Erudito

"I'm going to have to work harder to open your eyes, aren't I?"

- Erudito to an Abstergo agent.

Erudito, also dubbed the Erudito Collective, was a collective of several people who possessed one goal – to directly oppose Abstergo Industries and make various concealed truths about the corporation known.

Though it was originally unclear whether Erudito was one or many people, evidence suggested that a collection of several independent users was more likely, which was later confirmed through their correspondence to an individual who appealed to Abstergo's aims. Despite this, the members who made up the Erudito Collective were united by their common purpose.

Erudito often made use of emails to spread information, some of them coming into contact with Desmond Miles and the participants in Abstergo's Project Legacy and Animus games console.

Project Legacy
"You must understand that contact with this "Erudito" user will not be tolerated."

- Abstergo to one of its DDS participants.

In an attempt to educate and protect the agents participating in Abstergo's DDS Program, dubbed Project Legacy, Erudito hacked into the DDS itself and began communicating with its users through e-mail or within the record of memories themselves. Through this, Erudito made several memories previously blocked by Abstergo accessible to those involved, of which most contained valuable information on the Assassins or on Pieces of Eden such as the Shroud.

At one point, Erudito commented, "Abstergo's not going to be happy I'm showing you this, which is exactly why I'm doing so. [...] They want you to stumble onto something without making any sense of it! Good thing I'll be watching too!" However, the memory involved was interrupted shortly after being accessed, as it had allegedly been "corrupted by outside intrusions."

Most of Erudito's emails to the Abstergo agents cautioned them about their carelessness, drawing attention to themselves by acting too confident, or pandering to Abstergo's wishes. In one such e-mail, Erudito dissuaded the participants from submitting their genealogies to Abstergo, which could potentially result in them having their memories farmed for the DDS Program later on.

Over time, Erudito's interference was detected by Abstergo, and an email survey (with a subject line reading "INTRUDER") was sent to all DDS participants, asking them what they knew of Erudito. Any agent who feigned ignorance received an e-mail from Erudito that simply read " :) ".

Alternatively, those who offered to submit a full report on Erudito received a message from Abstergo mentioning that "If we can track his patterns, we can begin to block his access to the DDS system and continue our work without further interruptions." This message was followed closely by an e-mail from Erudito, reading "You reported me? That stings. Not that it really matters... I am miles ahead of these goons. I'm going to have to work harder to open your eyes, aren't I?"

On Monday, 4 July 2011, Erudito hacked into the DDS main page, and proceeded to change the logo into a red and inverted version of the Abstergo logo, under which read "-_-Erudito Industries-_-". Erudito also shared a link to some files containing the Divine Science memories.

Their interference eventually led to a halt in the project, due to the risk of security concerns.

Assassin teams
"Make sure you stay in the loop."

- Erudito's advice for Desmond.

On 22 September 2012, Erudito sent an e-mail to Desmond Miles through the Hephaestus Email Network, in order to share the email passwords of the other Assassins within his team. The message advised him to "stay in the loop" and keep himself informed of the exchanges between Lucy Stillman, Shaun Hastings, and Rebecca Crane.

Animus hacking
When Abstergo began selling the Animus technology on a public scale as an entertainment product, Erudito hacked into players' accounts to reveal to them the truth about Aveline de Grandpré, in that Abstergo had "edited" her memories and portrayed her as a traitor to the Assassin cause. As such, Erudito hacked the truth back into the product, but the player would have to earn the ability to see it by tracking down and killing special civilians dubbed "Citizen E".

For another of Abstergo's products, Erudito allowed players to hack into videos and biographies of characters. These hacked videos would feature red scribbles drawn over the images, in a semi-comical fashion, as Erudito explained Abstergo's true intentions. Also, the hacked biographies would reveal the truth behind the people who the Animi Avatars were based on, either by expanding on their backgrounds or dispelling myths, often including whether they were loyal to the Assassins, Templars, or neither.

Erudito also introduced a new currency into the game, called Erudito Credits, to challenge Abstergo's currency and allow players to purchase items at much lower cost. This required the exchange of real money but proved an alternative to the Abstergo Credits which were earned by partaking in their product.

Trivia

 * "Erudito" was Italian for "scholar" or "learned one," which was appropriate given how much information Erudito had gathered on Abstergo.
 * Eurodito.png In addition, Erudito's online avatar, the, was a symbol of the fire given to humanity by , who in turn symbolized humanity's encompassing capability to learn.
 * When rearranged, the letters ERUDITO spelled out UDITORE, which was one letter short of "AUDITORE"; by extension, "uditore" in Italian also means "listener".
 * When Gamestop was "liked" on Facebook, an item called Erudito's Network for Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy could be received, which gave an Abstergo agent the higher probability to receive XP, florins or chance items.
 * On January 13, 2011, those who ordered an Abstergo staff sweater through Ubiworkshop received an email from Erudito, which explained the sweater's binary code. The message read "It's amazing how a few clicks can mar a whole production line. [...] Puzzle time, People. Let's get hackin' __-_-__"
 * The message was followed by the instruction to combine the binary code (01001100 01001111 01000111 01001001 01001110, or "LOGIN") with "www.AbstergoIndustries.com", and use the password (PFRDVJ5aLLg) to access the site.
 * Erudito would occasionally hack into the datadumpscanner, a data feed on Twitter, in order to interact with the users. Such times included Friday, 15 October 2010; Friday, 29 October 2010; Friday, 12 November 2010; Friday, 03 December 2010; Monday, 17 December 2010; and Tuesday, 21 June 2011.
 * On 8 August 2012, Erudito posted a message on the Assassin's Creed Twitter page, stating: "_-_-_He is gone. #16 is no more. And now they begin. To search for 1 more _-_-_". This referred to the date of death for Clay Kaczmarek, and of Abstergo's search for Desmond Miles.