|
Legacy of the First Templars - Part 1
Markuz, April 19th, 2019
Translated by: Stefania The Legacy of the First Blade DLC arc for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey finally brought to the spotlight one of the “legendary” proto-Assassins that we have known since Assassin’s Creed II, Darius. Through the DLC arc we finally got to know a bit of Darius’ origins, his family, his influence on Kassandra and her legacy and his ties to the Order of the Ancients and the proto-Templars. This particular topic, the development of the proto-Templars and the organizations that lead to the creation of the Order is one of the elements that fascinated me throughout the DLC arc (and the main game). Thus, this article will not (only) be dedicated to the events of the DLC arc per se, but will focus on all the information we know about the proto-Templars in the Greek World and beyond.
Let’s start with a few bits of info from the latest released version of the Assassin’s Creed Essential Guide: The Templar Order began as a secret society called The Order of the Ancients. The group was formed thousands of years ago and took power in Persia, in Egypt and beyond. When Kassandra weakened and then ended up dismantling the Cult of Kosmos in the 5th century BCE, she allowed, despite her intent, for the Order of the Ancients to infiltrate Greece. and The Templar Order lays its roots in some ancestral secret organizations, and notably The Order of the Ancients, which took power in Egypt and beyond. Before that, the fall of the Cult of Kosmos in Ancient Greece allowed the Order of the Ancients to establish a strong presence there after the end of the Peloponnesian War. Based on these two excerpts, the only proto-Templar organization that we know of is the Order (despite there being potentially other “ancestral secret organizations” like it). I have to say that I was kind of surprised, when I read these two excerpts, not to find the Cult of Kosmos as another group at the base of the Templars and this got me thinking: if the game was marketed as having the ongoing ideology conflict between order and free will despite not having Assassins or Templars, and if Kassandra is considered to be a proto-Assassin (as mentioned in the same guide), who is representing the proto-Templars in it? The immediate answer, for me, would have been the Cult. But then the Order of the Ancients came up at a later stage in the DLCs and these statements in the guide are quite unequivocal.
One would argue that this is one of the topics that add confusion to an already very fragmented lore, but maybe it’s not like that. I actually find it fascinating that having the Order of the Ancients back in Odyssey can allow to draw some comparisons with the Cult of Kosmos as to their origins, philosophies, objectives and modus operandi in Ancient Greece, and this can also help in trying to have a better idea about whether the Cult of Kosmos truly was a proto-Templar organization or not. Origins and early objectives As we know from Assassin’s Creed Origins, the Order of the Ancients was founded by Pharaoh Smenkhkare, the “Herald of the Ancients”, around 1335-1334 BCE with the objective of studying and keeping the secrets of the First Civilization and their technology. Amun-Ra protect his name, our luminous eminence, Smenkhkare, first of the true sons, herald of the Ancients, and venerated architect of the Order. He who bade me gather the sacred scrolls so he can watch them for eternity from the Field of Reeds. He who silences what is secret and guards what is known. Beware enemies of the Order, for he will stand before the Ones Who Came Before and be judged worthy to worship and follow them. And so shall you fall. - Inscription on Smenkhkare’s sarcophagus This was so important for Smenkhkare that his tomb was intentionally built in front of the entrance of an Isu building, Eeyoo Sekedoo Aat.
