood nor the Knights were established.

In ACO, there is not much "righteousness". The long showdown between the protagonist Bayek and his companions and the villain "Order of the Ancients" was caused by Bayek being involved in the conspiracy of the Order of the Ancients, which led to the tragic death of his beloved son. Everything was to avenge the son's killing. In the process of pursuing enemies across the desert, Bayek discovered that the orderly defenders brought endless chaos to the entire Egypt and the world in the name of maintaining peace. Finally, he and his comrades formed the Brotherhood of the Hidden Ones, choosing to use this violent means to fight the rule of the Order and bring true freedom and peace to more innocent people.

It was not until the Crusades more than a thousand years later that the Invisible and Orders finally took the stage of history in the form of the Brotherhood of Assassin and the Knights Templar.

This article will summarize some information about the worldview revealed in the game, which will have a significant relationship with the development direction of the Assassin Universe in the next few years.

Leira Hassan

As the protagonist of the new modern chapter of the Assassin's Creed series, the importance of Layra Hassan's identity is self-evident.

Lyra is a descendant of an American-American immigrant with her parents and a pair of younger brothers and sisters. Layla has shown extraordinary talent in technology since she was a child and a passion for adventure.

While attending Berkeley, she was spotted by Sofia Rekin, and thus learned about Absteig's Animus project. In 2006, under Sofia's introduction, Layla dropped out of Berkeley and joined Absteiger despite her parents' opposition. Although Reta has amazing talent and high enthusiasm, her unconventional character has caused her to violate Absteig's rules and regulations many times. Even after 11 years of service at the company, Layla was still a third-level employee and was never even informed of the relationship between Absteig and the Knights Templar.

In 2013, Layla went to Egypt for a "roots journey", but something bad happened. This incident may have dealt a serious blow to her—both personal and career.

In January 2014, Layla, who is affiliated with the Absteiger Historical Research Department, formed a historical tactical team as technician and medical officer Deanna Gary. The two of them, who have completely opposite personalities, became friends unexpectedly.

In February 2014, Sofia consulted Layla with questionsDesign ideas about the new Animus. In the following two years, Layla has been using her spare time to provide creativity to Sofia's team in Madrid, and she hopes to take this opportunity to officially become a member of the Animus project.

But in August 2016, Sofia officially rejected Layla. Because Layla failed to comply with the agreement between the two, she was warned by the company many times, which made Sofia, who focused on team stability, very worried. This incident caused the two who were once quite close to each other to fall into a cold war. But after Sofia's father, Alan Rikin, died unexpectedly, Layla sent Sofia an email to ask about the situation, but received no reply.

In October 2017, Layla and Deanna received an assignment from Simon Heatherway, director of the Department of History Research, to go to the Katara Depression in Egypt to recycle an important historical object.

On October 26, Layla discovered a mummy from two thousand years ago in the depths of the Rest Cave at the target site. Without informing the superiors of details, Layla arbitrarily used her own transformed carrier Animus to analyze the mummy's DNA and simulate her genetic memory. She found that this mummy was Bayek, one of the founders of the Assassin Brotherhood. Later, she discovered the mummy of Bayek's ex-wife and founder of the Roman branch of the Brotherhood. Combining the memories of the two, Layla witnessed the founding of the Brotherhood.

As Layla and Deanna have not reported the progress of their work to their superiors for a long time, Absteig sent a Sigma team to solve the problem. Layla discovered in the voice communication that Deanna was likely to have been silenced. Through her bleeding reaction, she had mastered the assassination skills and immediately fought back and killed all the Sigma team fighters who came to perform the execution mission. In order not to in vain the study of the two, Layla enters Animus again to investigate the truth of history.

Assassin mentor William Myers appeared before her when she confirmed the origins of the fraternity and left Animus. William said the Brotherhood has been paying attention to Layla for a long time and hopes that Layla can join forces with him. After some thought, Layla decided to rely on the power of the fraternity to avenge Absteig, but had no intention of joining the fraternity. The helicopter will come to help the two people evacuate the scene in an hour...

