AC: The Chain Story Discussion *** SPOILERS *** | Forums

[tarrero]

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!

Cool, however I find odd they did not explain how abstergo got him, may be on AC3. Speaking of which, did The chain mention anything, besides desmond, regarding AC3?

[LoyalACFan]

Thanks, twenty_glyphs! Although there's one thing I'm not understanding.

SPOILER

How the HELL did he not go insane from being in the Animus that long? Lucy said that 16 was in the Animus for "days" at a time, and... well, we know how that turned out. And Daniel was in the Animus for over a YEAR, and he's pretty much OK...?

[MasterSimaYi]

So, Abstergo had known about Ezio since 2002, yet in The Lost Archive Vidic is completely unaware of his existence, telling his assistant to "Find out what you can about this 'Ezio Auditore.' I want his records on my desk by the end of the week."

I'm really starting to love the modern day story now, but my God, continuity errors!

[De Filosoof]

So, Abstergo had known about Ezio since 2002, yet in The Lost Archive Vidic is completely unaware of his existence, telling his assistant to "Find out what you can about this 'Ezio Auditore.' I want his records on my desk by the end of the week."

I'm really starting to love the modern day story now, but my God, continuity errors!

Yeah, that's a little weird right?

[twenty_glyphs]

So, Abstergo had known about Ezio since 2002, yet in The Lost Archive Vidic is completely unaware of his existence, telling his assistant to "Find out what you can about this 'Ezio Auditore.' I want his records on my desk by the end of the week."

I'm really starting to love the modern day story now, but my God, continuity errors!

You make a good point, but I'm not sure where the error lies. In The Chain, Abstergo only calls him The Prophet, and Daniel does as well. It's possible that even after finding his Codex, Abstergo didn't know who The Prophet was. So finding out more about Ezio could have been to help Vidic verify that Ezio was The Prophet. The problem with that theory is that in The Chain, the man that Daniel meets in the library does mention Ezio by name, though only his first name. Maybe that slipped past Daniel, or maybe that was the error. It might have been there just so readers would make the connection between The Prophet and Ezio, since some people might not remember him being called that. Or maybe it didn't slip past him, but Vidic still wanted to verify everything about the Ezio Auditore he'd just heard about to see if he matched their profile of The Prophet.

On the other hand, Abstergo continues to act strangely and seems to know everything and nothing at once. The AC1 emails paint them as desperate to launch their satellite by 12/21/2012 because of them being under government scrutiny, while everything else points at them basically controlling many of the world's governments. Each piece of the story also reveals more evidence that they know full well about the solar catastrophe coming on 12/21/2012, which may be the real reason for their launch window. After The Lost Archive revealed that Abstergo allowed Desmond to read their emails, I don't know how much we can trust that information in those emails was fully truthful. Between that and everything they went through to make Desmond think he had escaped, they definitely have a big plan and something up their sleeve. Rift 10 in Brotherhood explicitly says as much:

64 squares. All ranks and files. Every move anticipated. Every response engineered. Abstergo created it. It's the company's game, there is no way out. H. Act II, Sc.2 192. Abran los ojos. Tuam libera mentem. The King. F2. Your move.

The puzzle solution was to take the King off the chess board, basically refusing to play Abstergo's game with their rules. "Abran los ojos. Tuam libera mentem" translates to "Open your eyes. Free your mind." I think that was the purpose of Juno making Desmond stab Lucy, to basically change the game that Abstergo had set up.

Along with the "Every move anticipated, every response engineered" lines, I think that Abstergo has been acting like it knows much less than it really knows the whole time. They seem to think it will make the Assassins respond in certain ways. So it's entirely possible that Vidic was still playing dumb even with Subject 16, making him think they didn't know more about Ezio than they did.

Another interesting note is how if you take Jeffrey Yohalem's comments about the emails Lucy was getting from "William M." in Brotherhood into account, it seems pretty likely that the three emails she got from "William M." were actually from Abstergo. The last one she got actually fits right in with The Chain, hinting that they've suspected about Minerva for almost a decade (Daniel discovered Ezio's Codex in late October of 2002, and this email was in early October 2012):

The issues you raised in your last voicemail have taken me by surprise, to say the least. Think of all the work, all the stress and planning we've put into this. We had our suspicions for years about Minerva, about that particular Piece of Eden. Your tapes confirmed it, now we can study and discover the truth.

You've been waiting nearly a decade for this day, don't put Desmond in danger just because of feelings you may or may not have. We're only going to get one shot at this with the short amount of time left. Don't fail us now.