Over the course of the years though, the objectives of the Order shifted, and in Origins (in 48 BCE and afterwards) we saw the Order trying to control the entirety of Egypt and trying to get back to the order and power that belonged to the ancient pharaohs through every means and at every level of the society, even by supporting important political figures like Ptolemy XIII and Julius Caesar. At the same time, though, they still tried to access First Civilization vaults like the one in Siwa or the one under the Great Pyramid in Giza. In Odyssey (in 431 BCE and afterwards), instead, while we still see the Order controlling their allies and puppets in the high ranks of society like king Xerxes I of Persia and his father Darius I, the organization looks much more focused on the hunt of the so-called “Tainted Ones”, that is, people with a high concentration of First Civilization DNA that have “exceptional abilities” and also, because of their blood, the power to change entire civilizations. The Order believes them to be a danger for Persia and for the people in general, so they do all they can to eradicate them. It’s interesting to see how this mindset changed drastically over time within the Order, as we’ll see in the second part of the article. The Cult, instead, originated quite curiously from Pythagoras and his teachings. In his words in the Cultist ending of the game: “Decades ago, a group of people gathered together to uphold a theory which they believed could control the universe. That the world functioned in equal parts, order and disorder. But some fell lovingly into the wicked arms of chaos. And the Cult of Kosmos was born. They abused their power, casting the Greek world into eternal war - one you were created to stop. In destroying the Cult, you have done what I could not. You are a hero.” In addition to that, the Essential Guide clarifies it better:
Thus, it seems to me that while Pythagoras had been studying, along with his followers, the formulas and theory to explain the mysteries of the universe for most of his natural life, it was after he met Hermes Trismegistus, and received his Staff that things started getting more complicated and the ground was laid for the birth of the Cult (by the way, all the events up to this point were shown in Project Legacy, in 2010-2011! I’ll never be thankful enough for seeing such an old and intriguing piece of lore from one my favourite transmedia projects being built upon in Odyssey). After Pythagoras learnt of the existence of the First Civilization and the Isu artifacts though, apparently he discussed them with his followers (and this can kind of be seen when he told Kyros of Zarax – again in Project Legacy – to look for an Apple of Eden in an abandoned temple of Aphrodite). He tried to teach them to have some self control while managing such artifacts but some of them didn’t listen and got corrupted by the thirst for the power that the Pieces of Eden can grant. That’s where the Cult of Kosmos was born, separating itself from Pythagoras’ original group. Thus, as Pythagoras (c.570 – c.495 BCE) was already somewhat old when he met Hermes Trismegistus (around 50-60 years old? Maybe older?) and considering that the Cult of Kosmos was created after that, we can broadly hypothesize the Cult was born around 520-500 BCE, approximately a hundred years before the events shown in Odyssey. Despite these being their origins though, in one of the documents that appear in Odyssey, addressed to a cultist named Midas, it is mentioned that “the first true servant of Kosmos” was Agamemnon, the mythological king of Mycenae who commanded the Greek forces in the Trojan War. As we have seen, in multiple instances Odyssey considers mythological characters, events and locations as actually real and existing ones, like Odysseus and the ruins of his palace which can be found in Ithaka, and Agamemnon is no different. In fact, in Argolis there is an entire region called “Palace of Agamemnon” which also contains a tomb, the “Tomb of Agamemnon” where a First Civilization stele is hidden (much like in the other tombs in Greece). Considering that the modern dating of the Trojan war is around 1260–1180 BCE, it means that Agamemnon was a “servant of Kosmos” before the Cult existed. A proto-cultist if you will (*cough*). Seriously though, as “kosmos” was meant to mean “order” or “order of the universe” (funnily enough, the word was introduced historically by Pythagoras), it’s more likely that the Cult – at least initially – worshipped Agamemnon as an example of the kind of order they wanted to bring… but that’s not all.
In fact, in the same letter sent to Midas it’s actually mentioned that “Effort by the Worshippers to resurrect the first true servant of Kosmos, Agamemnon, have failed. All traces of their dark rituals must be hidden by shadow”. Moreover, in another letter, sent by Nyx the Shadow to Midas, she mentions that she wants to hear the words “Agamemnon and all traces of his lineage have been destroyed”, otherwise Midas would have died. Thus, apparently, in this very tiny bit of lore it’s shown that the Worshippers of the Bloodline, one of the clusters of the Cult, had been very interested in Agamemnon and venerated him and even tried to resurrect him, possibly because he was a member of the Bloodline (as in, a Tainted One) himself. These dark rituals didn’t work apparently, and thus Midas was tasked to destroy every trace of them – and of Agamemnon and his lineage. Too bad that this interesting piece of lore wasn’t expanded a bit more, considering that there is an entire area of the game dedicated to Agamemnon, his Palace and his Tomb… The Cult’s objectives and modus operandi, which will be discussed in the next paragraph, are possibly the gist of what makes them a proto-Templar organization or not and they are rooted in their hundred-year history – and the Cultist ending of AC Odyssey. In fact, as of now the topic is kind of divisive, with fans believing the Cult was not a pre-Templar organization at all because of its chaotic nature or because according to the story it did not have a direct influence on the evolution and creation of the Templars and others thinking it actually was because of some of the hints shown in the game and their small interactions with the Order of the Ancients.