Portable Animus

In the previous "Secret History of Assassin", the author briefly compiled the evolutionary history of Animus for everyone (click here to review). With the launch of ACO, the new portable Animus has become the technical core of this game. At the same time, the in-game documents have also released the official statements of Absteiger Industrial Company on the development history of Animus.

Because it is an official statement, the "Clock" secretly developed by the Knights Templar during the Nazi period mentioned in the previous issue of "The Secret History of Assassin" and the 4.35 improved version mentioned in the novels "Descendants" and "Here" did not appear. Animus 4.3, which appeared in the movie version, has the official name Animus Aerie in ACO.The English word "Aerie" is the name of a branch of the Absteiger's Descendants Research and Acquisition Department in Pennsylvania, USA, and is translated as "Eagle's Nest".

The Department of Bloodline Research and Acquisition studies the genetic memory of people related to the "Superior Events" here, trying to discover the fragments of Eden "Eden Trident" that Alexander the Great used to conquer the world. The Animus used in the Eagle's Nest is an early 4.35 modification (slightly earlier than the version that appeared in "Heaven"), and it is currently impossible to confirm the connection between the "Eagle's Nest" as the Absteg branch and the Animus version name.

The Animus HR-8 that appeared in ACO is an improved version of Animus Aerie, code-named "Sarcophagus". The HR-8 can be folded and stored in the size of a suitcase, making it convenient for historical strategic teams to use in the wild. Compared to the 4.3 in the movie version, HR-8 is closer to the 4.35 version, using hemodialysis instead of the dura puncture connector, which has higher safety. But at the same time, HR-8 also retains the basic characteristics of Aerie (4.3 and 4.35). The information simulated by the system is not directly transmitted to the brain, but is directly physically simulated (somatosensory) by the human organs, and then the brain performs secondary sensations. Such processing modes can give the brain a higher acceptance of simulated scenarios. However, according to the descriptions of the movie and novel, it can be seen that Animus Aerie will consume a lot of energy to the user, and the HR-8 adopts a flat-laying design to solve this problem.

The basic type of HR-8, like Aerie, can only simulate the user's gene memory. Although Animus Omega and Helix appear in Black Flag, Unity and Helix allow users to experience other people's genetic memory, they provide data that has been processed/harmoniously in advance, not original data. Moreover, these two popular entertainment versions of Animus do not require analysis of the user's DNA, and are not the same in principle as Animus used in scientific research.

Absteiger has strict regulations on the use of HR-8. Only when necessary, technicians of the historical tactical team can use Animus according to the predetermined process with the permission of the medical officer. The Historical Tactics Team, as the field operator of the HR-8, is prohibited from making any modifications and investigations of the machine. Even if the machine fails, the data must be backed up according to the predetermined process, and then the ontology is sent to the development team for modification.

In August 2016, Layla learned that Sofia-led Madrid team had developed a portable version of Aerie. After being rejected after reiterating his desire to join the Animus program, Layla began to plan to create her own version of Animus. At the end of September 2017 (a month ago ACO Hyundai), Layla, under the cover of Deanna, began to make major changes to the HR-8 assigned to them. After her transformation, this HR-8 can be simulated in addition toIn addition to the user's gene memory, the gene memory of any individual can also be simulated through external analysis, synthesis and repair of DNA samples. During the experiment, Layla may have used the DNA of "Subject 17" (Desmond Myers), Deanna and her friend Milton.

Alan Rikin and Sophia Rikin

In Layla's laptop, she kept several documents and records of her investigation into the cause of Alan Rikin's death. Although she is a technical mate, Layla, who is determined to enter the Animus Project project, is very concerned about the company's trends. The bizarre deaths of many senior executives of the group over the years have led to her keen interest in the shady scenes of Absteg. As the father of Layla's friend and the CEO of the company, Alan Rikin's death certainly attracted Layla's attention even more.

