The Trident of Eden was an ancient artifact created by the Isu during the Isu Era, and was said to give the powers of a god to its wielder.
The Trident went missing following the Great Catastrophe that signaled the end of the Isu. One of the cataclysm's few survivors, Minerva, moved to limit Isu technology falling into human hands and was so concerned about the missing Trident's potential for suffering that she engineered the Ascendance Event to destroy the weapon should it ever be uncovered in the wake of her species' extinction.
The Piece of Eden eventually resurfaced in the hands of Alexander the Great, who used it in conjunction with his personal Isu Staff to build his vast empire. While the Staff maintained his rule, Alexander wielded the Trident on the battlefield which saw his armies go undefeated.
When Alexander died, the Trident's head was split into its three prongs and scattered across the globe. Separated, the Prongs of Eden[1] functioned as Daggers and held their own individual abilities, allowing their wielders to manipulate others' emotions: one caused an intense feeling of fear, another inspired an overwhelming sense of devotion or admiration, while the third induced blind faith.
Two of Alexander's generals, Seleucus and Ptolemy, each took a dagger to Asia and Egypt, respectively, while the final one was sent to Makedonia. Eventually, the Macedonian and Egyptian segments of the Trident ended up in the hands of the Roman Caesars with one subsequently being inherited by the Papacy.
Owners[]
- Complete
- The Isu (until c. 75, 000 BCE)[2]
- Alexander the Great (until 323 BCE)[3]
- None, split in three (323 BCE – 2016 CE)
- Isaiah (2016)[4]
- Sebastian Monroe (2016 – present)[4]
- Faith prong
- Ptolemy I Soter (323 BCE – c. 283/282 BCE)[3]
- Roman Caesars[3]
- Roman Popes[3]
- Callixtus III (c. 1455 – c. 1458)[3]
- Alfonso V of Aragon (c. 1458)[3]
- Spanish Kings (c. 1458 – c. 1519)[3]
- Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (c. 1519)[3]
- Hernán Cortés (from c. 1519)[3]
- Aztec Club (1847 – 1863)[3]
- Varius (1863)[3]
- Cudgel Cormac (1863)[3]
- Eliza (1863)[3]
- Ulysses S. Grant (1863 – 1885)[3]
- Isaiah (2016)[5]
- Fear prong
- Greek cultists (c. 5th century BCE)[6]
- Seleucus I Nicator (323 BCE – c. 281 BCE)[3]
- Möngke Khan (until 1259)[5]
- Isaiah (2016)[5]
- Devotion prong
- Macedonian people (from 323 BCE)[3]
- Roman Caesars[3]
- Roman Popes[3]
- Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (until c. 965)[4]
- Bishop Poppa (c. 965)[4]
- Harald Bluetooth (c. 965 – 984)[3]
- Styrbjörn the Strong (984)[4]
- Thorvald Hjaltason (984)[4]
- Östen Jorundsson (from 984)[4]
- Dolkkälla (c. 2014 – 2016)[4]
- Isaiah (2016)[4]
Powers and Abilities[]
The Trident of Eden is one of the most powerful pieces of technology created by the Isu. Even when separated, the Trident's prongs possess their own individual abilities.
Faith prong[]
The faith prong was in possession of Pope Callixtus III during the mid-15th century, before he gave it to King Alfonso V of Aragon, who passed it on to his descendants. Emperor Charles V eventually offered the artifact to Hernán Cortés, who used it to conquer the Aztec Empire.
In 1519, during his campaign against the Aztecs, Cortés displayed the power of the dagger: his men were reinvigorated by his mere presence on the battlefield despite facing overwhelming odds. The conquistador also used the artifact to bring hostile natives under his banner, as when he convinced Chimalpopoca to help him in an instant, despite the old Tlaxcaltec commander stating that he was ready to die before helping the Spaniards in any way.
Following the Mexican-American War, the Piece of Eden was brought to the Aztec Club in New York City until they lost possession of it during the 1863 draft riots. During his fight with Varius, Templar Cudgel Cormac inadvertently used the dagger on the Assassin while ranting about the Order's ideals, putting the Assassin in a state of confusion between his own faith in the Creed and the words of Cormac backed by the power of the prong. Varius was saved by Eliza and the pair gave the Piece of Eden to Ulysses S. Grant. Before his death, Grant hid the artifact under the floor of his home in Mount McGregor, where it lay undisturbed until around 2016.[3]
Fear prong[]
Prior to all the prongs being wielded by Alexander the Great, this prong was possessed by Greek cultists who used it in dark rituals dedicated to the sons of Ares, Deimos and Phobos.[6] After the death of Alexander the Great the prong fell under the ownership of his general Seleucus. Over a millennium later, having wound up in the hands of the early Yuan dynasty, this prong was buried in Mongolia within the tomb of Möngke Khan, the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire who died during the 13th century while invading southern China. When used, the dagger had the power to materialize the worst fears of its targets into vivid and terrorizing hallucinations.[5]
Devotion prong[]
Eventually, the Macedonian dagger was brought north and by the 10th century was in possession of King Harald Bluetooth, the Viking ruler of Denmark.[5] Styrbjörn the Strong, a Danish warrior, lead the Vikings of Jomsborg against King Harald at the Battle of Fýrisvellir, where the Devotion Prong was lost.