I even asked on Twitter about this and the kind of answers I got from friends and followers (and Mentors) was very diversified, to say the least. The issue possibly lies both in what we were shown in Odyssey and its DLC but also in what the writers were aiming at telling us, which in several occasions isn’t entirely coherent. Thus, to try and have a final answer, we need to have a look at the Cult’s objectives and plans before, during and after the game. Philosophies, objectives and actions in the 5th century BCE Before we can draw a comparison with the Order of the Ancients, which we are actually going to do in the second part of the article, we are going to have a look at the motivations behind the Cult before the events shown in the game thanks to its text files, hints and a specific cutscene, then we are going to have a look at the state of the Cult during the events shown in the game and lastly we’re going to wrap it up by examining the Cultist ending. Hold tight! The Cult prior to the events shown in the game Apart from what I already mentioned about the Cult’s founders, the only historical information concerning their history before the Peloponnesian War concerns their meddling in the Battle of Thermopylae. In fact, as shown in Odyssey, in 480 BCE Leonidas went to Delphi, possibly against his will, to talk to the Pythia. He already had decided Sparta would have faced the Persians notwithstanding a previous verdict by the Oracle against it. In the
In that occasion Leonidas already knew not only about the Cult but also about how they were manipulating the Pythia for their own goals but that’s not enough. In that meeting the Cultists say “You think your blood makes you special?” which means that back then both the Cult and Leonidas already knew about the Isu DNA and the so-called Bloodline. What shows directly the intentions of the Cult with regards to the Persian invasion is the speech by the Pythia towards the Spartan king: “Your fate is sealed, Son of the Lion. Xerxes will unite us. He will bring order to chaos”. This is unmistakable, at least in this period of time the Cult planned to bring order to Greece by allowing the Persians and Xerxes to complete their invasion in what seems to be a very Templar-y approach and objective. This is somehow confirmed by the fact that Xerxes was an ally / puppet of the Order of the Ancients as shown by the first episode of the DLC (and as mentioned in every other source of Templar lore known to-date). What could seem, and maybe even was, an inconsistency back then (the same ally / puppet being supported by two separated Templar-esque organizations) was actually “amended” with episode 3 of Legacy of the First Blade, where it was stated that the Cult and the Order had been cooperating since “As far back as Xerxes”, in a collaboration that was actually never showed in the entirety of the main game up until the second episode of the DLC. Back to 480 BCE, Leonidas obviously refused the Cult’s pressure and went on to fight and die in the battle of Thermopylae. By the way, fun fact; according to Episode 2 of the Legacy of the First Blade DLC it’s stated that somehow Darius was at Thermopylae during the battle and saw Leonidas using the Spear… which looks a bit off based on what we know. As stated by the novelization of the game, most of the endings take place in the 420s BCE, while the DLC takes place before the Cultist ending. In the DLC Darius looks to be in his fifties / sixties, meaning that, in order to be at Thermopylae, he would have had to be like 5-10 years old, maybe even younger. Furthermore, in the Xerxes assassination scene Darius looks to be in his twenties / thirties, and that takes place 15 years after Thermopylae and around 40 years prior to the events of the DLC… Thus, there’s a bit of confusion surrounding Darius seeing what happened at Thermopylae, which is such an important detail that was just briefly mentioned. I wonder if this will ever brought back up at some point?