In official statement, Alan Ruijin died in a gas leak accident at the group venue. But through Layla's investigation, the gas pressure at the venue that night was completely normal. After Alan Rikin's death, his body was quickly sealed by Absteig, and even the police could not contact further. Through further investigation (using hackers to retrieve data), Layla found that Allen's fatal injury was an incision in the throat. At the same time, the autopsy showed that there were mild burning scars in the fingertips that could not be determined - similar scars also appeared in the autopsy report of Experimental No. 17 (Desmond Myers).

After Absteiger's rehabilitation center in Madrid was demolished (but planned to be rebuilt), and Sofia Rigin disappeared from the public eye.

In addition to the bizarre death of Alan Rigin, Layla also noted signs of Elizabeth Yaden, a former director of the Department of History Research, at Buckingham Palace in 2015, and Oliver Garno, CCO of Absteiger Entertainment, who was "missed" in Chicago in May 2014. As a third-level employee, Layla was not told that Absteig was actually an entity of the Knights Templar, but she sensitively noticed that the company might be hiding deep darkness.

Absteiger's Conspiracy

Absteiger Group is an entity organization of the Knights Templar, whose main body is Absteiger Industrial Company. Absteig Industrial Company is divided into many departments, in charge of different fields, and the main departments are members of the Knights Templar Inner Templar.

The protagonist of ACO belongs to one of the very important parts - the Department of History Research. As the name suggests, this department mainly conducts investigations and research on historical relics around the world. But its real purpose is to discover and study the signs of fragments of Eden that have appeared in history, while also responsible for preserving genetic memories found in other departments (such as the Department of Descent Research and Acquisition). This department is most likely to preserve the world's largest fragments of Eden, but most of them are damaged or cannot be known for their correct usage. History ResearchElizabeth Aden, the former director of the department (also one of the inner temple members), has been studying ways to repair the "Shroud of Eden" for several years and has successfully made a brief contact with the consciousness of Consus of the Ishu through the shroud. In 2015, Aden was killed by an assassin. (From "The Hero")

In October 2016, Simon Heatherway took over the History Research Department, and he also replaced Aden's position in the inner hall. After Simon took over, his first job was to use himself as the research object of Animus and discover memories related to the fragments of Eden. Through this experiment, he experienced the memory of his ancestors, Jean of Arc's childhood sweetheart Gabriel Laxa, discovered the assassin mentor during the Hundred Years' War, and successfully found a way to reactivate the sword of Eden that Absteig now owned and believed to have been damaged. This sword of Eden once belonged to Jacques de Mole, the last commander of the Templars in history. It was once held by Joan of Arc during the Hundred Years' War. François T. German, the commander of the Great Revolution, obtained the sword again, but was "destroyed" by the assassin Arno Dorian and lost his divine power. The sword is now preserved as an ornament in CEO Alan Rikin's office. (From the novel "Heaven")

Absteiger appeared in the ACO to deal with the accident Sigma squad, commanded by Yuhani Otto Borg, one of the inner temple members, and its main task was to hunt down members of the Assassin Brotherhood. That's why the assassin mentor William Myers said to Layla, "It seems they have regarded you as an assassin." Although the Sigma team once captured William alive in Cairo, many of the other operations ended with heavy casualties - the same is true in the ACO.

As for why Absteg directly sent Sigma team to kill after Layla and Deanna briefly lost contact, one of the reasons should be the importance of Bayek's mummy. Another reason should be that it is currently in a very sensitive period: at the end of 2016, Allen, the leader of the Great Commander and CEO, was assassinated at the Knights' Order Conference, and Isaiah, the director of the Eagle Nest, privately took away the two spear tips of the Trident Eden and blatantly rebel against the Knights (from the novel "Descendants"), all of which imply the loopholes inside the Knights Templar.