History[]
In the modern era, the mysterious Sebastian Monroe and a group of teenagers he recruited accidentally discovered the existence of the artifact through the exploration of their ancestors' memories in the Animus, specifically by witnessing Hernán Cortés using one of its prongs during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire.
This discovery pulled them into the conflict between the Assassins and Templars, as the two factions began to look for them. The team of young Assassin and Templar descendants went in search of the Trident while reliving the memories of their ancestors during the New York City draft riots of 1863, convinced by Monroe that they should hide the artefact from both factions.
Eventually the group came apart when a Templar strike team assaulted Monroe's warehouse. Owen Meyers and a reluctant Javier Mondragón escaped and joined forces with the Assassin Griffin, while the four captured others led by Sean Molloy and Grace Collins willingly decided to help the Templars. However, the first part ended up stolen out from under Assassin and Templar forces by an unknown third party, whom everyone believed to be Monroe.[3]
During the following weeks, the two factions pursued their hunt for the second prong of the Trident each on their side thanks to the genetic memories of Natalya Aliyev and Owen. Through their ancestors, the Mongol Bayan and the Assassin Zhang Zhi, who were both involved in the death of the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire during his attempt to conquer southern China, they discovered that the dagger was entombed with him in Mongolia.
Eventually, upon seizing the fear prong in the tomb of Möngke Khan, Isaiah revealed that it was him, not Monroe, who took the first part of the Trident in Grant's house and that he intended to use the Trident to become a new Alexander. Isaiah then broke apart from the Templar Order and took Sean with him, the young man having discovered through the memories of his Viking ancestor Styrbjörn the Strong that the last prong was somewhere in Scandinavia.[3]
Gallery[]
Behind the scenes[]
The Trident of Eden is a weapon and plot device that appears in and is central to American author Matthew J. Kirby's young adult trilogy Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants. When asked on Twitter about where and how Isaiah got the Triden's shaft and if it was considered a Staff of Eden,[7] Kirby explained that the staff was nothing more than a plain piece of wood, similar to the one that held the Headpiece to the Staff of Ra used to find the Ark of the Covenant's hidden location in the 1981 adventure film Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.[8] In a follow-up question about whether the staff had specific dimensions like the Staff of Ra did,[9] Kirby elaborated on how he tried to write that detail but ultimately cut it to maintain the books' pacing. In his mind, he felt that Isaiah had come across historical records describing the Trident's shaft and used them[10] to recreate one of appropriate size in the modern day. Kirby was also unsure how crucial the staff's features really were since the prongs were the stories' focus and could act independently of each other.[11]
Appearances[]
- Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants (first appearance)
- Assassin's Creed Roleplaying Game (indirect mention only)
References[]
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants – Locus – [citation needed]
- ↑ Assassin's Creed: Initiates – Timeline
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19 3.20 3.21 Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants – [citation needed]
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants – Fate of the Gods – [citation needed]
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants – Tomb of the Khan – [citation needed]
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Assassin's Creed Roleplaying Game – Legacy of the Brotherhood – Kassandra: Adventure Hook 2
- ↑
🆓Zero-ELEC🆓 (@ZeroELEC) on Twitter "@writerMattKirby About Last Descendants: We see where and how Isaiah got the Prongs of the Trident but it is never explained where and how he got the shaft. Is it technically a Staff of Eden? Was Abstergo already in possession of it?" (screenshot)
- ↑ Matthew J. Kirby (@writerMattKirby) on Twitter "@ZeroELEC Good question. The staff wasn't actually a part of the artifact, similar to the staff in Raiders of the Lost Ark that was used with the amulet to find the location of the hidden tomb." (screenshot)
- ↑ 🆓Zero-ELEC🆓 (@ZeroELEC) on Twitter "@writerMattKirby Thanks for answering! Interesting that the staff was just a staff. A very apt comparison. Makes me wonder if, like in Raiders, there were some specifications for the staff proper, or if the shape and make of the staff itself was irrelevant..." (screenshot)
- ↑ Matthew J. Kirby (@writerMattKirby) on Twitter "@ZeroELEC I definitely have thoughts about that, but it seemed to slow the pace down a bit when I tried to explain those details. I imagined that Isaiah had found written and/or visual depictions of the Trident in ancient historical sources, and he had used those (cont)" (screenshot)
- ↑ Matthew J. Kirby (@writerMattKirby) on Twitter "@ZeroELEC to recreate the staff. The reason I didn't take time to explain that is because I'm not sure how critical the staff would actually be, since the prongs of the Trident could work independently of one another." (screenshot)
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