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Patience, brothers. Soon we will reveal the secrets of Dawn of Ragnarök. This article has been identified as being out of date. Please update the article to reflect recent releases and then remove this template once done. |
Aletheia was an Isu and the Dikastes of Atlantis around the time of the Human-Isu War. Unlike many of the known Isu who were deified by their human slave species, Aletheia became a personification of truth and was repulsed by those among her own people who had embraced divine status.[4]
However, she later became involved in a potentially scandalous inter-realm affair as the mistress of the Asgardian Loki, a union which produced three children: Fenrir, Jörmungandr, and Hel.[5]
When Aletheia suffered a grave injury, Loki, desperate to save his lover, transferred her consciousness into the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus. From there, she would one day interact with the Keeper of the Staff and help the Staff's heir in her journey. She also made numerous recordings on the Olympos Project and stored them in the Gateway to the Lost City, a vault connected to Atlantis. In order to teach Kassandra how to use the Staff, Aletheia also created several simulations based on the memories of her time as Dikastes of Atlantis.
Names[]
Aletheia was considered a god in Greek mythology. She was also known by her Roman counterpart Veritas.[6] The Norse name for Aletheia was Angrboða, who in Norse mythology was depicted as a jötnar. Her name of Angrboða could roughly be translated into "the one who brings grief," "she who offers sorrow," or "harm-bidder", while other sources translated it as "truth-giver."[7]
Biography[]
Dikastes of Atlantis[]
During the Isu Era, Aletheia served as the Dikastes of Atlantis, appointed by the city's ruler Poseidon. During her tenure, she attempted to bring balance by passing judgement on the city's laws and customs.[8]
At one point, Aletheia became aware of the Olympos Project,[9] a scientific exercise conducted by her fellow Isu Aita and Juno as a means to quell a rebellion by the humans if they ever revolted.[8] Horrified at their experiments, Aletheia made numerous recordings detailing their actions and stored them in a number of steles in a vault connected to Atlantis.[9] Seeing that Poseidon's prohibition of experiments on humans didn't stop the two Isu from using Atlantis' Knowledge to run their nefarious project, Aletheia advised the Dikastes Basileus to end the current cycle and sink the city for good.[8]
The enclosed content covers events or items that, while canonically experienced, may or may not have been altered in some manner and cannot be taken at face value.
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War with Asgard[]
Some time later, the Isu waged a war with their Isu brethren in the city of Asgard in Scandinavia. During the conflict, Aletheia fell in love with Loki, an Isu belonging to the Æsir group, with whom she mothered three children: Fenrir, Hel and Jörmungandr.[5] She and Fenrir lived in Jötunheimr and Loki would sometimes leave Asgard to be with them.[10] As such, Aletheia and Loki were forced to smuggle their son to Asgard with help from the Builder, who sought to kill Odin, the Asgardian Isu leader.[11] Before Loki left for Asgard, Aletheia spoke to the Capitoline Triad—Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva—who had started to search for a method to save their people from the cataclysm threatening them. They assured her that their success was imminent, as they had started developing a seventh method of salvation. Aletheia told Loki about the meeting, but he was not convinced since they had already failed six times before.[12] One day, Aletheia was hassled by Juno, who was trying to convince her to join her side and to help her prevent the humans from inheriting the world, to which Aletheia responded that Juno was underestimating the humans, as they would outlive their creators following the catastrophe. Suddenly, Odin, who was searching for a way to survive the disaster, entered Aletheia's abode, searching for her. Having heard rumors about the new method, he questioned the two women. Juno immediately told him about the Capitoline Triad's experiment.[10] As she had learnt from Loki that Odin had imprisoned their child,[13] and seeing an opportunity to learn about Asgard's defenses, Aletheia drove Juno away and tricked Odin into subjecting himself to a truth device. As Odin was weakened by it, Loki revealed himself and demanded to know what he would do to Fenrir. Odin was honest and told them that he intended to keep their son imprisoned until the solar flare struck the Earth. Satisfied with the answer, Aletheia incapacitated him and the two Isu hung Odin from a tree.[10] Unbeknownst to Aletheia, Odin, with help from Juno, later escaped and stole the "Mead" from Jupiter and Minerva,[14] using it to build Yggdrasil, which would upload the DNA of the Asgardian Isu and reincarnate them as humans millennia in the future.[15] |
