Calculations

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"They had these tools, these powerful machines, that could predict possible futures. Not what was going to happen, but wha-what could happen... probabilities. And... well, they spent a lot of energy trying to decide what was the most likely scenario for the future. Theirs and ours."

―Desmond Miles attempting to explain First Civilzation calculations.

Minerva projecting herself into the future

Calculations allowed the Isu to study alternate, future timelines. Minerva was particularly proficient in their application and, from within the Nexus, Jupiter, Juno and Minerva worked to influence several individuals throughout humanity in the centuries ahead of them to prevent a recurrence of a solar flare from devastating the planet after seeing one coming in their own species' near future.

The Nornir, a triad associated with the Asgardian Isu, were also able to read the calculations and counselled Odin in their probable outcomes.

After his consciousness was uploaded into the Grey and the 2012 Second Disaster was averted, the human Desmond Miles discovered that the cataclysm, a particularly stubborn 'node' in the timeline, kept trying to reassert itself and Miles dedicated himself to the study of the calculations in an effort to reduce the chances of a recurrence. By the time Layla Hassan joined him in his efforts eight years later, Miles had morphed into an entity known as the Reader.

Notable instances

• Minerva constructed two builds of the Eye based on her studies; the first to communicate with Desmond Miles through his ancestor Ezio Auditore da Firenze, and the second to commune with Desmond again on the day of the impeding Second Disaster.
• In the 5th century BCE, the Isu Aletheia explained to Kassandra—and through her, Layla Hassan, who was reliving the Spartan's memories—that the Isu had spent so much time looking for alternate futures where "everything remained the same", rather than ones where the Isu and humans might work together to survive, that it ultimately cost them any chance of survival.
• Ezio once used his Apple of Eden to discern what threat Cesare Borgia still posed following his arrest. What he saw immediately resolved him to eliminate the incarcerated Grand Master.
• When Ratonhnhaké:ton communed with Juno via a Crystal Ball, she instructed him to join the Assassins and showed him the consequences should he not do so: the Templars would breach the sanctuary near Kanatahséton and the world would not be saved from the coming apocalypse.
• Later, an Apple showed Ratonhnhaké:ton that if he had never become an Assassin, he would not have been present to prevent George Washington's corruption and the collapse of the United States into civil war.
• When Nikolai Orelov touched the Imperial Sceptre, a Staff of Eden, during the Tunguska event, he saw events from the past and future. Through the Bleeding Effect, his descendant Daniel Cross saw his eventual meeting with the Mentor.
• Inside the Colosseum Vault, Juno showed Desmond what would happen if he did not kill Lucy Stillman: Abstergo Industries would have arrived to claim Ezio's Apple of Eden and placed it in the Eye-Abstergo satellite, dismissing its importance in preventing the Second Disaster.
• When Clay Kaczmarek merged with Desmond, he acquired Clay's knowledge of calculations, which he later documented in a series of cell phone message memos. In the messages, he noted several versions of himself: one who got married early and had a son, the reality who stayed single in New York, one who went to San Francisco to be a waiter, one who got a job at an auto body shop in Chicago, and one who never left The Farm in the first place.
• Minerva later showed Desmond that if he did not use the global aurora borealis device and release Juno from the Grand Temple, then the cataclysm would destroy humanity, but he would lead the survivors in a restart of civilization. Long after his death, history would repeated itself, with Desmond worshipped as a god while his teachings would be twisted to justify mass genocide.

Behind the scenes

Assassin's Creed: Revelations' lead writer Darby McDevitt has stated that "Calculations" is the in-house term for parallel universes in the series and added that Clay Kaczmarek went insane because he saw too many possible futures, in addition to the Bleeding Effect.

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
• Assassin's Creed: Revelations (first identified as 'Calculations')
• Assassin's Creed III (mentioned only)
  • The Tyranny of King Washington (first appearance)
• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
• Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (mentioned only)
• Assassin's Creed: Valhalla