Sage

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This article is about Aita and Vejovis' recurring incarnations. You may be looking for the Æsir's incarnations or the Cult of Kosmos' rank.

A Maya statue of a Sage's head in underground Tulum

Sages, classified as Hyper-Hominids by Abstergo Industries, primarily refer to humans who inherited the memories of Juno's husband Aita, an Isu who died shortly before the Great Catastrophe. Sages have existed at various points in human history and, in many instances, played in an important role in the ongoing war between the Assassins and Templars, typically through their knowledge and mastery of Isu technology inherited from Aita.

Notable examples of Sages of Aita included the Templar Grand Masters Jacques de Molay and François-Thomas Germain, the carpenter and explorer Thomas Kavanagh, Jr., the pirate Bartholomew Roberts, a German "Master Spy" during World War I, and, simultaneously, the Abstergo Entertainment employee John Standish and Desmond Miles' son Elijah.

A second, unrelated Sage lineage connected to the Isu Vejovis also existed and was part of a plot by Vejovis to be reborn in the modern era. However, this lineage was largely kept secret from the Assassins and Templars, with the former only becoming aware of it as recently as 2022.

Characteristics

Isu memories

"You see, Richmond, being a Sage means Aita, Isu scientist—husband of Juno herself—hid his memories in your DNA, and it has bubbled up to the surface."

―Elijah, explaining a Sage's nature, 2018.

All Sages are born as humans who develop their own personalities and memories as they grow. However, due to Juno's tampering of humanity's genetic code, Aita's memories usually manifest themselves as visions at some point during adulthood and later throughout a Sage's life, although it is not uncommon for this to occur during childhood. The process is described as a very traumatic experience, with the individual believing they are going mad.

Different incarnations of Sages

Most crucially, however, Sages' memories and personalities are not gradually merging with Aita's own, nor are they instances of true reincarnation or metempsychosis. Some Sages like Jacques de Molay eventually found some mental stability, but the majority of them became erratic and somewhat mad. Others, such as Thomas Kavanagh, tried to resist the change, albeit with limited success, holding on to their former selves by constantly keeping the new memories at bay. Though rare, it is possible for a Sage to maintain control over themselves and remain mentally stable, like Elijah.

In some cases, such as Bartholomew Roberts or John Standish, the Sages' personalities take a darker turn, making them highly cynical, misanthropic, and even nihilistic. Roberts' views on his own life as well as his complete disregard for human life made even someone as stoic as Edward Kenway uncomfortable around him. These Sages also had a very strong obsession with reviving Juno from the Grey.

Intellectual development

Sages are also noted for possessing exceptionally high levels of intelligence and understanding, making them capable of picking up and mastering concepts alien to their upbringing and cultural background very easily. They also display exceeding talent in some form and have been known to excel in many areas of expertise. Given that Aita was a prominent Isu scientist, the extent to which his Sages can access his advanced scientific knowledge has yet to be discovered.

Genetics and appearances

According to Abstergo, while the genome of an average human contains 0.0002% to 0.0005% of Isu DNA, the concentration reaches from 5% to 6% in the genome of Sages. In comparison, the most gifted human recorded, Desmond Miles, had a count five times lower. This unusually high concentration of Isu DNA potentially grants Sages unmatched access to Eagle Vision and an exceptional affinity with Pieces of Eden.

Elijah's heterochromia

Aita's Sages bear a strong physical resemblance to him, usually possessing a distinctive combination of anisocoria and heterochromia, biological traits which Aita naturally possessed. Despite being very close in appearance, these Sages came from diverse genetic and ethnic backgrounds and did not always express the same parts of the Aita's DNA. As a result, they can not be considered true "clones" of Aita.

Although only male Aita Sages had been identified by 2015, the Assassins believed that there was a small chance that the recessive gene creating a Sage could also manifest itself in a female individual. By contrast, half of the known Vejovis Sages were female, suggesting that the more evenly split gender ratio could be a result of the alternate method used by Vejovis to create his Sages.

History

Isu Era

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Aita and his wife Juno

Around 75,000 BCE, in an attempt to save the Earth from a coronal mass ejection from the Sun, Aita volunteered as a test subject for a possible solution meant to prevent the Isu's destruction. His wife, the scientist Juno, tried to replicate some of Consus' work by transferring Aita's consciousness into a more resistant synthetic body, but Aita was rendered catatonic in the attempt.

Desperate to save his life, Juno embarked on a quest to acquire the "Mead", a serum that would activate the latest solution designed by the Capitoline Triad, locked up under the guard of Jupiter and Minerva. This particular innovation, if used correctly, could incarnate the Isu as humans in the distant future. As such, Jupiter and Minerva deemed it too dangerous to use, as it would damage the human genome in the process.