Time passed and Odin, fulfilling his statement, locked away Fenrir definitively. Angered by Odin's actions, Loki talked to Aletheia about the situation. She reprimanded him, saying he should have been more careful when transporting Fenrir to Asgard. Desperate, Loki pondered about going public with their son's imprisonment. Aletheia attempted to calm him down, worried for their other children's safety if Loki's wife Sigyn found out about their affair, but Loki, determined to do something, left the conversation.[5] Shortly after, Loki returned to her, having killed Odin's son Baldr by poisoning him with mistletoe. Aletheia was worried that someone might have seen him commit the crime, but Loki only laughed in response.[16] It did not take long for Odin to identify his son's killer, and soon soldiers arrived at Aletheia and Loki's door. While the former became worried, the latter revealed that he would appeal to the High Council and tell them about Odin's crimes.[17]
Aletheia contacted Loki again, who had rid himself from the courts, with news from the High Council. Apparently, they had discovered that Juno had aided Odin in the theft of the Mead,[18] so she could use a sample of it to immortalize her late husband,[15] and stripped her of her title of Mother of Wisdom. Having heard rumors of the Mead's effects, Aletheia informed Loki that it required a human host, so they could be reborn as one of them. Loki was surprised, even disgusted, but Aletheia told him that it was a risk that they would be willing to take, if they were to survive their doom.[18]
Cheating death[]
As the Great Catastrophe approached and the time of the Isu started running short, Odin departed from Asgard to other lands to find a way to resurrect his son. Seeing this as a perfect opportunity to strike, Loki and Aletheia went to steal the seventh method from Odin's domains.[19] However, just before they could steal it, Aletheia was gravely injured. Concluding that it was the only way for her to survive, Loki transferred her consciousness into the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus.[3][20][21]
On the day the solar flare reached the Earth, using the calculations of the Staff, Aletheia devised a plan to be reunited with Loki in the future, instructing him to infiltrate the Yggdrasil chamber and use the machine to reincarnate himself as a human while she would wait in silence in the Staff. They bid each other farewell, as Loki returned the Staff to Hermes and then left for the Yggdrasil chamber.[22]
Helping the Keeper[]
Aletheia meeting Kassandra on Triton Island
Circa 421 BCE, a projection of Aletheia summoned the Spartan misthios Kassandra, the most recent owner of the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus, to the Island of Triton. There, Aletheia introduced herself to Kassandra, asking her to pledge herself to the "Heir of Memories" and vow to safeguard the Staff until it could be passed on to the Heir. She then told Kassandra to find Theras, in order for the Heir to continue her journey.[23]
After finding Theras, Kassandra was sent to find three tombs that were also instrumental to the Heir's mission. In front of each tomb, Kassandra spoke to Aletheia, who explained the former's role as the Keeper in more detail and claimed that she would help the Heir by standing before the tombs.[24]
When Kassandra returned to Atlantis and accessed its throne room with her Isu blood and the Staff, Aletheia appeared and explained that she had created simulations to help her learn how to control the Staff through the Keeper's Insights. Kassandra agreed to pass the trials and accessed the first simulation, based on Elysium.[25]
Aletheia showing holograms of the Isu rulers to Kassandra
After Kassandra completed all the simulations and awoke back in the throne room, Aletheia congratulated her and explained that the simulations were in fact trials. As the Isu revealed that they were based on her own memories, holograms of Leonidas, Brasidas, and Phoibe appeared, revealing that one purpose of the trials was to teach Kassandra to say goodbye to her friends and family. When the misthios asked if her loved ones were real in the simulations, Aletheia only said they had always been with her.[8]
Afterwards, holograms of Persephone, Hades, and Poseidon appeared, as Aletheia proceeded to explain each teaching of the trials: Elysium was doomed as its ruler searched for total control, the Underworld was devastated by chaos, and Atlantis proved the flawed nature of the Isu. With that, Aletheia affirmed that Kassandra's role was to keep the powers of the Staff, not to use them to rule the world, but to protect it. Swearing to uphold her role as the Keeper and use her powers for the betterment of humanity, Kassandra left Atlantis.[8]
In 420 BCE, Aletheia again contacted Kassandra and asked her to travel to the Tomb of Phaiax on Korfu Island. There, Kassandra asked the Isu to repair the Spear of Leonidas, which had been depowered by an Apple of Eden, but Aletheia revealed that she was unable to do so. She then projected a holographic map of the world, highlighting the locations of various Pieces of Eden.[26]
Aletheia reminding Kassandra of her duties as the Keeper
