User:Alientraveller/Sandbox

Moral ambiguity
"What follows are the three great ironies of the Assassin Order: (1) Here we seek to promote peace, but murder is our means. (2) Here we seek to open the minds of men, but require obedience to a master and set of rules. (3) Here we seek to reveal the danger of blind faith, yet we are practitioners ourselves."

- Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad's Codex

Despite their relative benevolence to the majority of Templar activities, many Assassins expressed discomfort with their Order. When Desmond Miles was rescued by the Assassins, he assumed they were the "good guys", but Shaun Hastings advised him to "not get carried away", reminding him their function was to kill people. Rebecca Crane acknowledged "it's not ideal. And taking a life is never easy. But sometimes there's no other way. Sometimes, Desmond, people have to die for things to change." Desmond's ancestor Connor tried to avoid killing William Johnson, and when he had to, he told his Mentor Achilles that "I thought it might bring clarity. Or instill a sense of accomplishment. But all I feel is regret." Achilles comforted him, explaining to "hold fast to that. Such sacrifices must never come lightly."

Both Desmond and Lucy Stillman fell out with their leader William Miles: his cold demeanour and the harsh training he put them through since childhood led Desmond to regard his father as a "[prison] warden" rather than a father. Lucy defected to the Templars after being sent to infiltrate them, telling Clay Kaczmarek that William was "using" them and claimed "he doesn't think about the lives he's hurting. We aren't people to him."

Nikolai Orelov served the Order to please his father, with whom he had a negative relationship. When he left, he felt "I began as a crusader for change and now I am no better than a common grave-robber." When the Assassins in the FBI began holding his family hostage to make him give up his secrets, he opined to his son Innokenti "These are not honourable men, Kenya. They are killers. They live by old laws which apply only to them and then call themselves heroes." However, Orelov was also brutal towards his son when training him to fight the Assassins. Viewing these events via his genetic memory, Orelov's great-grandson Daniel Cross deemed the Assassins "a family of wolves, opportunistic, savage. They'll turn on each other at a moment's notice: they're anarchists. And anarchy can never lead to a unified world."

Connor expressed disdain for the Assassins' secrecy, an opinion shared centuries earlier by some Assassins under Altaïr's leadership, who disagreed with him taking the Order back underground. Altaïr wrote "They grow angry, insisting it is a mistake to shroud ourselves. They say it slows our work. But they do not understand the risks. To expose ourselves now would be too dangerous. I fear we would be branded madmen and attacked."

The Assassins also allied with dubious figures such as members of the House of Medici or Vladimir Lenin, or would spare the likes of Tomas de Torquemada, simply because they were not Templars. Vali cel Tradat left the Assassins before the Templars because they did not try to stop the Ottoman Empire's conquest of his native Wallachia.

Calculations
The First Civilization's mathematical studies made them proficient in the studies of alternate timelines.


 * The Apple of Eden showed Ratonhnhaké:ton that if his mother Kaniehtí:io had never died, then he would not have been around to confiscate it from George Washington and prevent him from being corrupted by its power.
 * Juno showed Desmond Miles what would happen if Lucy Stillman had lived: Abstergo would have arrived to claim Ezio's Apple of Eden, and then failed to prevent the cataclysm after placing it in the Eye-Abstergo satellite.
 * She later showed Desmond that if he did not release her from the Grand Temple, then the cataclysm would have destroyed humanity, and he would have led the survivors in a restart of civilization. Long after his death, history would have repeated itself, as Desmond would have been worshipped as a god, and his teachings used to justify mass murder.

Missing conversations

 * Kanentokon and Clan Mother have a new conversation in sequence 5, 7, 9
 * After River Rescue
 * Catherine and Diana
 * After Room at the Inn
 * Oliver and Corinne
 * Godfrey joking about Terry poking him with his tiny fists (after Room at the Inn)
 * After Norris Goes Courting
 * Achilles examining his robes
 * Norris tells Connor he likes Myriam (oddly enough, unless Connor really is so unfamiliar that he himself does not understand what "court" means)
 * After Pig Herder
 * Warren expresses joy with their new life
 * After Norris Tries Again
 * Norris and Connor talk names
 * After Get Me a Doctor!
 * Lyle, Warren and Prudence recalling Hunter's birth
 * Before Alternate Methods
 * Connor expresses skepticism of Washington's springtime strategy