Voronina journal

A journal was kept by the wife of Sergei, and later by her daughter and granddaughter. It detailed the life of the Assassins in the Assassin Science City in Protvino and the state of the Russian Brotherhood from 1917 to 2013.

Entries excerpts
1917= The Mentor himself hired me on this project. He told me that the Russian Academy of Sciences was founded in Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great in the 18th century, after intense lobbying by Gottfried Leibniz.

Much more recently, Sergey Fedorovich Oldenburg, a leading ethnographer and activist in the Kadet party, met with Lenin and agreed that the Academy should work with the new Soviet Regime. Both men are sympathetic to our Brotherhood and have given us access to several of their facilities. This facility is located just outside of Moscow and our presence will remain a carefully guarded secret.

My husband Sergei is here. He recruited me, and, although it's only been six years, I can't remember what life was like before him. We are a small community of scientists, revolutionaries, and Assassins. There is so much potential here. Our mandate is limitless: Work for the people, find advancements in education, technology, science... Open minds. We are just starting up, and morale is high.

My task is simple: Make a log of our work. Record the future as it happens. 1928= It's become clear to us that if Stalin is not a Templar, then he is, at the very least, their puppet. We miss Lenin more than ever.

Templar forces have infiltrated the Politburo, and they interfere in the affairs of the Academy. Yuri Petrovich Figatner, a Templar, heads a special "counter-revolutionary" commission and has turned the Academy into another Stalinist organization.

The Mentor is in hiding. We are being hunted like never before, and he is a target. He swore he would continue to give orders from seclusion. He laughed and called it his retirement. But there is no peaceful end to the work we do. There is only one end for people like us.

Under orders from our hidden leader, Sergei left our compound to hunt down Nikolai Orelov, the defector, and reclaim the Shard of Eden in his possession. It was a move born of desperation, and we have not heard from him in two years. I fear the worst. 1953= I've found mother's old journal. It's hard to believe that she was once so young and optimistic. I wonder if she would recognize the Brotherhood or the Academy today.

After Figatner's commission took over, wave after wave of punishments and condemnations crashed into anyone deemed “Anti-Soviet”. Many people loyal to our cause, scientists and Assassins alike, were either killed or forced into hiding.

After the war, the Academy of Sciences was able to reorganize. They were freed of Templar influence, and the Assassins finally managed to poison Stalin, and make it look like a stroke.

We had hoped to return to our roots, but now our own Mentor is dead. Suddenly, we are aimless, without vision.

Without a strong leader, we are losing influence with our government, and funding is drying up.

I think I will continue to write in Mother's journal. It's comforting, and we need to find inspiration from the past to build that better future. 1977= I was stealing animals from the Moscow zoo to use for testing when I saw a man being chased by police, though I knew them to be Templar footsoldiers. I killed them and was shocked to find that their quarry was an Assassin like me, but an American. As thanks, the man told me the cause of his predicament: A series of blueprints stolen from Abstergo. The plans document a machine called an “Animus.” It is unlike anything I've ever seen before.

He told me to take the plans to my team, to build this machine before the Templars. He said it had the potential to change everything. He made me promise to keep him up to date with our progress.

I asked how I would be able to contact him. He told me that he was in the city to meet with another Assassin cell based in Moscow. Are there really two? Is our Brotherhood so broken and fractured now that we cannot share a city?

He said that if I ever needed him, I was to meet him at this spot, between the old and new zoos, on the night of a full moon.

I asked how he would know that I had been there. The man smiled. So brash. So young.

He said: “I've got eyes and ears everywhere. I'll know, and I'll find you.”

The man's name was William. 1991= The Soviet Union has dissolved. The nation falls deeper into Templar hands.

From what I can gather, we are the only Assassin Science City left. With one maddening project that has haunted us for over a decade.

What is the Animus? It's the only question that I've been asked since I brought those blueprints back. I have no answer. From what we can decipher, it reads... not your thoughts, not your dreams, but... your memories? It sounds crazy to say out loud.

We've built one as best we can, but we lack Abstergo's resources, their technology. It requires enormous amounts of power. The few test subjects who have used it emerged from the experience as madmen. They are locked in another wing of the compound for care and study.

Nobody wants to pay for it. Nobody CAN pay for it. Whatever Assassins are left just laugh at us. They say we will not save Russia with a machine.

They pressure us to turn it into a weapon, to lower its potential into something crude that they can understand. Something they can sell for funds, or something they can kill their enemies with. Something USEFUL.

What happened to us? What happened to our future? What kind of world am I leaving to my twin girls? 2013= Mother long since abandoned her journal, but I've been transcribing it into our digital records. It fills the time and distracts me from the tragedy staring me in the face.

The Russian Government has made the sudden announcement that they are dissolving the Russian Academy of Sciences and replacing it with a new "public-governmental" organization with the same name. All facilities and other property of the RAS will be taken under government control. I smell a Templar plot, but who is left to fight it?

The Assassins who laughed at us and our machine, they're all gone now. We only survived because we never left the compound. Mother's Animus experiments were a disaster. Half of our facility was sealed off to contain its victims. We could hear them, always, screaming and clawing at the walls. How are they still alive? What did they eat? Each other?

Mother decided that she would only test it on herself. During a session in late December, there was a sudden power surge, and it was as though the machine came to life. Mother says she saw a vision of Eve, and took it as a sign to redouble her efforts. One by one, she forces the last of us into her machine in her desperate quest to save us and our cause.

And now, suddenly, the madmen have changed. They are no less insane, but now have massed near Mother's lab, as if they're waiting for something. My sister and I may be the only two sane people left in the building. Mother says it's my turn to go into the machine.

I have told Galina about Mother's journal and the Assassin at the bridge. Every full moon, she will find a way to be there. I hope someone is still watching.

Reference

 * Assassin's Creed: Initiates