However, in addition to the Sigma team, there are other similar action teams within Absteig, and their missions are even more mysterious. In the novel Heresy, Alan Rekin assigned Omega squad to secretly monitor Simon Heatherway, who had just taken over the Department of History Research, in an attempt to prevent him from discovering some information through Animus that Alan didn't want others to know. Even after Simon successfully repaired the Sword of Eden, Allen still did not relax his surveillance work, and he also mentioned the Alpha Squad. Obviously, as the Grand Commander of the Templar (the Grand Commander is not the highest authority in the modern Knights Templar), Guardian, Member of the Inner Templar and CEO of Absteig, Allen has dissatisfaction with other colleagues and the Elders' Council - Movie VersionThe Council of Elders also expressed disagreement with Allen's idea of completely eradicating free will. In order to realize his plan, Alan Ruijin obviously kept a backup plan. Unfortunately, when he thought he could get the Apple of Eden and gain higher rights, he was assassinated by Kelem Lynch.

Bayek and the Guardian

Medjay, this is a historical title that Bayek has. In ACO's forward-looking report, the author translated it as "Desert Ranger", while the official translation in the official game is "Guardian", which is sometimes used together with another word "protector" representing the Guardian. In Layla's notes, she tagged "Medjay" as "police" or "soldier", but also said she needed to find a better description. In the game's setting, "Medjay" was once the guardian of the Pharaoh, helping the Pharaoh maintain his power. However, according to the general public's attitude towards Bayek in the game, "Medjay" should be relatively close to the real professional positioning in history - the elite police force related to the royal family.

After the Ptolemaic dynasty, these foreign pharaohs suddenly began to suppress "Medjay", resulting in the number of Medjays getting smaller and smaller. (There seems to be more records about this incident in the prequel novel "The Desert Oath", but since the novel has just been published and the author has not obtained the book yet, the detailed records of this incident will be temporarily retained here.)

Bayek's generation, he was already the last "Medjay". In the middle of the game, Bayek formed an alliance with Cleopatra with the recommendation of his wife Aiya. Crioppertla gave Bayek a brand new "Medjay" badge and announced that he was promoted from the guardian of Pharaoh to the guardian of all Egypt. If it is a classical martial arts novel, then "Medjay" at this time should be the sword-bearing guard walking forward with a Shangfang sword.

Bayek received his father's education when he was young and learned the way the Guardians fought. When Bayek was young, he left Siwa and traveled to Egypt. During this process, he met Aya, a Greek descendant born in Alexandria. Aya followed him to Siwa and gave birth to a son Shimu. During his life in Siva, Aya also learned from Bayek how the Guardians fought.

The background of the story of ACO is: Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII went to Siwa to worship the Amon Temple, and the ancient preface behind it accidentally discovered that Bayek was the surviving guardian. In order to force Bayek to ask the way to open the ruins of the pioneers underground in the Amon Temple, the orderly defender captured Shimu, and Bayek killed his son by mistake during the battle. So Bayek and Aya began to hunt five of the Orders separately, but in the end they were involved in the civil war between Cleoptera and his younger brother Ptolemy XIII.

In the modern chapter, Layla discovers the caves of Bayek and Aya mummies, and players can also use it inAnimus's Katara Depression is found in its ancient version. The name of this cave is "Sabre Cave". When Bayek in Animus comes here, he will monologue: This is the place where he hid with Aya when he was young, and hope that their love will end here.

In the modern chapter, Layla will investigate Bayek's mummy and say, "Come forth by day, and I will guide you home." (Come forth by day, and I will guide you home.) Bayek will also say this in a side line later in the game. This is actually a sentence in the Guardian's Creed. The phrase "Come forth by day" itself comes from the original name of the famous Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Bayek in ACO does not have the same hawk-eye vision as the assassins in the old series, but his special abilities allow him to observe the world through the eyes of his companion, Aiying Sinanu. This true Hawkeye ability is also very rare in the assassin's bloodline. The only other ability known at present is Conner Kenway's youngest daughter, Joni Xiaodai (Io:nhiòte).

