THIS RESPONSE CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE FOURTH COMIC OF AC: REFLECTIONS.
What we were waiting for is here, more details of this new Eagle Vision: The comic shows what happened to Ratonhnhakë:tón after the events of the American Revolution in ACIII. He didn't die alone and his wife didn't abandon him. He had at least three children and one of these, his daughter, is the only one to have "the gift" (aka Eagle Vision). But one interesting thing is that she doesn't see a blue shimmer as her father: SHE LITERALLY CONNECTS TO A BIRD CLOSE TO HER TO SEE WHAT IT (the bird) SEES, just like Bayek does with Senu.
This confirms some stuff discussed previously:
1- It's not telepathy (not like Falcon and Redwing sadly :c). The user actually SEES what the bird does, but it's not sure if the user can control it.
2- It's a precursor related ability.
Now to you Pacificus, sorry for the delay XD
Sol Pacificus wrote:
What I meant is that obviously while the Animus-user has to participate in the simulation to allow synchronization, (s)he can't actually control the ancestor to the extent that we as the player can control the ancestor. That is, we as the player can do things like run around crazy for 2 hours in the streets doing nothing if we want to. Do you think this means that the Animus-user can literally do that with the ancestor without desynchronizing? We can spend our time climbing buildings, then failing to climb buildings, then dropping for no reason, then running up a ledge we did not mean to, then trying to get back down from it, then getting up on that ledge again, then get back off and correctly climb what we wanted to do so. Do you think the Animus-user can actually do so many irrational movements without desynchronizing? We can run around the streets doing tasks for hours on end through many day-night cycles without taking the character "home" to sleep or use the bathroom or eat dinner, essentially fasting. Do you think the Animus-user can actually do that without desynchronizing? Avoiding sleep and food for hours on end would be a major deviation of what the ancestor did.
Actually, yeah, kinda XD... but I know what you wanna say: "Desmond didn't run like crazy for 17 hours while he was in a coma to save the whole world". Of course not, but the extent that the Animus-user has to control his ancestor's actions in the simulation is the same as the player's. This can be confirmed in the user manual of AC1, where Warren Vidic post some notes. Textually it says:
In the controls section: "Vidic - When we switched the animus control scheme to use standard video-game controls I guessed that the subject's learning curve would improve but the increased acclimatization rate we are seeing with these slacker types is astounding" -This means that the Animus-user has controls of the ancestor's actions, of course not as completely as Daniel Cross when he revived the memories of Nicolai Orelov's son 24/7 (other example that confirms the control the animus-user has in the simulation), but some as: walking, running, climbing, jumping, hiding, fighting, etc. are made at conscience of the Animus-user.
In the Awareness levels: "Vidic - Yes! And learn it well! He MUST keep his eye on the indicator. Every time he becomes exposed we lose time!" -This means that the Animus-user can be very indiscreet in the simulation, making guards to become hostile and starting an open conflict. Meaning that, once again, the animus-user's actions are the player's. That's why it called a simulation.
If that's not enough proof, we have the puppet concept: The animus-user choose parts of his/her body to control those of his/her ancestor. This was represented by the controls of the joystick: Triangle/Y for the head, Circle/B for both arms, Square/X for the right hand and X/A for the legs.
And final proof: The scene when Desmond syncs for the first time with Haytham (when Rebbeca tells him to complete an obstacle course) and when Callum syncs for the second time with Aguilar.
Sol Pacificus wrote:
We shouldn't see every way that we can control the character as what the Animus-user is able to control. The user controls the ancestor to some extent and has to become one with the ancestor's actions, but it's not going to have the freedom as we as the player do because we can do all sorts of irrational things we won't get desynchronized for for the purpose of gameplay. Sure, we get desynchronized for killing civilians or taking damage, but Ubisoft isn't going to make us desynchronize because we kept failing to climb a building correctly or kept jumping around like crazy or running around for days on end without returning to the hide-out when realistically these things would cause desynchronization for deviating from the ancestor's actions too much.
We shouldn't see every last thing that we as the player experiences to be 100% what the Animus-user is experiencing even if Ubisoft tries to advertise that at some points. It's not like the maps we play in, which are scaled down to a fraction of their real size for the game, is the map the Animus-user is experiencing after all. That would make no sense.
That's because of one thing: The simulation has something that it's explored in the games but not in the comics, novels, manga or the movie: Open-World. Every animus simulation has one, the difference is that it's the media that determines if this concept is worth viewing or not. Take for example the games: Open-World is the place where we (the player as the animus-user) can go in the simulation from point A to point B to start a memory or collect some stuff that can improve our sync. The only way to desync in the Open-World would be dying because of fall damage or combat. This doesn't happen in comics, novels, etc. because it'd be boring and it's not worth it. This books, pages and tales drive the readers RIGHT into the actions, right into the memories where constraints and limitations are more relevant than in Open-World. What we see in the comics, movie, manga and novels are the memories we do in the game.
Other thing that it's important, it's the way the Animus simulates the situation. The machine takes the hard disk (containing all the ancestors dna samples in form of codes) and with the help of an algorithm, it sequences the data and built the world. This can be checked out in Heresy, where Simon Hathaway sync for the first time with his ancestor's memory.
Sol Pacificus wrote:
So as for Senu. We don't have to say that the Animus-user is controlling the eagle somehow. He or she is not. The Animus-user doesn't control everything we can control for gameplay reasons. He can control his ancestor to a certain extent, but the limitations before desynchronization are of course going to be much more severe. Remember Charlotte de la Cruz trying to have Thomas Stoddard rescue Bridget Bishop. She could barely control his movements and make him even try to save her. As a game, in Origins, we can control Bayek, and when he uses Eagle Vision, we can control Senu, but Bayek isn't actually controlling Senu, and what is only happening for the Animus-user, is that he is witnessing the memories of Bayek seeing through Senu's eyes.
Indeed, the spoiler of AC:Reflection confirms this, but it doesn't say if the bird moves by itself or it's controled by the user.
Sol Pacificus wrote:
By the way, I actually did not quite understand everything about the response you wrote. xD
Yeah, I was waiting that. Damn *sad face* Well, the only way I can explain this to you is by giving you the best example of this: When Desmond synced with Haytham in ACIII. That's all I can say *very sad face* TwT