Assassin's Creed 8 is the eighth issue of the Titan comic book series Assassin's Creed. The comic, written by Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery with art by Ivan Nunes and Neil Edwards, was released on 11 May 2016.
Publisher's summary[]
Tensions are running high in the Assassin cell as Charlotte's investigation is plagued by the limitations of the portable Animus. When she turns on Kody, Galina leaps to defend him. With tempers at breaking point, can the team pull themselves back together before they are torn apart for good?[1]
Plot summary[]
2016: Charlotte is pulled from the Animus at Galina's request. Apparently Charlotte entered the machine unsupervised, and it has again run out of battery power. New batteries are required, but Galina advises that they should all stay put whilst the Templars know their faces. After a brief argument, Charlotte takes off in search of the batteries alone, leaving the others alone in the van.
Whilst opposing forces makes their plans to find our heroes, Charlotte defends a civilian from a racketeer. Feeling good about herself, she again goes in search of the batteries, but notices someone following her. It ends up being Galina, who explains that she had come in search of Charlotte. However, having returned to the van, Kody had apparently been kidnapped, leaving only a severed ear. The two have been demanded to attend a cartel location and set off to rescue Kody.
1536: Quila and Pardo are held captive. Pardo manages to antagonize their captor until a fight ensues, attracting nearby Peruvians to their plight. They both manage to escape, but the quipu is destroyed in the process. As they arrive at Cuzco, the capital city, they part ways, with Quila desperate to warn the Emperor of his peril. She is unable to persuade the guards to grant her an audience with the Emperor, namely with no quipu as evidence and thus she is forced to turn away.
She ends up visiting the home of her former husband, Ayar. After reflecting on their failed marriage and how it brought shame on Ayar's family, she seeks to speak to Ayar's father who still holds considerable political power. Making her case to warn the Emperor, she again has no evidence, with Ayar's father questioning her motives given the history with his son. Pardo bursts into the meeting drunk, at which point Quila is deemed a conspirator with the Spanish and is seemingly captured once more.[2]
Supplementary material[]
The Inca perspective on class, marriage, and the lives of the "chosen women"...
Inca society was well-organized and complex, with a defined class system in place that allowed for little social mobility. The majority of the population was made up of the peasant classes, with a small, educated middle class, and a ruling aristocracy. Like most societies at the time, and indeed, now, It was patriarchal in its construct, though that did not mean that women were not crucial to the overall success of the Empire.
Girls were considered to have come of age at around 14 years old, and were normally married at the age of 16. For boys, they were required to swear an oath of loyalty to the Sapa Inca, the Emperor, when they turned 15. They did not tend to marry until they were 20 years old. Polygamy was common, and encouraged, among the upper classes, but monogamy was the norm for the peasant class. Emperor Manco, however, only had the one wife and consort, Cura Ocllo, his sister and the mother of his child.
An Inca wedding was by no means a joyous affair. Marriages were generally arranged, and took the form of an economic transaction between two families, rather than a romantic union. The strict caste structure meant that it was incredibly rare for an aristocrat to marry someone of lower birth, and vice versa. The actual wedding ceremony between an Inca man and woman took the form of a solemn exchange. Once the decision to marry had been reached, often with the involvement of multiple community elders, the man would visit the home of the young woman and place on her right foot a sandal—though some sources counter that the ceremony was completed only once the couple had exchanged the sandals they were both wearing. These differing accounts both still suggest that the Inca placed a great deal of significance on what appears, to modern minds, to be a willingness to walk in each other's footsteps.
The bride would, in turn, give him a number of gifts, including a headband, pin, and a woolen shirt. Once "wed", the couple would begin a life together in a newly built house provided by the groom and his family. However, the Inca society allowed for, and recognized the benefit of, trial marriages. During the trial marriage, the couple in question would live as husband and wife for one, possibly two years, before deciding If they would Like to continue the arrangement. If they chose not to, the woman would return to her parents house and the marriage was effectively dissolved.
While men strictly controlled the running of the empire, the contribution of women was invaluable to its prolonged prosperity, though they may not have been given the status that would suggest as much. Women were traditionally responsible for weaving, and for brewing chicha, the beer made from maize, one of the primary Inca crops. Weaving, In particular, was a prized skill, and accommodations were made within the structure of the society to ensure that it remained so. The acllahausi, literally "House of Women", developed in the Inca Empire between 1438 and 1532. Every town had one of these houses, and they were homes to the "Chosen Women". Every year, a government official would assess the attractiveness of the ten-year-old girls in a town, and the most beautiful would be admitted to the acllahausi, where they would become servants of the state. Before entering the house, they would be taken to the capital, Cuzco, and given an education. The most attractive were reserved for sacrifice, while the others learned trades, such as spinning or brewing.
After fours years in the capital, the girls would either be assigned as concubines to men the ruler wished to honor, or would enter the acllahausi as permanent residents. Generally speaking, noble women who were assigned this life took on more administrative tasks within the house, while lower class women performed the more laborious work. This was the one means by which a lower class woman could change her status in life, as it allowed the possibility of becoming the consort of a wealthy influential man. However, once a woman entered the acllahausi, she was expected to remain chaste for the rest of her life. If this were found not to be the case, then the woman and her lover would both be buried alive. A brutal punishment, but very much in keeping with the harsh realities of life in the Inca Empire.
Cover gallery[]