Desperate for the "Mead", Juno investigated their research sites and eventually used Mímisbrunnr meant to receive the Mead when ready. Soon after, she began to inquire and plot out ways to take it, actions that eventually exiled her from the city guarding the Temple. Upon Odin's visit to Jötunheimr to meet Aletheia, Juno discovered that he also sought the "Mead" and so decided to wait until Alethia and her lover Loki captured him before deciding to free Odin in exchange for his collaboration to help steal the serum.

Odin managed to successfully steal the "Mead" from the city, but not without deceiving Minerva and battling Jupiter himself. Juno told him to come to the experimental well in order to make the serum work. After Odin sacrificed his left eye in payment in order to use as catalyst, his sacrifice was accepted and the "Mead" was finally synthesized, much to Juno's delight. With both Isu taking samples of the fluid, she cautioned him to use the serum moments before his death in order for it to work. With the "Mead" now in hand, she modified the technology further ^{[citation needed]} before successfully inserted her late husband's essence into a human bloodline.

The "Mead" manipulated humans' genes, implanting a hidden trigger that would randomly activate and alter an individual's genetic makeup, changing their appearance and slowly imbuing them with a replica of an Isu's consciousness. This allowed the Æsir to incarnate just once in the 9th century, ^{[citation needed]} and Aita to continually incarnate in human form throughout history. However, as punishment for her crimes against the Triad, Juno's essence was buried deep within the Grand Temple. Consequently, most Sages would develop an obsession with liberating Juno, Aita's "beloved", from her imprisonment.

Through an unknown method, the Isu Vejovis was also able to create continual Sages of himself millennia into the future while his consciousness was uploaded to the Grey.

Throughout history

Instances of Sages have been recorded throughout known human history in various regions around the globe. According to Bahlam, an Assassin Mentor and the father of Ah Tabai, there had been at least eight recorded Sages of Aita by the late 1600s, although several Abstergo Entertainment researchers later concluded that the real count was likely much higher. The Mayan civilization and Taíno people revered the Sages, and the Mayan ruins in Tulum, Mexico, contained a statue resembling a Sage's head.

Antiquity and Middle Ages

"Most blasphemous of their beliefs is perhaps this: they believe many of these lesser gods still walk the earth or may return one day in resurrected forms. Some they believe are continually reborn. These they call sages. Others seem to appear once only and never again."

―Alfred the Great in his commentary, on the difference between Sages and the Æsir's incarnations.

The first known instance of a Sage of Vejovis was Cadmus, a Greek mercenary born during the 5th century BCE. He was hired by Ianthe, a member of the Order of the Ancients, to retrieve an Isu dagger once wielded by Vejovis from a vault on Kephallonia, only to be betrayed afterwards. Pursuing Ianthe and his accomplices, Cadmus managed to kill the Ancient and recover the dagger, but during the subsequent fight with the Order members, the blade was broken into two pieces. One of the Ancients fled with one half of the dagger while Cadmus kept the other half.

The next known Vejovis Sage was Khepri, a member of the Egyptian Hidden Ones during the 1st century BCE. After killing Habibah, an Order member who possessed one of the blades of Vejovis' dagger, Khepri retrieved the artifact and brought the blade with her when she was sent to Mesopotamia to establish a foothold there for the Hidden Ones.

By the beginning of the 9th century, the Order of the Ancients had become aware of Isu personalities resurgent within humanity, some as one time occurrences and others continually. These latter cases were designated as "sages" by this time.

By the late 9th century, the next Vejovis Sage, the Viking warrior Alva, was born and joined the Raven Clan, which was allied with the Hidden Ones. In Lunden, Alva tracked down and eliminated the Order member known as "The Connection" on the Hidden Ones' behalf, who believed he was in possession of a piece of Vejovis' dagger. However, Alva discovered that the Ancient had already sent the blade to the Levant, and was contacted by a hologram of Vejovis, who urged both her and a "spectator" to locate the blade by finding his other Sages.

During the Third Crusade, the Levantine Assassin Faisal was another of Vejovis' Sages. After surviving the Knights Templar's siege of Masyaf in 1189, Faisal traveled from Masyaf to Damascus and met a Templar known as The Hideout, who gave him one of the blades of Vejovis' dagger and tasked him to transport it to Beirut and, from there, to Constantinople.

During the Renaissance, the fifth known Vejovis Sage, Giulia, joined the Italian Brotherhood of Assassins and, in the late 1480s, attempted to find a piece of Vejovis' dagger, which was hidden in an Isu vault beneath the Basilica di San Marco in Venice. After dispatching a group of Templars also attempting to access the vault, Giulia entered the complex and found the blade. She was then contacted by a hologram of Vejovis, who instructed her to hide the artifact deeper within the vault.

