New World Order

"Peace. Stability. A world where men live without fear. People desire the truth, yes, but even when they have it, they refuse to look. How do we fight this kind of ignorance?"

- Prince Ahmet describing the Templar's goal.

The New World Order was the ultimate goal for the Templar Order, a concept of worldwide peace for humanity under the control and supervision of the Templars. For centuries, the Templars engaged in a secret war with the Assassins – who believed that humanity could attain peace using free will – in order to achieve the New World Order. When the Templars founded Abstergo Industries in 1937, the company managed to manipulate and puppeteer many important political figures to pursue their own goals.

Ideology
Governed by the belief that humankind needed order, discipline, and control in order to mask its barbaric nature, the Templars planned to create a new world in which they possessed absolute control.

The proclaimed new world seemed to be based on a utopian ideal, a world completely free of bigotry. However, the Templars also emphasized the establishment of a small ruling elite, who would control all aspects of civilization; from education, to military force and food distribution.

The Templars' rule would be one of so-called "benign tyranny," as although they would eliminate racism and the petty machinations of the warlords and princes of the time, they would simply replace that disordered chaos with their own arbitrary orders.

At its core, the Templars' goal of order was very similar to the Creed of their enemies, the Assassins. However, the latter sought peace through the education of the people, rather than through their control.

Ancient world
Since the dawn of the Templar Order, the concept of a New World Order had been heavily pursued. The Templars played roles in the establishments and expansions of many great kingdoms and empires, hoping to unite the world under the Templar banner.

Among these were notably the under King Xerxes I, the  under Alexander the Great, the  of China under Qin Shi Huang, the  under Gaius Julius Caesar,  under Cleopatra VII, and the  under Caligula. Ultimately, all of these Templar interferences were thwarted by the Assassin Order, who assassinated each of these individuals.

Middle Ages
By the early 12th century, the Templars had established themselves as a knightly order, known as the Order of the Knights Templar, and pursued their goals from a public face. The Knights Templar joined the Crusader army under King Richard I of England as part of the Third Crusade in the late 12th century, and from 1189 onwards, they continued their work in the, where the seat of the Assassin Brotherhood was also located.

When Robert de Sable became Grand Master of the Knights Templar in 1191, he began secretly recruiting Templar lieutenants on both the Crusader and Saracen sides of the war, who began to plot in defiance of their superiors to conquer the Holy Land, namely Jerusalem, under the Templar banner. Their plans were eventually thwarted by a lone Assassin by the name of Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, on the orders of his Mentor Rashid ad-Din Sinan, who was secretly a Templar as well.

Under the new Grand Master Armand Bouchart, the Templars purchased Cyprus from King Richard to continue their work in the Holy Land, but were ultimately routed and forced to return to due to Altaïr's interference, after he killed Bouchart in 1193.

Shortly before his death in 1312, the last publicly recognized Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay, understood that the Templars could not survive as a public order and sent nine of his most trusted men throughout the world, armed with the knowledge of the Ancients to pursue their goals globally, instead of under the command of one man.

Renaissance
By the time of the Renaissance, the Templar Order had spread throughout at least Europe and Asia. In Europe, the Templars were primarily centered in Italy, under the leadership of Grand Master Rodrigo Borgia, a cardinal who conspired to conquer all of Italy under the Templar banner. Though these conspiracies were thwarted by the Assassin Ezio Auditore da Firenze, Rodrigo managed to become Pope Alexander VI in 1492, giving the Templars full control over the Papal States.

However, by this time, the Templars had become too obsessed with power and greed that they forgot the true purpose of their Order. Cesare Borgia, Rodrigo's son, also sought to conquer all of Italy, but in his name only. During a heated argument, Rodrigo was killed by Cesare in 1503, and Cesare himself was killed by Ezio himself during the Siege of Viana in 1507, marking the end of what the Templars call the "Dark Age of the Order."

Elsewhere in the world, the Templars did not forget their true purpose, including in the and China. In the Ottoman Empire, Prince Ahmet, heir to the Ottoman throne, and Manuel Palaiologos, titular heir to the fallen, sought to bring peace and stability to the Ottoman Empire under the Templar banner.

In China, the Templars aided the ascendance of Emperor Jiajing. The Templars also began spreading towards the New World in the early 16th century on orders of Rodrigo Borgia.

Pirate Golden Age
At the beggining of the 18th century, the Templars sought the Observatory, a construct which had the ability to spy on every person of the planet, if a sample of that person's blood is available at the moment. The Carribean Grand Master Laureano de Torres y Ayala and his fellow Templars tried to use the information provided by traitor Assassin Duncan Walpole, not knowing that "Duncan" was in fact Edward Kenway disguised.

American Revolution
While the Templars in London continued scheming, Haytham Kenway was tasked with making his way to Boston to meet up with an associate who later turned out to be Charles Lee. It was there that Haytham founded the American Templars and soon spread Templar influence throughout Colonial America. With most of his obstacles gone and his associates gathered, Haytham became the Grand Master of the Templar Order in America. Eventually the Templars exterminated most of the Colonial Assassins, allowing the order to expand exponentially.

William Johnson worked with the natives to gather support for the British, Thomas Hickey aimed to assassinate George Washington, John Pitcairn lead British attacks, Nicholas Biddle patrolled the East Coast, while Charles Lee moved up through the ranks of the Patriots. Benjamin Church however, betrayed the order for profit. With Templar agents positioned on both sides of the war, America stood little chance to avoid Templar control. Even though the original members of the Colonial Templars were eventually killed by the Assassin Ratonhnhaké:ton, their work had everlasting consequences on the United States.

Modern times
In the late 19th century, the Templars developed the practice of, and Henry Ford and Ransom Eli Olds created the. Both of these were invented to keep the population manageable, as they gave the Templars easy control over both capitalists and workers. By manipulating individuals such as Joseph Stalin, the Templars also used Communism as a means to achieve their goals.

In 1937, the Templars founded Abstergo Industries, a multinational corporation that held control over nearly every company and organization in the world. While only the highest ranking employees of Abstergo were part of the Templar Order, many employees shared the same goal. Abstergo managed to manipulate many political figures into supporting the New World Order, namely Winston Churchill, Henry Kissinger, Margaret Thatcher and Boris Yeltsin. Other individuals such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and George W. Bush were also unknowingly manipulated by the Templars, but did not necessarily support their goals.

By 2011, Abstergo Industries had begun making preparations for a project called "Eye-Abstergo," a satellite enhanced with an Apple of Eden that could keep a close eye on humanity from orbit, by projecting it into Abstergo's already-launched Akashic Satellite Plexus. The Templars believed that could be achieved if the project were to be successful, and prepared the satellite for launch on 21 December 2012. Ultimately, Abstergo scrapped the launch of the satellite as they were unable to obtain the required Piece of Eden in time.