Alan Rikkin

Alan Rikkin (c. 1951 – 14 December 2016) was the Chief Executive Officer of Abstergo Industries and a member of the Inner Sanctum of the Templar Order. He held the positions of Grand Master and Guardian within the Order, answering directly to the General of the Cross and the Council of Elders.

Early life
An Englishman, Alan Rikkin was born around 1951. At some point he established himself as a member of the Templar Order, rising to the rank of Grand Master, and as a highly positioned employee of Abstergo Industries. Rikkin eventually married and, in 1980, he and his wife had a daughter together: Sofia. Around this time, he also initiated what would become a thirty year project with the Abstergo Foundation Rehabilitation Center to seek out the means to suppress humanity's free will and bring the world under the total control of the Templars while purging the planet of the Assassin Brotherhood.

Rikkin became a widower and single parent after Sofia's mother was killed by the Assassins in 1984. With the loss of his wife, Rikkin turned into a colder man. He was a distant yet controlling father who tightened the security at their homes, ensured Sofia had a private education under governesses and forbade his lonely daughter from playing with "ordinary children." Sofia would wake up at night screaming, afraid that the Assassins would make her an orphan but Rikkin was too busy running Abstergo.

Templar career
Work at the Abstergo Foundation brought the company closer to tracking down a specific Apple of Eden that the Order had been chasing for centuries with the ability to bring about the Templar endgame. They learned that the object, known amongst themselves simply as "the Artifact", had once been held by the 15th century Spanish Assassin Aguilar de Nerha. However, over the years de Nerha's bloodlines had eventually died out except for one, that of Mary Lynch, an Assassin in her own right.

In 1986, Rikkin led a strike-team to capture Mary Lynch in Mexico. Intending to put the Assassin into an Animus to uncover clues to the whereabouts of the Artifact, they arrived too late. Though they captured her husband, Joseph, Rikkin was unable to prevent Mary's suicide or stop the escape of her son, Callum.

At the turn of the millennium, Rikkin was among those informed by Warren Vidic that Daniel Cross had returned to Abstergo's facility in Philadelphia, after Cross had assassinated the Mentor of the Assassins. In 2010, Clay Kaczmarek was tasked by William Miles to hack Rikkin's personal computer in the hope of learning more about the Animus project.

Rikkin succeeded the previous CEO of Abstergo Industries after their death in January 2012. In a tape, Rikkin's predecessor encouraged him to stay on course after all he had learned from the previous Grand Masters, and reminded him that the free market would soon collapse, and that he needed to establish the New World Order before all turned to anarchy.

Later that year, Abstergo was hit by a scandal over the testing of their New Fluoride product; the United States government threatened to freeze Abstergo's assets, which coupled with the loss of an Apple of Eden in the DIA satellite accident, forced them to hasten the completion of the Eye-Abstergo satellite.

Animus Project
"I'm about ready to pull the plug on your Subject 17. So either get me results or get another person into that Animus."

- Rikkin giving orders to Warren Vidic.

Rikkin oversaw the Animus Project supervised by Vidic and Lucy Stillman, reviewing the data obtained from Subjects 12-16. He became frustrated that it was taking a few days for Desmond Miles – Abstergo's seventeenth subject in the program – to synchronize with the memory they needed to map the locations of the Pieces of Eden, one of which would replace the Apple needed to power the Eye-Abstergo satellite.

Rikkin, David Kilkerman, and Henry Liman came to the Animus Project laboratory in Rome the day after an unsuccessful attack from the Assassins. Vidic had obtained the necessary memory, to which Rikkin responded he would send teams to collect all of them, should anyone else obtain one and cause trouble in the Templars' New World.

Rikkin also ordered that Desmond be terminated, but Stillman retorted, saying that they needed him to obtain any more information on the sites from his genetic memory, so Rikkin deferred to her judgment.

On 17 December, Rikkin contacted Laetitia England, after she reported that Desmond Miles had stolen a Precursor power source in Manhattan.

Managing Abstergo
Rikkin became acquainted with Olivier Garneau (the CCO of Abstergo Entertainment) and, in 2013, contacted him about his progress regarding the Observatory.



On 21 January 2014, Rikkin sent a message to Melanie Lemay, congratulating her for her role as CCO of Abstergo Entertainment. Because of her hard work, Rikkin offered her a raise and personally stated that he was looking forward to working with her in the future.

At some point, Rikkin wrote a memo to Álvaro Gramática regarding his concerns with the Observatory. In the memo, Rikkin wrote that his position as the Guardian required him to confer with 2 other Guardians before passing the information to the General of the Cross, who would apprised Gramática within a week. He also wrote that if Gramática may proceed with his plans if he did not receive any updates from the General of the Cross and that he would contact the Grand Masters in Cuba, Mexico and the United States to get a grip on the situation.

On 17 October 2015, Rikkin had a conference with Isabelle Ardant. He was later contacted by Álvaro Gramática after Violet da Costa retrieved a Shroud of Eden from the vault under Buckingham Palace and the Phoenix Project was accelerated.

Spying on Hathaway
In October 2016, Rikkin conducted the induction of Simon Hathaway into the Inner Sanctum. After the ceremony, Rikkin granted permission to Hathaway when the Templar told him about his new project, to explore the genetic memories of Templars to rediscover lost secrets. Hathaway planned to explore the memories of his ancestor during the Hundred Years' War to learn more about Jeanne d'Arc's Swords of Eden and Rikkin gave him one week to prove the usefulness of his approach.

Overseeing Abstergo Foundation
Following the events involving Hathaway, Rikkin arrived at Madrid to assist Sofia with locating the Apple of Eden. After learning of Callum Lynch's conviction for murder, the Templars faked Lynch's execution and brought him to Abstergo Foundation Rehabilitation Center to find the Apple once possessed by his ancestor Aguilar de Nerha via the Animus.

In the wake of the Apple's discovery, Callum escaped and, with two other imprisoned Assassins, reached London where he assassinated Rikkin before the assembled Council of Elders at the Grand Templar Hall and absconded with the artifact.

Personality and characteristics
"You told me she wasn't going to be a problem and here she is stirring up the shit again."

- Rikkin to Warren in an e-mail.

Rikkin could be a rude and vulgar individual. Despite both being members of the Inner Sanctum, his emails to Vidic were often disrespectful and impatient. However, in an email written for him with other Abstergo executives, Rikkin showed the intelligence and charisma necessary to head a company.

Lucy Stillman once emailed Rikkin, requesting information on a deceased friend and ex-employee, Leila Marino. The only response she received was an out-of-office notice, despite the fact that Rikkin continued to manage his other emails during the time he was supposedly away, even sending Vidic a message warning the latter to keep Lucy from asking difficult questions.

Rikkin was also ignorant of historical facts, proven when he mistook who was, believing Fawkes was involved in the French Revolution. When corrected by Caroline Grey, he snapped at her, claiming "We are making history here, the past is largely irrelevant."

One of the leaders of the modern-day Knights Templar, Alan Rikkin was determined to achieve his orders’ centuries-long goal to gain control over humanity and destroy the Assassin Order. Through Callum Lynch, and the ancestral memories he holds, Rikkin may finally have found the key to the Templar's endgame.

Trivia

 * The production team behind the Assassin's Creed movie tweeted Rikkin's business card: by calling the numbers on it, fans would receive a voice message by Jeremy Irons as Rikkin.
 * In Assassin's Creed 6: Leila, Rikkin is identified by Laetitia England as the Leader of the Templar Order.
 * Rikkin was part of the development team for Abstergo’s Liberation video game.

Non-canon appearances

 * Assassin's Creed (Les Deux Royaumes comics)