Search for the Observatory

"Perhaps I was wrong about you. She might have had some use for you after all. [...] She who lies in wait. Entombed. I had hoped to find her, to see her again. To open the door of the temple and hear her speak my name once more. Aita..."

―Bartholomew Roberts' dying words to Edward Kenway, 1722.

During his life, Aita built the Observatory, a complex containing a Crystal Skull and blood vials of the Isu which permitted individuals to spy on anyone in the world. As a creation of Aita, the Observatory required the insertion of a vial containing Aita's own blood to open.

Around 1500, an unnamed Sage of Aita found the Observatory and hired the local tribes to protect the site from intruders. When he died, the Guardians hid his tomb, forbidding anyone to use his blood.

In 1652, a new Sage appeared in the British colonies: Thom Kavanagh, a Boston-born carpenter who moved to Jamaica to work for Peter Beckford in 1673. There, he was abducted by the West Indies Brotherhood of Assassins, who wanted to protect him from Beckford's friend, Laureano de Torres y Ayala, the Grand Master of the West Indies Rite of the Templar Order. Learning more about his Sage nature, Kavanagh followed his visions and arrived at the Observatory, where the Guardians accepted him and explained his predecessor's actions. Kavanagh died in 1706 and was also buried by the Guardians.

Bartholomew Roberts wielding a Crystal Skull

In 1715, Bartholomew Roberts, a Welsh Sage, was captured by the Templars in Cuba to be interrogated on the location of the Observatory. He escaped and worked for the slaver Laurens Prins in Jamaica. In 1717, he fled for a second time after Prins was killed by the pirate captain Edward Kenway who also wanted to discover the Observatory. Roberts worked on the slave ship Princess before becoming a pirate under Captain Howell Davis near the African coast. In 1719, when the crew was in Príncipe, a group of Templars led by John Cockram and Josiah Burgess killed Davies and took the ship's crew hostage. As Edward Kenway arrived on the island, he saved the pirates and killed the two Templars. After that, Roberts became the captain of the crew and promised to lead Kenway to the Observatory.

Working together, the two captains captured the Royal Fortune from the Templars which contained blood vials from important individuals in the Caribbean Sea. Roberts and Kenway then arrived at the Observatory, the Sage showing the power of the complex to the pirate. However, Roberts betrayed Kenway and handed him over to the British authorities in Jamaica. The Sage recovered the Crystal Skull and the blood vials and used them to learn the location of important fleets, allowing him to become one of the richest and most famous pirates in history. In February 1722, near Príncipe, Kenway, by now an Assassin, attacked and boarded the Royal Fortune, killing Roberts. He then recovered the Crystal Skull and threw the Sage's body overboard.

Reformation of the Templar Order

"I did not understand the visions that haunted my mind, you see. Great towers of gold, cities shining white as silver. I thought I was going mad. Then I found this place - Jacques de Molay's vault. Through his writings, I understood. [...] That somehow, through the centuries, I was connected to Grand Master de Molay. That I had been chosen to purge the Order of the decadence and corruption that had set in like rot. And to wash the world clean, and restore to the truth the Father of Understanding intended."

―François-Thomas Germain explaining his connection to Jacques de Molay, 1794.

Jacques de Molay burning at the stake

In the late 13th century, the Sage Jacques de Molay became the Grand Master of the Templar Order. De Molay felt that the Order had lost its purpose by becoming a public organization and wanted to return to the shadows. In October 1307, King Philip IV of France, under the influence of the French Assassins, ordered the Templars' collective arrest. Before he was captured, de Molay tasked his advisor to hide a Sword of Eden and the Codex Pater Intellectus, in which he had written all his knowledge about the Isu and his intended Order reformations, in a vault under the Temple in Paris.

During his time in a Chinon prison, de Molay hid in the walls of his cell the Heart, an Isu artifact which increased the power of the Sword of Eden. De Molay also shared his secrets of the Isu with nine Templars who reorganized the Order after its public disbanding. In 1314, he was burned at the stake on the Île de la Cité, cursing Pope Clement V and the French royal family in his final moments.

Germain experiencing a vision

Four centuries later, another Sage of Aita surfaced as the silversmith and French Templar François-Thomas Germain. Haunted by de Molay's memories, Germain found the Codex Pater Intellectus and desired a reformation of the Templar Order, criticizing the fact that members played politics to acquire noble titles or the offices of church or state. Grand Master François de la Serre expelled Germain for espousing this and branded him as a heretic.

