Story beats · 8

1. 01The Farm, and the door

   Raised in a hidden Assassin compound, trained from childhood, gone at sixteen — Desmond's first escape is from his own side.

2. 02Subject 17

   A fingerprint betrays him to Abstergo. In the Rome lab, Vidic's Animus mines Altaïr's memories while Subject 16's blood-writing watches from the walls.

3. 03Lucy's door code

   Vidic's assistant is an Assassin. The breakout leads to a hideout, a team — Shaun, Rebecca — and a new subject: Ezio.

4. 04The bleeding effect

   The Animus gives Desmond his ancestors' skills and their ghosts — training montage and haunting in one mechanism.

5. 05The Colosseum vault

   The Apple recovered — and Juno's hand inside Desmond's. Lucy dies on his hidden blade; the coma begins.

6. 06The Black Room

   In the Animus' failsafe, Clay Kaczmarek teaches Desmond how to reassemble a self — and what Lucy may have been.

7. 07The Grand Temple

   Power sources from Manhattan to São Paulo, Daniel Cross at every turn, William taken and retrieved from Abstergo — the last season of Desmond's life is a heist against the clock.

8. 08December 21, 2012

   Minerva's ashes or Juno's chains: Desmond chooses the world, takes the pedestal, and the modern story loses its protagonist on purpose.

Characters

• 
  Desmond Miles

  Subject 17 — ran from the Farm at sixteen, dragged back into the war by a fingerprint

  protagonist
• 
  Lucy Stillman

  Vidic's assistant, undercover Assassin — and the saga's cruelest question mark

  ally
• 
  Warren Vidic

  The Animus program's father — Abstergo's lab coat with a whip hand

  antagonist
• 
  William Miles

  Desmond's father and the Assassins' Mentor — the Farm made flesh

  ally
• 
  Shaun Hastings

  Historian, database author, professional sarcasm

  ally
• 
  Rebecca Crane

  Baby — the Animus 2.0 — is her life's work

  ally
• 
  Clay Kaczmarek

  Subject 16: the warning written on the walls, then the ghost in the machine

  ally
• 
  Daniel Cross

  The Templars' sleeper who gutted the Brotherhood — and keeps finding Desmond

  antagonist
• 
  Juno

  The Isu in the Grand Temple, patient as continental drift

  antagonist
• 
  Minerva

  The Isu who left warnings instead of traps

  ally

OppositionAbstergo Industries (the Templar Order, incorporated 1937)

Modern frameThis IS the modern day — 2012, from abduction to sacrifice

Pieces of Eden

• Apple of Eden
• The Grand Temple & the Eye

Connections

• Assassin's CreedCharacter

  The abduction and the Animus — the saga's first chapter is AC1's frame.

• AC IICharacter

  Minerva's vault message is addressed past Ezio, straight to Desmond.

• AC IIIDirect sequel

  The Grand Temple endgame and the sacrifice — AC III's modern day is this saga's finale.

• The Layla SessionsCharacter

  The Reader in the Grey — what the Temple left of Desmond — meets Layla eight years later.

In game · 3 shots

Introduced to the series

• The Animus & bleeding effect
• The frame story as serialized plot

Chosen ones, invoiced · Fathers and Farms · Sacrifice without witnesses