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"In the beginning, when we thought we could be saved, we sought to face the sun's wrath and contain it. Four towers would be built–to pull her fury into this place and dispel it."
―Juno explaining the device to Desmond Miles, 2012.[src]-[m]
ACIII-GTEnd 5

Desmond activating the device

The global aurora borealis device[1] was a Isu device housed in the Grand Temple with the aim of preventing the Great Catastrophe and the 2012 coronal mass ejection. It functioned by emitting a shield resembling an aurora around the entire planet to protect it from the Sun's coronal mass ejections.[2]

Initially considered a failed solution due to the fact that constructing the necessary power facilities would take too long to prevent the Great Catastrophe, the eventual automation of the process allowed it to prevent the Second Disaster in 2012 CE.[3] However, its spherical activation mechanism also would kill any human who interacted with it by unleashing a torrent of searing energy. Thus, the Assassin Desmond Miles chose to sacrifice himself to save the world when he triggered it in 2012. Simultaneously, the instrument became a vessel for the consciousness of the Isu Juno when she tampered with it millennia before, with its activation being the key to releasing her from it.[2]

History[]

During her imprisonment in the Grand Temple, Juno tampered with the device so that upon activation it would free her consciousness from the Grand Temple, and manipulated Desmond Miles, a human with a sufficient amount of Isu DNA, into using it, so that she would be released. In the meantime, Minerva constructed a second Eye to commune with Desmond on 21 December 2012 to see if he found a way to prevent the catastrophe.[2]

Seeing that Juno had survived and manipulated Desmond into using the device, Minerva warned him not to activate the device, believing it would be better if the world endured another apocalypse than allow Juno to be freed. Desmond disagreed, stating that Minerva's solution would offer no hope to the world and that humanity would find a way to resist Juno's efforts, before activating the device and saving the world, at the cost of his own life and unleashing Juno in the process.[2]

Only hours later, Abstergo agents recovered Desmond's body from the room. However, the device had disappeared from its pedestal.[2]

In 2018, the Assassin Layla Hassan compiled a group of files on Aletheia in her research on the Isu wherein she asked in the margins if the Eye was the "world-saving solution [...] that killed Desmond". Her assistant Alannah Ryan replied affirmatively although they were both incorrect as the Eye was a different instrument, one which the Isu used to perform their calculations of the future.[4]

Behind the scenes[]

Misnomer[]

The name of the "global aurora borealis device" is a likely reference to the appearance of an aurora blanketing the world when it is used, but boreālis is Latin for 'northern', aurora borealis being the name of the aurora that is regularly visible in the Arctic (cf. aurora australis, the aurora of Antarctica). That the aurora is global renders boreālis a nonsensical addition to the device's name.

Confusion with the Eye[]

"One of those world-saving solutions was the Eye that killed Desmond, wasn't it?"
―Layla Hassan in "The Capitoline Isu"[src]

The aurora device has been mistaken by fans to be the Eye because they are introduced in the same scene in Assassin's Creed III by Minerva and Juno; the camera even focuses around the device's activation mechanism while the Eye is being described. However, the Eye actually refers to the "divination by numbers" technology used by the Isu. This error was replicated in the "Who is Aletheia" files found in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, where Layla Hassan asks if the Eye was what killed Desmond, to which her friend Alannah Ryan incorrectly replies in the affirmative.

Appearances[]

References[]

  1. Assassin's Creed OriginsLayla Hassan's personal files: "The Empirical Truth: Eeyoo Sekedoo Aat"
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Assassin's Creed III
  3. Assassin's Creed III: Official Game Guide
  4. Assassin's Creed: Odyssey – Layla Hassan's personal files: "Who Is Aletheia: The Capitoline Triad"

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