With some other Parisian Templars also dissatisfied with the Grand Master's leadership, Germain organized a coup d'état in the Order, killing de la Serre during the initiation ceremony of the Grand Master's daughter Élise after the opening of the Estates-General of 1789. Becoming the new Grand Master, Germain assassinated or bribed de la Serre's followers and tried to kill Élise, the other contender to the title of Grand Master. Germain also set out a plot, using the popular movement during the French Revolution to arrest King Louis XVI of France, leading to Louis' execution in 1793 and thus avenging de Molay's death.

With the end of the monarchy in France, a republican regime was set up in 1792, and one of Germain's followers, Maximilien de Robespierre, became one of its leaders. To achieve the Great Work, Robespierre and Germain installed the Reign of Terror, arresting and executing persons who were suspected to be counter-revolutionaries. Ultimately, Germain expected the people would fear freedom without control and become obedient, but with no aristocracy to provide guidance since the local nobility were being swiftly eliminated at the guillotine, Germain sought to control the public through financial means, returning to the Templars' historic origins as bankers and economic powerhouses. However, Élise de la Serre and her lover, the former Assassin Arno Dorian, thwarted Germain's plan, killing his allies and leading to Robespierre's fall in 1794.

Germain using the Sword of Eden

The day after the Thermidorian Reaction, Élise and Arno confronted Germain in the vault under the Temple of Paris. Using the Sword of Eden, Germain killed Élise in a powerful blast, but injured himself in the process. He was then finished off by Arno and, in his final moments, explained that even his death would not stop what he had started and that someone else would take his place as the ruler of the masses. Arno left Germain's body in the vault, though he would return in 1808 and move his remains to the Catacombs of Paris.

Return of Juno

"Aita is a ghost in the wind. Your line ends here. I swear it."

―Elijah to Juno, after betraying her and helping the Assassins kill her, 2018.

Throughout the centuries, some of Aita's Sages stayed true to his love for Juno. During the 6th century, the Irish monk and Sage Brendan of Clonfert visited many Isu's Megaliths in the British Isles, leading him to the Grand Temple, though he could not access it. Three centuries later, Eivor Varinsdottir recovered Brendan's writings and also arrived before the Grand Temple, which remained closed. In the 18th century, Bartholomew Roberts tried to find the Grand Temple and liberate Juno but he was killed by Edward Kenway before he could do so.

Aita's Sages also formed cults venerating the Isu and praying for their mistress' return. The latest iteration, the Instruments of the First Will, was active from at least the early 20th century. In London during World War I, a group of Templars affiliated to the Instruments was led by a Sage known only as the Master Spy, a Templar who ran a ring of spies in the city on behalf of the German Empire. In 1916, the group tried to collect the blood of soldiers, but the British Assassin Lydia Frye foiled their plan. On the orders of Winston Churchill, Lydia later assassinated the Master Spy, liberating London from his schemes.

In 2012, following Desmond Miles' sacrifice in the Grand Temple which prevented the second solar flare from destroying the Earth, Juno was freed from her imprisonment and integrated herself into the planet's digital network. In 2013, another Sage, John Standish, began to search for a suitable host for her. Working in the IT department of Abstergo Entertainment in Montreal, he was also an associate of the Assassins Rebecca Crane and Shaun Hastings, who were undercover at Abstergo Entertainment.

John Standish taking the research analyst hostage

In November 2013, Standish entered contact with a new analyst of Abstergo Entertainment and made them work for the Assassins by hacking the Abstergo servers through the use of blackmail. Eventually, Standish decided to use the analyst as a perfect host for Juno. However, after an unsuccessful offering of the analyst to Juno in the bunker beneath Abstergo's Montreal facility, and an attempt to poison the analyst afterward, Standish was killed by security, and his body was obtained by Abstergo.

During the following year, Abstergo scientists studied John's body and focused on searching for other Sages throughout history, initiating the Phoenix Project to create a complete genomic map of Isu DNA, and unlock the secrets of the Pieces of Eden through the exploration of Sages' genetic memories. However, the Assassins recruited several Helix users to thwart the efforts of the Templars by attempting to find the remains of past Sages before Abstergo.

In October 2015, Elijah—the illegitimate son of Desmond Miles—was brought to an Abstergo clinic, where his lineage, and the fact that he was a Sage of Aita, was discovered. Álvaro Gramática wanted to have him kidnapped and dissected for study, but Isabelle Ardant immediately refused, believing it would be better to put the boy in an Animus for fifty years and study his lineage. However, Ardant was killed before this plan could be enacted.