While Kassandra observed the map, Aletheia explained that, as the Keeper, it was Kassandra's duty to recover the dangerous artifacts from those locations before they fell into the wrong hands. The misthios refused at first, not wishing to abandon her friends in Greece,[26] but later changed her mind after witnessing the Apple of Eden's corrupting powers first-hand when they affected her friend Barnabas.[27] With the Staff of Hermes granting her immortality, Kassandra would embark on a centuries-long quest to explore the globe and destroy dangerous Pieces of Eden.[28]
During her search for an Apple of Eden on the Isle of Skye in the late 9th century CE, Kassandra crossed paths with the Viking Eivor Varinsdottir. Although Kassandra was distrustful of Eivor at first, Aletheia insisted that the two should work together to find the Apple, and the misthios reluctantly accepted.[29] Later, after Kassandra and Eivor had a falling out, Aletheia tried to convince the former to return to the Viking, leading to an argument where Kassandra insisted that Eivor was "impossible" and that she would never trust her.[30] In the end, however, the two warriors were able to put their differences aside and retrieved the Apple, ending its "curse" over the island.[31]
Aiding the Heir of Memories[]
In 2018, Aletheia met the Assassin Layla Hassan, the Heir of Memories, after Kassandra passed the Staff of Hermes to her. The Isu instructed Layla to find the three symbols needed to unlock the Great Seal to Altantis, which she did after locating the tombs found by Kassandra by exploring her memories in the Animus.[23]
After the gate to Atlantis was unlocked, Aletheia appeared as a projection to Layla, and later to Victoria Bibeau, instructing the former to synchronize with Kassandra's experience of Aletheia's simulations in order to unlock the full potential of the Staff of Hermes. During Layla's time reliving Kassandra's memories, Aletheia warned her that someone known as "the Interloper" sought to stop her.[32]
The Interloper turned out to be the Master Templar Juhani Otso Berg, who dispatched several Sigma Team operatives to Atlantis to eliminate Layla and Victoria and take the Staff. Although Layla successfully defeated them, she lost control of her emotions due to the Staff's corrupting influence and the Bleeding Effect and accidentally struck Victoria, killing her. Aletheia then appeared, proclaiming that the Heir of Memories in her vision had foresight and that Layla might not be the Heir afterall.[33]
After Layla insisted that Aletheia give her one more chance to prove herself, the Isu reluctantly agreed to let her conclude the final trial, but followed her into the simulation supervise her actions. Upon completion, Alethiea spoke to Laya one final time and warned her that Berg had reached their location before fading away with the Animus transmission.[34]
Reunion with Loki[]
A reborn Basim holding the Staff of Hermes
In 2020, Layla brought the Staff of Hermes to the Yggdrasil chamber where the dormant body of Basim Ibn Ishaq, Loki's human incarnation, lay in suspended animation. As Layla connected herself to Yggdrasil to enter the Grey in the hopes of finding a solution to a series of anomalies affecting the Earth, she inadvertently dropped the Staff. After Basim was freed by Layla from his digital imprisonment, he fell onto the Staff, reviving him and granting him biological immortality.[35]
After being silent for so long, Aletheia finally spoke to her lover, asking if their plan formulated millennia ago had worked. Basim confirmed that Odin was long gone and that Layla had played her role perfectly, before musing that an entire new world awaited them.[35]
Legacy[]
In 431 BCE, when Kassandra visited the Ancient Forge on the island of Andros, Aletheia spoke to her, acting as the system voice for the Forge as it upgraded the Spear of Leonidas.[36] Later, Kassandra also discovered Aletheia's recordings on the Olympos Project, after traveling to the Gateway to the Lost City in search of her father, Pythagoras.[9]
In 2018, Layla Hassan kept a record of her findings about Aletheia on her laptop.[4]
Behind the scenes[]
According to Pindar's Olympian Ode, Aletheia was the daughter of Zeus; however, according to Aesop's Fables, she was crafted by Prometheus.[6] Aletheia was also revered as the Greek goddess of truth, as was her Roman equivalent, Veritas. Aletheia, ἀλήθεια, is Greek for 'not a lie, truth'.
The 'impression' of Aletheia on Layla's computer is similar to Martin Deschambault's concept art of Minerva.
Given the conceit behind the simulations in The Fate of Atlantis expansion for Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, there is a possibility that Aletheia is in fact a Human-Isu hybrid. One of the notes that can be found in the simulation of Atlantis makes mention of a hybrid being recently appointed as Dikastes, which would coincide with Aletheia's tenure as Dikastes.[37]
Gallery[]
Appearances[]
- Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (mentioned only)
- The Lost Tales of Greece (first appearance)
- The Fate of Atlantis
- Assassin's Creed Crossover Stories
- Assassin's Creed: Valhalla (as Angrboða)
- Assassin's Creed Crossover Stories (mentioned only)
- Dawn of Ragnarök (mentioned only, as Angrboða)
- Echoes of History (mentioned only, as Angrboða)
- The World of Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Journey to the North – Logs and Files of a Hidden One (mentioned only, as Angrboða)
References[]
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