Getting closer to the events of the main game but still earlier than them, everything starts to revolve around Aspasia. She’s the beginning and end of what we know about the Cult’s history. She was the Ghost of Kosmos, that is, the leader of the Cult who “whispered” her messages and orders to the so-called Sages, the leaders of the seven branches of the organization - and Deimos. While in the game we see her more as Perikles’ lover and as a participant or host of several social and mundane events, it’s in the letters she wrote to the Sages that we can actually see the vision she had for
In fact, there are a few documents she wrote while she was still the leader of the Cult during the early events of the game that show some strong affinities with the Templar principles, especially that of peace. In fact, in ALL her letters to the “Sages” of the Cult except Deimos (that’s seven letters, it should account for something ^^) she mentions or alludes to peace, sometimes even saying directly that “peace will come”, “Kosmos will demand this war’s end”, “Kosmos will bring us peace” and “peace will be mine” – showing that the Cult’s goal or at least her goal as its leader was not the war itself but the orchestrated peace that would have come afterwards, in a very Templar-y fashion. If that wasn’t enough, in these letters Aspasia mentions multiple times that at the end of the war her plan is to “unite the Greek cities under one banner – mine” and that “the world will fall under one rule” and even more directly that she wants one of the Sages “in our new world”. All of these quotes are akin to the concept of new world order that the Templars have been mentioning since the first chapter of the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Thus, it does look that the Cult, in this phase was very much oriented towards “the Templar way” but… The Cult during the events shown in the game The Cult we see in the game looks nothing like what Aspasia seems to be planning in her letters. It’s an already fractured and not always well organized group of several people. Still, as they did in the past, they are trying to manipulate History and get hold of the territory around them, “the Greek world”, through the use of a specific Piece of Eden, the Pyramid, which according to Aspasia had been worshipped by the Cult for decades (which may account for a big part of the entire existence of the Cult itself). Through it and its calculations, the Cult is able to see the potential future events and communicate them (or a… carefully shaped version of them) to the Oracle of Delphi. That way, the Oracle is able to influence all the people that come to her from all over the Greek World asking for advice, especially those who inquire about politics and the Peloponnesian War. This sounds very Templar-y again, and honestly it’s a very good example of Assassin’s Creed having famous legends and bits of history interacting with the First Civilization elements in a meaningful way (I would have loved to see more of this but alas).
There are other instances of the Cult having Templar-like behaviors that can be seen in-game. For example, they have other puppets / members that belong to the very highest echelons of society and the military, in order to control it. The best examples of this are Pausanias, one of the two kings in Sparta, and Kleon, Perikles’ political opponent in Athens and “ruler” once Perikles is killed by Deimos. Another example is the practice of exerting chaos and fear to gather or maintain control over the populace, which is something that the Templars did a few times across the franchise as my friend Sima from the AC Wiki pointed out to me once, especially during the French Revolution. This can be seen in Odyssey in a letter by Cultist Melanthos to his father where he directly states that “Fear is control” and especially in the profile of Cultist Polemon the Wise. In fact, in his page of the Cultists menu, not only it is stated that the Peloponnesian War was planned and caused by the Cult but also that “the reason for the war was simple: control through chaos”. So… concocting a wide-scale war and having puppets on the highest positions of power on both sides in order to establish a new “world order” at the end of the war. That’s exactly what the Templars did with World War II.
This way Deimos grew up with no empathy towards anyone while still retaining all the strength, abilities and interactions with the Pieces of Eden that an Isu hybrid has. What they didn’t see coming was that his harsh upbringing made him very violent and unpredictable and the power he wielded could not be controlled completely. Thus, Deimos went on to consider himself the leader of the Cult and while some of the Cultists still believed they were using him for their own gain, most of them started to fear him. Still, he was the only Isu hybrid / member of the Bloodline that they had among their ranks, and the only one that could fully interact with the Pyramid so they kept trying to use him. This obviously created some radical issues in how the organization was trying to achieve its objectives but it wasn’t the only problem. During the gathering in the Cave of Gaia in Delphi, at the beginning of the game, by interacting with the various members of the organization, it’s possible to see how they are split in their own views even without taking Deimos into account. A Cultist - the Monger - is torturing another one – Brison - because he failed his mission, some others would like Athens or Sparta to win a particular match at the Olympic Games in order for that to have a specific echo on the war and, more importantly, some are having a heated discussion over whether hunting Deimos’ mother (Myrrine) or his father (apparently, they don’t know about Pythagoras’ identity at this point). This, along with several other letters where some Cultists show their distaste about their current state in the organization, shows how the Cult seems to be lacking a specific and univocal direction and objective in 431 BCE (especially after Aspasia left it) and, as we saw from the story in Odyssey, at this point chaos is already reigning within the organization while everything is spiraling out of control, with Deimos being its most obvious and biggest example. The end of the Cult and Aspasia’s new plans Apart from the message conveyed by Pythagoras to Kassandra about the origins of the Cult and the “rift in the universe” she has to repair, the Cultist Ending of AC Odyssey basically gives us all the information about what happened behind the scenes during the events of the game, whilst our heroine was busy slaughtering all the members of the Cult in her search for revenge and justice.