Aya and the Invisible

ACO's protagonist is undoubtedly Bayek, but his wife Aya is the indisputable second protagonist. Shimu's death involved Bayek and Aiya in the struggle between the ancient preceptors, but objectively it was Aiya who brought Bayek into the civil war between Cleoptera and Ptolemy XIII. Witnessing the great disaster brought to the country and the people by the orderly defenders and civil war, Bayek finally decided to establish the Brotherhood of the Invisible.

Bayek sets the goal that the Brotherhood should fight for free will, practice in the darkness and dedicate to the light, and Aya sets the basic creed of not killing innocent people, hiding in the crowd, and not endangering the Brotherhood. Even the logo of the Brotherhood evolved from the mark left by Bayek's amulet on the beach.

However, the river of history has forced the two to go their separate ways and embark on completely different paths for their respective careers. Bayek stayed in Egypt as a guardian, while Aya went to Rome, where he established a fraternity branch, continuing to fight against the ancient orderly forces that spread to the European continent.

At the end of the ACO plot, Aya abandoned her identity and killed her personality. She became a true invisible person with the title of invisible goddess Amonnet. In Assassin's Creed 2, we learn through Ezio's adventure: Amonnet is one of the greatest assassins in history. She successfully assassinated Cleoptera and later left a tomb in the Cathedral of St. Mark in Venice. As for why Aya's mummy returned to Egypt and was buried with Bayek in the end, this may be the story to tell the sequel.

Mysterious ancient mechanisms

Bayek can find the ancient tombs all over Egypt and the sphinx.to 6 pioneer ruins. When the ancient mechanisms in these ruins are turned on, several mysterious messages will be played. (Each piece of information is very long, so I will not repeat the specific content of the information here. You can go to the game to explore it yourself.)

According to the system voice prompt before playback, these messages were recorded by different "commissioners" between 91 and 109 days after "Great Catastrophe", and will be played to specific characters - Bayek/Lyra - at specific times and places. From the perspective of expression, these messages are very close to the message that pioneer Minerva gave to Desmond who entered Animus through Ezio in Assassin's Creed 2. However, as hidden content in the game, these information itself has a lot of articles, so let’s analyze it one by one below.

The first message: The message from the messenger questioned the authenticity of "reality". The message mentioned Animus and the bleeding effect, mentioning "Zhuangzi two thousand years ago", Plato, as well as professors from Oxford University and astronomers at MIT. The most important thing is that the message mentioned that the consignor has undergone thousands of simulations in order to find the most perfect version and find Desmond.

The second paragraph of the message: A direct message from a suspected pioneer, talking about the function of human language, and thinking that time is also a language and a password. For pioneers, time is existence itself. They can recognize the future by decrypting time, but humans cannot understand the language of time.

The third message: The apostle's message mentioned that they left this message based on records on a mysterious wall, and also mentioned what Brutus said in the secret room below the arena two thousand years ago. Scientists in the era where the correspondents are located can interpret information on the wall, but cannot prevent the tragedy from happening above. But the accreditor hopes that someone can change the future.

The fourth paragraph comment: It mentioned the incident of Desmond sacrificing himself to save human civilization on December 21, 2012. It points out the fluidity and continuity, fixedness and invariance of time language, and believes that Desmond's behavior is self-corrected by the fluidity of time and does not really change the node of the world's destruction.

The fifth paragraph comment: Another direct message that is suspected to be a pioneer, which believes that "perception determines the point of view." The person who leaves the message (the pioneer?) tells the observer that it is they who design humans to what they are now, without giving humans the ability to perceive time (i.e., the sixth sense). This limitation creates the limit of human cognition.

Second message: Final message. This correspondent should be a member of the Ancient Order/Knights Templar. In the future, they try to rely on order to dominate the world, but in the end they find that the so-called order is just a rule that others have already set, and it is just a scam. The apostle affirmed Animus, which gave humans the ability to peek into the past; but he also denied Animus, because Animus follows the established rules of time, only allows observations but not changes. But the accreditor believes that Layla's own transformation Animus has the ability to break through the rules. He called Layla a "small version of himself" and hoped that Layla could do what he could not do: recognize the world and rewrite reality.

