Violet da Costa

"That's the Brotherhood for you. We make rules, they break them. That's why they all have to die, see?"

- Violet da Costa, 2014.

Violet da Costa (born 1988) is an Abstergo Industries operative working alongside Juhani Otso Berg. She is also a member of the Templar Order and, secretly, the Instruments of the First Will. During her time with Sigma Team, she provided tactical support to operatives in the field and occasionally relayed orders from higher command.

Following the team's disbandment in late 2013, Violet was stationed at Abstergo Entertainment to update the company's security measures, while also aiding in the search for First Civilization artifacts.

Sigma Team
A Canadian, Violet completed a bachelor's degree with a double major in mathematics and computer science and after her graduation looked for work in the intelligence community. However, she was recruited by Abstergo and while her brilliant mind attracted the attention of the Future Technology branch and its director Álvaro Gramática, she nevertheless chose to work as a field technologist assigned to Sigma Team.

In June 2012, Isabelle Ardant assigned Violet off Sigma Team to work with Gramática for six months in Paris, in order to help the scientist to unlock the secrets of the original Shroud of Eden. Gramática discovered that he was able to trigger the artefact's healing function by shooting someone in the head while they were wearing it, causing the Precursor Consus to briefly possess the healed during the process. During months, Gramática had the willing Violet wear the Shroud, each time shooting her in order to converse with Consus while Violet's wounds were healed.

On 30 November 2012, she temporary joined Sigma Team again and oversaw the team's attack on an Assassin cell in Florence, keeping the operatives updated on their progress and passing on Berg's commands. During her boss' confrontation with Adriano Maestranzi, Violet detected a bomb, but her warning came too late, with the subsequent explosion destroying the safe house and killing everyone inside, safe Berg.

Nevertheless, the team was reformed soon after, with Violet as Berg's first recruit, tackling its first mission - apprehending William Miles in Cairo - on 12 December. On 21 December and through Consus, as Violet underwent her last seance with Gramática before being formally reintegrated into Sigma Team, they both witnessed the release of Juno from her millenary imprisonment in the Grand Temple after Desmond Miles sacrificed his life to prevent the world destruction by an incoming solar flare.

In the reformed team, Violet then served as tactical and technological support, using her keen ability to assess situations and identify priorities to tell her boss whom to kill first. In addition with her vast knowledge on technology, she also became a trained killer, her services becoming highly demanded. As such, she was frequently sent around the world to various Abstergo facilities in order to fine-tune and innovate on various operating systems, network security, and intrusion detection systems.

Phoenix Project
In late 2013, Sigma Team was disbanded and reassigned on the orders of Master Templar Laetitia England, with Violet being sent to Abstergo Entertainment in Montreal. Her purpose there was to update the subsidiary's security measures, as it played a crucial role in furthering Abstergo's Phoenix Project, and look into various Pieces of Eden; Berg would act as her field agent in a few of these cases.

In November, while looking for the Koh-i-Noor after his mission in India, Violet and Berg searched through the memories of Darius Gift, trying to learn more about his encounter with Albert Bolden in 1927. The Templars having discovered that the last known Black Cross was also the last recorded individual to have been at some point in contact with the artifact. However, they didn't discovered anything new about the artifact from the incomplete memories they had at their disposal, putting their inquiry under indefinite hold until their Order found a descendant of Bolden.

On 17 November, Violet and Berg who had grown concerned by the threat posed by Juno and her growing number of followers, went to Paris, in order to use the Shroud to contact Consus and gain insight on Juno's motivations. Defying the orders of the Inner Sanctum, who saw Juno only as a minor nuisance, the two Templars infiltrated the facility and despite failing to drug Gramatica, were allowed by the scientist to contact Consus, who warned them about Juno's dangerousness and scheming nature. On 25 December, under the orders of Berg, Violet also delivered the body of John Standish to Gramática, telling him that they wanted him to create the body of a Precursor in addition to the Phoenix Project's main goal of sequencing the DNA of the precursors in order to unlock the Pieces of Eden.

In February 2014, Sigma team temporarily reformed to retrieve the Precursor box from Assassins Harlan Cunningham and Arend Schut in Rotterdam. Violet once more took on her role as tactical support and objected when Berg decided to confront Cunningham by himself, but her worries were dismissed. The mission went awry when Sorkin was overpowered by Schut in hand-to-hand combat and used as a shield against snipers.

Schut managed to take out multiple Sigma Team members, following which he dropped a smoke bomb and escaped; Violet subsequently issued a call for extraction. Nevertheless, the mission was at least a partial success, as Sigma Team did succeed in recovering the artifact. Berg later ordered Violet to compile the relevant parts of the audio logs and send them to Laetitia, in an effort to have Sigma Team hunt Assassins once again.

In May of the same year, Violet was called by Berg from Essen, Germany about another artifact, the Ankh of Isis. At his request, she looked into the relic, but after some searching concluded that it probably did not actually exist, being pure misinformation spread by the Assassins. Berg then asked Violet to keep an eye out for any info on the Ankh, in the hopes that it might lead back to the Assassins.

Security breaches
"She's ahead of schedule on security upgrades and firewalls, but Helix is a target for Assassins, Erudito, and... the First Civilization consciousness. So there have been some setbacks."

- Laetitia on Violet's progress, 2014.

