Juhani Otso Berg

"The modern day Assassins are weak. It is only a matter of time before I catch the last of them, and kill them. But it is not enough for them to die. I want them to know how weak they truly are, and I want everyone to see them suffer. So on the day they finally meet me, they will welcome the death I offer them."

- Juhani Otso Berg, 2014.

Juhani Otso Berg (born 1985) is a former member of the, and by 2012, a high-ranking agent of the Operations Division of Abstergo Industries. Later, in December of that year, Berg was inducted into the Inner Sanctum of the Templar Order.

Early life
Before joining the Templars, Juhani was a part of the Utti Jaeger Regiment, which composed Finland's special forces. However, around 2010, he opted to become a mercenary, believing the pay would be better than that of the Jaeger's – Juhani needed the money to afford cystic fibrosis treatments for his newborn daughter, Elina.

One night, an Abstergo team headed by Dr. Warren Vidic broke into Berg's home and apprehended him. As Berg watched, Vidic gave Elina Abstergo-brand medication that he promised would help to cure her condition, with the promise of more doses if Juhani would join him.

Faced with a solution to his daughter's illness, Berg agreed, with one condition – to eliminate the one who had caused Elina to wake up and cry. Vidic granted it, and Berg ruthlessly killed the Abstergo agent.

Rise as a Templar
On 12 October 2012, Berg was briefed alongside several other Abstergo operatives who had impressed Vidic enough to begin training in the second stage of their Animi Training Program. Warren promised Juhani and the other operatives greater power, wealth, and information on the Templars if they succeeded, but also warned that there was no backing out from that point.

On 28 October, Berg had interested his superiors within Abstergo with his training in the Animus, enough to be promoted within the ranks of the Templar Order.

In an agent evaluation report conducted on 8 November, Ctibor Hašek identified Berg as a potential candidate for the Inner Sanctum, noting him as an obedient, loyal agent who was dedicated to the Templar cause. However, Hašek was concerned that Juhani's daughter could be a weakness.

On 16 November, Berg was sent to New York by Laetitia England, in order to investigate a cyber-security breach related to artifacts that Abstergo was tracking, one of which was located in a Manhattan penthouse.

There, he found Daniel Cross, who had escaped the Philadelphia facility the previous day and had been subsequently injured during a confrontation with the Assassin Desmond Miles. Though Berg was attacked by Daniel, who apparently suffered another attack of the Bleeding Effect, he was able to neutralize Cross and returned him to Abstergo. Nine days later, in, Finland, Juhani was seen spending time with his daughter.

Raid in Florence
On 28 November 2012, after an attack on the Abstergo campus by the Assassin Harlan Cunningham killed four Abstergo hackers and destroyed servers, Berg tailed Cunningham on the regional road SR2 in Italy. From there, Berg called his superiors and convinced them to allow him to follow the Assassin back to his base, instead of killing Harlan.

Successfully, Juhani tracked Cunningham to an Assassin base in Florence led by Adriano Maestranzi. Afterwards, he called for backup and was given command of Abstergo's Sigma strike team, before leading the Templar assault on 30 November.

Maestranzi, not wanting to abandon the base, detonated a bomb that destroyed the Assassins' hideout and files, and killed all of Sigma team except for Berg, who suffered burns that left facial scarring. Despite the outcome, Juhani's superiors were pleased with his performance, crediting him for the deaths of three Assassins – even though Cunningham escaped – and did not hold him responsible for the loss of Sigma team.

Master Templar
On 6 December, Berg was brought to a hidden chamber in Abstergo's Philadelphia facility, where he met with Laetitia. There, she made him a Master Templar and inducted him into the Templar Order's Inner Sanctum, but also had Daniel Cross inject Berg with a tracking device so they could monitor all of his movements.

Four days later, Juhani met with Vidic, England, Cross, and several other Templar operatives within the same room in Philadelphia, where England revealed that Abstergo had located the leader of the Assassins, William Miles, in Cairo, Egypt. Soon after, Berg was dispatched with a team to capture the Assassin.

On 12 December, Berg led the reformed Sigma team in cornering William inside a museum in Cairo, and successfully captured and extracted him from the city, taking him to Abstergo's facility in Rome.

In 2013, Berg led an Abstergo team to India assigned to retrieve Jot Soora, an employee of MysoreTech and a descendant of Raza Soora. The Templars' goal was to extract memories relating to the Koh-i-Noor from Soora.

In February 2014, Cunningham and his apprentice Arend Schut stole the Precursor box from a facility in Rotterdam. Berg led Sigma Team to retrieve the box. Berg ordered Sorkin to lead the team against Schut while he pursued Cunningham. On encountering Cunningham, Berg stated that he should have died in Florence to which Cunningham replied that he was too stubborn to die. The Assassins managed to escape, though the team retrieved the box.