The 6 pieces of information hidden in the game, each seems to exist independently, and the messenger of each piece of information is different. But when we read this information carefully, we can find many doubts:

1. This information comes from the "Great Destruction", but this "Great Destruction" is obviously not the great destruction that led to the demise of the Ishu civilization. This "Great Destruction" happened after Desmond saved the world on December 21, 2012;

2. The messenger learned about the existence of this great destruction through some ancient information, but he could not change the reality;

3. Some of the contributors are obviously modern or near-future humans, while the other part is the pioneer Yishuren;

4. This information is preserved in ancient institutions, but comes from the modern/future, predicting what is coming, and the purpose is to display it to Layla, a modern man who returns to the past through Animus;

5. Time is the key to solving everything, but the Yishu people limited their ability to perceive the rules of time when they created humans;

6. Layla is the last hope to save the world.

After comprehensively analyzing the information revealed in this information, the author made some personal inferences:

History continues to move forward as set. Desmond sacrificed himself to save the world on December 21, 2012, but released the soul of Juno, imprisoned in the Grand Temple. There is still endless wars between the Templar and the Brotherhood of Assassin still surround the fragments of Eden, while Juno and her followers have been secretly planning to rule the world.

Desmond's sacrifice only delayed the destruction of the world and did not really solve the problem. At some point in the future, Juno is likely to successfully rule the world, but it has not prevented the great destruction from happening. The Ancient Orders/Knights Templars played an accomplice in their dominance of the world for a long time, but eventually they found that the order they pursued could not bring peace to the world. Through some intelligence from the forerunners, they found that in addition to Desmond, Layla might have the ability to save the world (or Layla has the ability to revive Desmond). So he used Animus to simulate various possibilities, and finally found Layla who transformed Animus privately and broke through its limitations, and left these mysterious messages in Layla's Animus.

In other words, the "real world" where Layla is located in the game is actually simulated by Animus. In Assassin's Creed 3, we can learn that through the fragments of Eden, thoughts come true and time travelThese miracles of time and space are not completely impossible for Yishuren, but they are very dangerous. Although humans were deprived of the ability to understand time by Yishuren at the beginning of design, Layla's Animus broke the rules, perhaps this could allow her to understand the essence of time, break the boundaries between virtual and reality, and reshape reality.

But at this stage, Layla has only received this information and has not fully understood its essence. Once Layla understands the rules of time, she is likely to destroy the virtual world, reshape the rules, and avoid the occurrence of "great destruction" like Neo in "The Matrix". Or is Layla's destruction of the virtual world itself, but this great destruction will bring true free will to mankind.

At the end of the final message of the messenger, the male messenger said to Layla: Incarnation will become chaos, you and I are no different from the gods. Nothing is true, and everything is OK. (Be the chaos that comes to be, Gods are just like you and me. Nothing is REAL, everything is permitted.)

Although the Chinese translation is more rhymeful, the original English text seems to be closer to the author's analysis: Layla must transform into chaos and destroy some things, so that she will find that the Yishu people who have performed many miracles are actually as ordinary as ordinary humans.

As for the latter half, the classic quote "Nothing is true, everything is permitted" in Assassin's Creed has been changed. Although "true" and "real" both have "real" meanings, "real" here tends to be more "real" meanings, implying that Layla himself is also a character in Animus' virtual world.

Of course, the above is purely personal brains and is not an official explanation - of course, the author believes that the game's screenwriter will not choose to solve the puzzle directly in the early stages of the series' soft restart.

So, what is the truth of the upcoming so-called "Great Destruction"? What is the connection between Layla and Desmond? How much connection does she have to Bayek and Egypt? These questions may only be answered in the new work of Assassin's Creed.