Due to periodic attempts from outsiders to access the Helix servers, Melanie Lemay had a proprietary detection system implemented in early August, with Violet handling the logistics. Over the next few weeks, she and her security team discovered a number of unauthorized data packets that were entering and leaving the servers. They subsequently decrypted and decoded them, revealing a number of audio, video, and text files of sinister origins. On 21 August, Violet alerted Melanie to the threat and promised to keep her updated as they learned more.

Sometime later, Violet observed a security breach unlike the ones she had seen before; seventeen servers were compromised simultaneously in perfect unison, each via completely separate backdoor programs. While the perpetrator did not take anything, they scanned almost everything, from genetic memory archives to raw DDS data, leading Violet to conclude they were looking for something.

When Violet discussed the incident with Melanie later that day, she shared her theory that some kind of AI was living in the network, moving freely between servers. Both women decided to attend a meeting regarding the security breaches in the evening. Upon learning more about the Instruments of the First Will and Juno, Violet grew worried that Juno would become unstoppable if humanity ever achieved "Singularity", a fusion of humans and machines.

Although Berg received Laetitia's permission to reform Sigma Team permanently in October, Violet could not accompany them as she was still busy securing Abstergo Entertainment. Berg decided to join her instead, to ensure her safety, as the building was a target for various groups. On 13 October, discovering that the Assassins were planning an attack on Paris facility, Violet dispatched the Sigma Team there and contacted Álvaro Gramática to warn him. However she was too late, as the Assassins were already attacking Gramática's laboratory, which they destroyed using explosives, destroying the Shroud and nearly killing Gramática in the process.

Cormac's memories
In early November, a Helix research analyst triggered a virus while exploring the genetic memories of Shay Cormac. After ejecting them from their Animus, Violet escorted them to Melanie as the other employees evacuated. While she initially intended to destroy the genetic memories to solve the problem, Berg intervened, wanting to study them instead.

Violet then recruited the analyst into helping her reboot the Helix in the bunker so they could access Shay Cormac's memories, but they were initially unable to reach it due to the virus also affecting other operating systems, preventing them from using the elevator. Over the next five days, she oversaw the analyst as they continued reliving Shay's memories, while simultaneously attempting to restore the building's servers and security.

When the analyst finished reliving Shay's memories, Violet and Berg asked them to upload the footage to the Assassin network, revealing themselves as Templars. They later invited the analyst up to Melanie's office, thanking them for their work, before presenting them with the opportunity to join the Order. Although Berg implicitly threatened to kill them if they refused, they did give the analyst time to think on the offer.

Hunting the Shroud
Violet, along with Berg and the rest of Sigma Team were tasked with assisting Isabelle Ardant with finding another Shroud located in London, for the Phoenix Project. She and Berg confronted Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane when they cornered Ardant in her office, right before the pair of Assassins were going to be killed, a series of explosions gave them both a chance to escape.

Sometime later they found the Shroud hidden under Buckingham Palace and travelled to the vault and retrieved the Shroud from its resting place only to be attacked by Hastings, Crane and Galina Voronina. Violet attempted to shoot Voronina when she was getting the upper hand against Berg but was tackled by Crane. She then attempted to shoot Shaun after he killed Ardant only for Rebecca to once again intervene, this time taking the bullet for Hastings. Violet retreated with the Shroud and left Berg and the recently arrived Sigma Team behind to complete the mission.

Violet later met with Álvaro Gramática, learning his intentions for the Piece of Eden: to recreate a member of the First Civilization. Álvaro then left her in his lab to report to Alan Rikkin. After he left, Violet called out to Juno, whose presence was in the room, stating that she did as she was asked and that she was scared. Juno told her not to fear her, to which Violet clarified that she wasn't scared of Juno, but instead she was scared for her if anyone found out what Juno had been doing. Juno simply stated that she would not only save her, but save all of humanity.

Personality and characteristics
On the whole, Violet is a rather blunt and straightforward individual, who has little patience for people that do not follow her orders. Much like her boss, she does not appear to think very highly of Melanie, mocking her by calling her a "super-chipper overachiever". Violet's mean-spirited sense of humor made itself apparent elsewhere as well, as she continually referred to the analyst as "numbskull", without them having really done anything to merit that nickname.

Though she is a member of the Templar Order, she is secretly another pagan follower of The Instruments of the First Will. This means she worships Isu's as deities, more specifically Juno. She also believes that humanity are meant to be the servants of the Isu beings. She may even believe that by doing her loyal service to The Instruments of the First Will, she will be awarded with life inside The Grey.

Her relationship with her boss is notably better, likely due to the amount of time they have been working together. Violet is also a self-professed history nerd, as demonstrated by her excitement when Berg described the Viking raid on Lindisfarne, which he had relived through one of his ancestors' memories.

Trivia

 * Violet wears a badge depicting Aveline de Grandpré.
 * Violet is a fan of the British science-fiction series , referencing it in one of the database entries.
 * Violet had done some research into Digital Cognizance Imprints, having studied the Kaczmarek case in 2013.
 * Following the completion of Assassin's Creed: Rogue's storyline, Violet could be found in Abstergo Entertainment's bunker, though she could not be interacted with.
 * It is unknown how long she has worked for Instruments of the First Will, whether she infiltrated Abstergo as their agent or became indoctrinated after joining Abstergo and the Templars.