Elijah being introduced to the Instruments of First Will

Elijah would go on to work with the Instruments of the First Will, a group that sought to return Juno to a physical body by using Abstergo's Phoenix Project. Because of his paternal lineage, Elijah possessed a markedly higher concentration of Isu DNA in his genome than other Sages, which enabled him to resist Aita's personality from taking over, while taking advantage of Aita's memories and knowledge. Elijah used Aita's knowledge to continually sabotage Juno's efforts at the resurrection, and eventually assisted in her final death.

Attempted return of Vejovis

By 2022, the latest known Sage of Vejovis, Joey, worked as a security guard at a museum in London, where one blade of Vejovis' dagger happened to be located. After Joey retrieved the blade and triggered a vision of a possible future, Templar agents attacked the museum to capture Joey and recover the dagger. The Sage was saved by the Assassins Colm and Alera, who recruited them into the Brotherhood. Afterwards, the three worked together to explore the genetic memories of Cadmus, Khepri, Alva, Faisal, and Giulia in the hopes of discovering the whereabouts of the second dagger blade.

After learning about the Isu vault in Venice, the Assassins traveled there to recover the blade, but Colm was revealed to be a Templar double agent and attempted to force Joey to open the case containing the artifact. After Colm was assassinated by Alera, Joey retrieved the blade and combined it with the other dagger piece to complete the artifact. This caused a hologram of Vejovis to appear, who explained that he would soon be reborn and his being would bleed into Joey. To prevent the Isu's resurrection, Joey broke the dagger into two pieces again and destroyed one of the blades. They then left with Alera and the intact blade before the Templars arrived on the scene.

Sages of Aita

"It's the eyes that mark him."

―Edward Kenway, describing the Sage Bartholomew Roberts, 1716.

Sumerian Sage
(c. 3rd millennium BC)

The Wanderer
(1st century)

Hunnic Sage
(5th century)

Brendan of Clonfert
(c. 484 - c. 577)

Byzantine Sage
(6th century)

Maya Sage
(c. 13th century)

Jacques de Molay
(c. 1244 – 1314)

Chinese Sage
(14th century)

Caribbean Sage
(died c. 1510)

Thomas Kavanagh, Jr.
(1652 – 1706)

Bartholomew Roberts
(1682 – 1722)

François-Thomas Germain
(1726 – 1794)

Indian Sage
(born c. 1885)

Master Spy
(died 1916)

David Jones
(born c. 1950)

John Standish
(1975 – 2013)

Elijah
(born c. 2005)

Kumar
(fl. 2016)

Sages of Vejovis

Cadmus
(5th century BCE)

Khepri
(1st century BCE)

Alva
(9th century)

Faisal
(12th century)

Giulia
(15th century)

Joey
(21st century)

Behind the scenes

In Assassin's Creed: Infographics, Al Mualim is described as being a Sage. The use of the capitalized ⟨S⟩ implies a connection to Aita, but this is not corroborated in any other media and may have been an error.

The Son of Ra in Assassin's Creed: Origins is said to have strange eyes and displays an uncommon knowledge of the solar system in his idle dialogue and death sequences. Though not confirmed to be a Sage, he nevertheless has an uncanny awareness of the Order of the Ancients and disdains their chances of saving the planet.

Similarly, Ojeda from the Assassin's Creed movie was also speculated to be a Sage due to being described as having heterochromia in the movie's official novelization. However, in a Reddit AMA with Aymar Azaïzia, he confirmed that Ojeda was not a Sage after being asked by Sorrosyss, a member of the Access the Animus fansite. Later when depicted in the mobile game Assassin's Creed: Rebellion his model does not exhibit heterochromia.

As shown in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and Assassin's Creed: Uprising, two Sages can be alive at the same time, as evidenced by Thom Kavanagh and Bartholomew Roberts, and later John Standish and Elijah.

When Darby McDevitt was asked on Twitter about whether Sages were a reference to the manga series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, in which all protagonists descending from the character Jonathan Joestar bear a star-shaped birthmark on their left shoulder blade, he denied knowledge of the series and explained that he drew on the constant regenerations of the Doctor Who character "The Master", who was archenemies to the BBC series' titular Doctor.

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Revelations (first appearance) (retroactive)
• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
• Assassin's Creed: Black Flag
• Assassin's Creed: Memories
• Assassin's Creed Unity: Abstergo Entertainment – Employee Handbook
• Assassin's Creed: Unity
• Assassin's Creed: Unity novel
• Assassin's Creed: Syndicate
• Assassin's Creed: Uprising
• Assassin's Creed: Valhalla
• Assassin's Creed: Escape Room Puzzle Book
• Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple (flasbhback and hallucination only)