Isu

Those Who Came Before were an ancient race of beings, an incredibly advanced race who created the Pieces of Eden and humanity itself. Exactly who they were, how long ago, or how they came to die out is still largely unknown. What is believed is that they were an advanced race who were worshiped by ancient cultures such as the Greeks as gods. The woman known as Minerva said they were not gods, but a race more advanced in time who "simply came before".

Minerva revealed that at some point "Those Who Came Before" created the human race, possibly as some sort of slave race as shown in The Truth video. The race appeared to use humans as slaves and used the hypnotic powers of the Apples to control them to do their bidding. However, two humans named Adam and Eve stole one of the mythical fruits of the tree of knowledge described in the Bible (the fruit was the Apple of Eden). In truth, the two may have stolen the apple to free mankind from the oppression of their masters.

While the ancient race was more technologically advanced and powerful, humanity had the advantage of numbers. Minerva stated that both sides craved war, but they were so preoccupied with their fighting; an impending danger was approaching from the "heavens". This danger from the heavens is speculated by Shaun and Lucy. They hypothesize that it could have been caused by a massive solar flare which would have terrible impact on the Earth's weakening magnetic field, reversing the polarity and making the planet geologically unstable. Also, they mentioned the geomagnetic reversal of Earth's poles as a possible cause of the destruction. However, geomagnetic reversal is a natural affect which has occurred multiple times over Earth's history, the last of which was 0.78 million years ago.

Despite the unknown cause of destruction, humanity and the ancient race survived, as Minerva said "We built you in our image, we built you to survive" (confirming they did indeed create humanity). Both humanity and the ones who came before survived, though in dwindled numbers, and set to rebuild. As the Earth and mankind worked to recover, the race "endeavored to ensure that this tragedy would not be repeated". This lead to the creation of the temples, such as The Vault in Rome, which were "built by those who learned to turn away from war".

It can at least be established that by Ezio's time the race had since died out already (Minerva states that she is the last), and appear to have left the temples as a some sort of means to save the Earth in the event of another disaster.

It would appear they have some form of precognition, or ability to predict what will happen as Minerva told Ezio he was just a conduit and she spoke directly to Desmond, showing she knew that Desmond would receive the message by viewing it through Ezio in the Animus.

Also in the Truth file "Bloodlines" you must highlight all the painting of gods having children with humans, with the heading, "Behold the Assassins, the children of two worlds!", possibly meaning that at some point in time the humans and the "gods" (Those Who Came Before) had children with humans, the Assassins, that had special abilities (Eagle Vision), this would also explain Subject 16 saying, "Why do we have these gifts? Because it's in our blood!"

Meaning that Desmond and Subject 16 are both born assassins and that Altiar, Ezio and Desmond have Eagle vision because they are related to Those Who Came Before, and that the Eagle vision was passed on through their bloodline.

Trivia
As an interesting note, Minerva is one of the 8 statuettes you can collect in Monteriggioni. As Minerva is one of "Those Who Came Before," the other statuettes could be as well. The figures depicted by the statuettes are Neptune and Pluto, Jupiter and Minerva, Dianna and Apollo, and Mars and Venus. What is also interesting is that they are all Athenian mythological Gods. Could this mean that they are remnants of "Those Who Came Before" and survivors of the cataclysmic event described by Minerva? Could they be the ones that helped humans build the temples that she mentioned?