Precursor box

The Precursor boxes are ancient artifacts created by the First Civilization, capable of interacting with other Pieces of Eden to accomplish amazing feats.

Once powered by lightning, one box was able to decypher the First Civilization language written in the Voynich manuscript giving the location of the Seismic Temples. Using the Koh-i Noor to power another box, the Templars used the artifact to translate the writings in the Amritsar Temple to locate the emplacement of other Temples.

Combined with Staves of Eden, the boxes also demonstrated to have the ability to imprint the memories of someone into another individual, like in 1918 when Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia ended up with the memories of Shao Jun.

Ezio Auditore's box
By November 1524, one Precursor box was in the possession of the retired Italian Assassin Ezio Auditore da Firenze, in his villa in Tuscany. The Chinese Assassin, Shao Jun, who had traveled there seeking Ezio's advice on resolving the problems in her homeland, was given the box and told that it would aid her. Ezio stated that she should only open it if she were to lose her way.

Upon returning to China, Shao Jun used the box as bait to lure Gao Feng, one of the Eight Tigers to her. She assassinated him but the box itself was taken by Yu Dayong. Eventually Shao reclaimed the box, assassinating Yu. Shao Jun entrusted the box to her shifu, Wang Yangming who took it to have someone help them study the box. However before he could do that Zhang Yong murdered him and took the box for the Templars, finally sending it out of China to other Templars.

Eventually, the box ended up into the hands of British Templar Francis Cotton. After the latter's death, his appointed successor, William Sleeman, took possession of the box and launched in 1841 a campaign to find Precursor Temples in India by using the box. In order to power it, he stole the Koh-i-Noor from the Assassins. However, his efforts were countered by Assassin Arbaaz Mir who recovered the stolen artifact and despite discovering a new Temple, in Herat, William had to flee with the box.

Decades later the box was now in possession of the Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, who in 1918 and along with his family was prisonner of the Bolcheviks in Yekaterinburg. Sent by the Brotherhood to recover the artifact, Nikolai Orelov was confronted to the Templars who had infiltrated theranks of the Red Army and also coveted the box. Infiltrating the house where the Romanovs were kept, Nikolai witnessed their murder but reached Princess Anastasia, who was holding the box, in time to secure the artifact.

However, as Nikolai was taking the Precursor box from Anastasia's hands, the shard of the Staff around his neck and the box interacted, and the girl was somehow imprinted with the genetic memories of Chinese Assassin Shao Jun. Suffering from a kind of Bleeding Effect, Anastasia became overwhelmed by Jun's skills and memories and the older man decided to take both her and the box to the Brotherhood in Moscow.

Shay Cormac's box
By 1735, another Precursor box had wound up in the possession of the French Templars, who were transporting it on aboard a galleon to Port-au-Prince, to be given to Bastienne Josèphe. However, the fleet transporting the artifact was attacked by the Assassin Adéwalé, who retrieved the parcel that contained the box from the Templar admiral. In July 1737, after two years of working alongside her, Adéwalé eventually handed the artifact to Bastienne.

By November 1751, both the Precursor box and the Voynich manuscript were in the possession of François Mackandal, Mentor of the Assassin Brotherhood in Saint-Domingue. Using the artifacts, Mackandal discovered the existence of a First Civilization Temple near Port-au-Prince and sent his subordinate, Vendredi, to investigate it. Unbeknownst to Mackandal, the Temple was part of a system that held the Earth together.

Vendredi activated the Temple's machinery, causing a massive earthquake which destroyed Port-au-Prince and the surrounding region. After the disaster, Master Templar Lawrence Washington stole the Precursor box and manuscript from Mackandal's camp and took the artifacts with him to Virginia, where the Templars studied the artifacts in an attempt to learn how to use them.

Shay Cormac, a member of the Colonial branch of the Assassin Order, assassinated Washington in search of the box in 1752. However, the box was already in possession of the Templar Samuel Smith, while the manuscript had been entrusted to James Wardrop, another noted Templar. In 1754, Shay had managed to track Smith down and assassinate him, with the help of a fellow Assassin, Chevalier de la Vérendrye. Shay recovered the Precursor box from Smith and delivered it to Benjamin Franklin, who was confident conducting electricity through the box would activate it.

With Shay and Hope Jensen's assistance, Franklin succeeded in powering the box, which projected a view of the Earth and displayed locations of several First Civilization sites, one of them being Lisbon, Portugal. The box was subsequently given to Achilles Davenport, the Mentor of Colonial Assassins, who kept it secure at the Davenport Homestead, the Assassins' primary base of operations in the British colonies.

In 1759, Hope managed to replicate Franklin's experiment and discovered another First Civilization Temple hidden in the Arctic. After the ordeal, Chevalier de la Vérendrye was tasked with hiding the box, and decided to ship it away from the colonies.

By December 1776, the box was in the possession of the French Assassins. Having switched sides to the Templars twenty years before, Shay learned of this and traveled to Paris. Rescuing Franklin from a group of criminals, Shay enlisted his aid in entering the Palace of Versailles, claiming to have a business meeting there. After a meeting in the palace, the Assassins entrusted the box to Charles Dorian. Having made his way inside, Shay assassinated Charles and took the box from him, reclaiming it for the Templars.

In February 2014, the Assassins Harlan Cunningham and Arend Schut stole this box from an Abstergo Industries facility in Rotterdam. Abstergo's Sigma Team led by Juhani Otso Berg engaged the Assassins in combat, forcing them to leave the artifact behind.

In 2015, Laetitia England assigned Juhani Otso Berg to deliver the box to Álvaro Gramática’s top secret lab, so he could use it for Project Phoenix.

Trivia

 * It was incorrectly believed by the Templar John Harrison in 1742 that Shao Jun's box was recovered by the Assassins and remained in the possession of the Chinese Assassins for about a hundred years after Jun's death. It was believed that they sent it to with the s. Curiously, Harrison was unaware that the artifact was in Templar hands at the time.