In May, Otso Berg was entrusted with the mission of finding any information about the Ankh of Isis. When he was in Essen, Berg gave up, asking his partner Violet Da Costa to tell him all the oficial and un-oficial records of the Ankh. Then, they both started to suggest that the Ankh was just an attempt of the Assassin to make the Templars lose time following a fake Piece of Eden, without knowing that, in fact, The Ankh really existed. Berg continued his search for Pieces of Eden leading to Jamaica.

On 23 May 2014, Berg started a reconnaissance mission in Montego Bay, Jamaica. The purpose of this mission was to successfully uncover the now deeply buried Observatory, a First Civilization site. The mission failed however, as the Observatory was discovered to be concealed by lots of rubble, and it was noted in Otso Berg's journal that it collapsed sometime in the 18th century. Berg also noted that he would return with a larger group and try again to excavate the ruins of the Observatory.

In October 2014, Berg talked with an unidentified high ranked Templar, possibly Laetitia England, about an attack leaded by Gavin Banks that occurred in the Abstergo Laboratory dedicated to the research of The Sage John Standish in Paris, which ended in the destruccion of the Lab. Berg and Sorkin followed the Assassins to La Rochelle, where the Assassins escaped trough the ships that where waiting them after one of the Assassins, Galina Voronina, stabbed Sorkin 7 times, leaving him brutally wounded. Then Berg said to the Templar that the attack would have been stopped if the Sigma Team would been operating. After hearing this, the Templar accepted her mistake and gave Berg the autorization to reform Sigma Team. Berg asked The Templar for Violet Da Costa to re-join Sigma Team, but The Templar negated his demand, saying that Da Costa was busy updating Abstergo Entertainment's security and firewalls because of the recent problems with Erudito, The Assassins and The Instruments of the First Will. Berg accepted to go to Montreal to help Violet with her tasks to reform Sigma Team as soon as posible.

Abstergo Entertainment
By late 2014, Berg took over security in Abstergo Entertainment's Montreal facilities, posing as an independent contractor working for Abstergo. He, alongside Violet da Costa, supervised a research analyst as they explored the memories of Shay Cormac located in the Helix, which had a virus implanted in them.

After the analyst completed Shay's memories and uploaded them as a message for the remaining Assassins, Juhani along with Violet and Abstergo Entertainment CCO Melanie Lemay, offered the analyst the choice to join the Templar Order. Berg pulled out a pistol, reminding the analyst that their refusal meant death.

Personality and characteristics
Juhani proved to be a hardened individual, ensuring operations proceeded efficiently. After being recruited by Warren Vidic, he has become a strong believer in the Templar cause and ideology, seeing it as a righteous cause for a better future. He showed respect for both the Assassins and his fellow Templars, as shown in a series of logs regarding certain figures from both factions across the ages, who had inspired Berg in certain ways. However, he did possess a strong determination when fighting against the Assassins, and even a streak of cruelty, shown through his desire to see their mind and spirit broken by before allowing them to die by his hands.

As a former member of the Finnish Special Forces, Juhani possessed a diverse knowledge of melee and ranged combat. He was skilled to the point of being able to subdue Daniel Cross, another Master Templar, and took charge of the mission to capture William Miles in Cairo. However, he did not act solely based on orders alone, displaying a sense of flexibility in the field that resulted in him being scolded by his superiors. One such situation occurred during the mission in Cairo, as William Miles posed as a tour guide to a group of students once he had arrived. Laetitia England later accused him of avoiding conflict in order to protect the young civilians, as they reminded him of his daughter. Juhani resented the accusation, explaining that causing unnecessary chaos would have allowed Miles to slip away.

Opposed to causing a scene, Juhani opted instead to apprehend Miles in the Cairo museum, when the Assassin attempted to recover the First Civilization power source for the Grand Temple. Being a member of the Inner Sanctum, Juhani possessed knowledge of all activities in which Abstergo Industries was involved.

Trivia

 * Juhani is a Finnish cognate of the Hebrew name Yochanan, meaning "God is gracious". The name Otso is also Finnish, though archaic, meaning "bear". His last name, Berg, means "mountain" in several Germanic languages.
 * In an audio file, Juhani revealed to Violet that he had only used an Animus to view his own ancestry once, and discovered that one of his ancestors was a Viking raider.
 * In Assassin's Creed: Rogue, Juhani's clothes bore resemblance to the attire worn by Shay Cormac during his time as a Templar, and were also adorned by an emblem.