The Truth

"Hello. This is...they call me Subject 16. Listen, I don't have much time - there's something I have to show you. We have been lied to this whole time; everything we know, everything we've been brought up to believe - it's wrong."

- Subject 16

The Truth is a side-quest which appears in both Assassin's Creed II and Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. They were created by Subject 16 with the intent to enlighten and possibly warn his successor in the Animus project. In both instances, The Truth files can be unlocked by uncovering a series of glyphs throughout the world and solving their corresponding puzzles.

Assassin's Creed II
In Assassin's Creed II there are 20 glyphs in all, and successfully solving the puzzle in each one will unlock a video, giving insight into the origins of the Templars, the Assassins, and the Pieces of Eden. However until all of the videos are unlocked, each of the individual twenty videos are extremely brief - barely a second long - and virtually incomprehensible. These glyphs are based upon the markings left behind at the end of Assassin's Creed by Subject 16.

Video of The Truth


In the video, Adam and Eve are dressed in skin-colored bodysuits, making them appear as if they are naked, and are seen running away from something. The two of them move through an open area which may be the Garden of Eden.

The scenery is a mixture between flora, a reflective blue material that resembles glass, and a white surface which sounds like stone. The garden is decorated in a futuristic style, contrary to the biblical setting. Moving through a circular automatic door, Adam and Eve use free-running to scale a large, futuristic building.

While they are climbing up the building, a silhouette of a humanoid, who appears to be floating, can be seen holding a Piece of Eden to control several human slaves. These workers appear to be in an environment similar to that of a metal refinery, with one slave in the foreground clearly using a hammer to shape a metal object. The brief appearance of the silhouette is visually similar to Minerva, sharing the flowing clothes and glowing emblem on the headgear.

Adam and Eve continue climbing until they reach the roof of the building. The camera zooms outwards, revealing many other futuristic buildings surrounding them. Further in the background, a mountain is clearly visible, while there is little other elevation in land elsewhere. The terrain is lush, and large forest boundaries are visible.

Eve can then be seen to be holding a Piece of Eden; before saying "Adam, I have it!" Adam acknowledges Eve, calling out her name, as both turn to look at what was presumably chasing them. The memory file ends with Eve warning Adam "Look out!" and binary code flashes up. The numbers read: "EDEN".

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
"I am with you until the end. Find me in the darkness."

- Subject 16 to Desmond.

In Brotherhood the glyphs return as rifts, which can only be seen and interacted with in Eagle Vision. These rifts are located near key locations within Rome, and must be climbed into rather than simply being found and interacted with. They retain some of the former puzzles such as the rotating pictures and image finding puzzles from the former glyphs, but also include new puzzles:
 * Chess: Desmond is shown a chessboard with all corresponding chess pieces as well as a riddle that tells him which piece to use and where to move it.
 * Code Breaking: Desmond is given a variety of images and a riddle. The player can alternate between this screen, and a screen containing a two-layered rotating wheel with symbols acting as a code sheet as well as 2 rows of 4 boxes bearing changeable symbols that act as a code entry box. By reading the riddle, the player can search through these images for the hidden object that reveals the "correct coordinates" located in a single image. When finding the correct coordinates, the player can rotate the wheel to break the code.
 * Sound Wave Matching: Desmond is given an audio recording and multiple sound waves. By selecting the correct sound waves to match the correct one shown on the screen, the player is allowed to listen to the audio tape and/or move on to the next puzzle.
 * Quarantine Zone: This is always the last puzzle of every Rift. Desmond is shown a blank screen with a relatively small circular crosshair that reveals red, blinking dots as well as a background image. These dots emit beeping sounds the closer the crosshair is, and all must be "activated" in a certain amount of time. If any of the remaining dots are not activated, they are reset and the player must find all of them again. These dots remain in the same exact spot every time, even after being reset or whenever the player decides to replay the Rift. After completing this puzzle, Desmond is given a video clip.

Each of the videos is a series of seemingly corrupted data with "broken" words on the top left corner. When all videos are unlocked, they read the miracle is in the execution. After unlocking all of the videos, a virtual reality-like area will be loaded, and Desmond must run through it. When the player finishes the "obstacle course" they will encounter an "incomplete data form" of Subject 16 with who Desmond has a brief conversation before Subject 16 disappears.

Conversation between Desmond and Subject 16

 * Animus Voice: Compiling sub systems. Infrastructure. Tendons. Heart.
 * Subject 16: Voice.
 * Desmond: Subject Sixteen?
 * Subject 16: Yes, yes, subject seventeen.
 * Desmond: You’re dead. I saw your blood.
 * Subject 16: No time. It is far later than you know. Too late to save them.
 * Desmond: Who?
 * Subject 16: She is not who you think she is. Everything you hope to become. Everything you hold dear. It's already gone.
 * Desmond: Explain. Please.
 * Subject 16: Eden, she… in Eden, find Eve. The key, her DNA.
 * Desmond: Tell me.
 * Subject 16: I cannot… the sun (son), your son (sun)… too weak. Must replenish energy.
 * Desmond: Don't go!
 * Subject 16: I am with you, till the end. Find me, in the darkness.

Trivia

 * The mountain in the video bears a striking resemblance to Mount Kilimanjaro, thus placing the scene in Africa. This would make sense, as humanity is said to originate from Africa (specifically mid-Africa, the rough location of Kilimanjaro). The Codex map also shows that a Piece of Eden was located in the vicinity of Kilimanjaro. Supporting this theory even further is Lucy's mention of Vidic tagging memories in ancient Africa.
 * The video seems to take place immediately before the human rebellion and subsequent war. As Adam and Eve seem to have taken the Apple without permission, and are probably trying to escape with it, one can assume that they had started the rebellion.
 * At the end of the video, a block of binary code can be seen briefly. The code is "01000101 01000100 01000101 01001110" which translates to EDEN. Another point of interest is that there are 20 zeroes and 12 ones, a reference to the supposed doomsday year of 2012.
 * The viewing angle of the camera suggests that the video is a recording of one of Subject 16's Animus sessions. This in turn would indicate a direct lineage between 16 (and perhaps even Desmond), with Adam and/or Eve.
 * The music being played during Adam and Eve's escape from Eden in the video is the same music that plays while Desmond and Lucy are escaping Abstergo at the beginning of Assassin's Creed II, and when Ezio is running away from the guards after the execution of Petruccio, Federico, and Giovanni at the hands of Uberto Alberti. It is also the "Open Conflict" song of Forlì and it is entitled "Wetlands Escape" on the Assassin's Creed II Original Game Soundtrack.
 * In the PS3 version, Eve does not say "Look out!" At that point, it is silent and the binary for "Eden" appears.
 * There are only 10 puzzles in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, though they are not hidden behind glyphs, but appear to be rifts in the memory that allow one to enter the programming of the Animus itself.
 * On the back of the case for Assassin's Creed II, it says "The Truth Is Written In Blood". The side-quest is "The Truth", and Subject 16 is the cause for the glyphs which give you the side-quest, and he had written symbols of the glyphs in his blood at Abstergo.
 * On the first wall of The Truth of AC:B, the climbing cubes form the Assassin's Symbol.

Video
thumb|left|300px|The Truth - AC IIthumb|right|300px|The Truth - AC: Brotherhood