[Gil_217]

So, Abstergo had known about Ezio since 2002, yet in The Lost Archive Vidic is completely unaware of his existence, telling his assistant to "Find out what you can about this 'Ezio Auditore.' I want his records on my desk by the end of the week."

I'm really starting to love the modern day story now, but my God, continuity errors!

Wait a minute, Vidic did indeed said that, but what's bothering me is that sentence doesn't even make sense in The Lost Archive context.

I don't know if I'm missing/forgetting something but Vidic said that during Clay's time in Abstergo, so that implies that he wasn't aware of Ezio's existence before kidnapping Clay. Shouldn't Vidic and Abstergo be aware of Ezio before kidnapping Clay? Why did they kidnapped him for then? Maybe they kidnapped him to relive the memories of other ancestors and when they found that Clay was a descendant of Ezio and learned about who Ezio was and is importance to their goals they immediately used him to relive Ezio's memories. I don't know, or I am just missing something here.

[SixKeys]

Thanks for the summary again! Now I'm kind of tempted to look into getting this after all.

[MasterSimaYi]

You make a good point, but I'm not sure where the error lies. In The Chain, Abstergo only calls him The Prophet, and Daniel does as well. It's possible that even after finding his Codex, Abstergo didn't know who The Prophet was. So finding out more about Ezio could have been to help Vidic verify that Ezio was The Prophet. The problem with that theory is that in The Chain, the man that Daniel meets in the library does mention Ezio by name, though only his first name. Maybe that slipped past Daniel, or maybe that was the error. It might have been there just so readers would make the connection between The Prophet and Ezio, since some people might not remember him being called that. Or maybe it didn't slip past him, but Vidic still wanted to verify everything about the Ezio Auditore he'd just heard about to see if he matched their profile of The Prophet.

I find it difficult to believe that for nine years, they didn't know a single thing about the Prophet, nor that none of these letters and pages that Ezio owned mentioned his name. If they knew about the existence of "the Prophet" and that it was an "Ezio," it seems improbable that they couldn't find any info about him, but when they knew his name was"Ezio Auditore" from Clay they could find a lot of things right away. I've yet to read The Chain so I won't draw any full conclusions yet, but it just seems like an oversight to me. And if they sacrificed canon so the player can draw the connection, which they don't seem to have before, wouldn't really jusfity it either.

Another interesting note is how if you take Jeffrey Yohalem's comments about the emails Lucy was getting from "William M." in Brotherhood into account, it seems pretty likely that the three emails she got from "William M." were actually from Abstergo. The last one she got actually fits right in with The Chain, hinting that they've suspected about Minerva for almost a decade (Daniel discovered Ezio's Codex in late October of 2002, and this email was in early October 2012):

Yes, the emails being from Vidic seems the most likely. Tough in regards to that last sentence, I think Lucy's lines from AC2 fits that better: "I've been going through his files. Vidic flagged a couple of his Animus sessions. A bunch of different ancestors, different dates and locations... ancient Africa, the Middle East... but towards the end, he became obsessed with Italy. I think he knew about the Vault."

I don't know if I'm missing/forgetting something but Vidic said that during Clay's time in Abstergo, so that implies that he wasn't aware of Ezio's existence before kidnapping Clay. Shouldn't Vidic and Abstergo be aware of Ezio before kidnapping Clay? Why did they kidnapped him for then? Maybe they kidnapped him to relive the memories of other ancestors and when they found that Clay was a descendant of Ezio and learned about who Ezio was and is importance to their goals they immediately used him to relive Ezio's memories. I don't know, or I am just missing something here.

Clay was kidnapped because he had other ancestors of note that Abstergo could explore. The Assassins made sure that he got captured by Abstergo's Lineage Discovery and Acquisistion division for his mission.

[Gil_217]

So, basically, there is only one explanation to this:

The Templars became aware of the existence of a Prophet and is importance to them in 2002 but they couldn't find out who he was, even though this might be hard to believe.

Then, after 9 years, they found out who he was during Clay's time at Abstergo, between February 2011-2012.

After realizing that Ezio is an ancestor of Clay and learning he was the prophet and had contact with an Apple of Eden and entered a vault created by Those Who Came Before and talked to one of them, they just used Clay to relive Ezio's memories.

This is the only way that Vidic's words in The Lost Archive can make sense.

[SixKeys]

The games are the ultimate canon. Whenever spin-offs (books, comics) contradict things in the games, those things should be regarded as non-canon. This only applies to the non-canon parts. The stuff that doesn't directly contradict the games is canon.