She directly says that “fueling war” was one of the methods for the Cult to obtain a “clean slate”, and that her approach wasn’t about destruction but rather “about redirection” which once again, to me, means creating a new world order. In Aspasia’s words, all of this, as risky and negative as it sounded, ”was controlled. Until suddenly it wasn’t”. Deimos’ presence changed it all and his unpredictability, coupled with his abilities and especially the Cult not being able to control him, made it so that he held more sway than even Aspasia did within the organization. This prompted Aspasia to leave the Cult as it didn’t align to her views anymore… and that’s when she met Kassandra. Her encounter with Kassandra changed her view on the Bloodline / Tainted Ones. We’re going to go deeper into this topic in a dedicated chapter, but suffice to say that, according to Aspasia, while the Cult was after the Bloodline, it also always considered people belonging to it as a threat - it’s what happened with Leonidas, Deimos to a degree and Kassandra at the beginning of her story after all. When Aspasia got to meet Kassandra though, she realized that the misthios wasn’t a threat as she thought she could be, and that’s when she started her new plan: deceiving Kassandra and helping / pushing her into destroying the Cult for her, as Aspasia thought it had become too corrupt for her opinions and philosophy. That though, wasn’t a plan she had come up with totally on her own. In fact, even if she wasn’t part of the Bloodline, she was somehow able to activate the Pyramid and see bits of a calculation that showed her Kassandra annihilating the Cult, destroying the Pyramid itself… and “what would come next” and that’s where she pronounces the sentence that most fans tried to interpret as it might have the key for an upcoming setting of a game or another piece of content in the Assassin’s Creed universe. We will be replaced by a new kind of order – control under the reign of a philosopher king. There would be a movement away from the old gods towards rational society, built in a kingdom by the people for the people. And I must find someone to lead them.
A very cryptic sentence which in itself makes sense within the AC lore. The Pyramid allowed Aspasia to see a potential future where the political system that she and Kassandra are used to would be replaced by a different one: that of control exerted by a “philosopher king”. This epithet is – hopefully – not used by chance and is a reference to Plato who – according to Wikipedia – defines it as “a ruler who possesses both a love of knowledge, as well as intelligence, reliability, and a willingness to live a simple life”. In general, the historical characters that were mostly considered to be close to the ideal of philosopher king or self described as one were:
As mentioned earlier, Alexander The Great would tie directly into Origins because of the Staff that can be found in his tomb in the game, and he would also tie into several bits of established lore, from the multiplayer files in AC Revelations to the Last Descendants books. Marcus Aurelius, instead, would bring us to Ancient Rome in the second century AD, where we would see what has become of the Hidden Ones after we saw Amunet founding the Roman Bureau in Origins and after the proto-Assassin / Hidden One Leonius killed the proto-Templar emperor Caligula. Going back to the vision that Aspasia saw, in my opinion the “movement away from the old gods towards rational society” and the “kingdom by the people for the people” are more of a reference to what would happen to society and to the Templar Order across time. The idea of enlightenment and moving from a society based on an ancient pantheon of gods towards a more rational and science-based one can be found in several instances through history and the narrative of the franchise. For example we can see that in Origins, but also with several other “enlightened” Templars like Pope Sylvester II (defined as “a man of science” by Abstergo) or the intellectuals from the 17th century Spinoza, Locke, Newton and Bacon, who were influenced by the Templars to usher in “a society where science and technology could flourish. That served our purpose.”
Going back to Aspasia’s speech, she directly mentions that all of these potential prospects, the potential future that the Pyramid showed her, wouldn’t have been possible if the Cult and its “chaotic regime” had kept being active in Greece, so she decided to abandon the Cult (after she found Deimos had killed Perikles) and let it drive itself into its own end, while she also helped Kassandra in her revenge. The final part of Aspasia’s plan, after she realized that not every member of the Bloodline was a threat, was to enroll Kassandra into being part of her plan of steering “towards a new republic under one supreme rule” but, according to the Essential Guide, “the two ladies parted ways after finding out that their beliefs pushed them in different directions”. Thus, Aspasia’s beliefs and plan, which once again are very Templar-y, are everything that remains of the Cult after the events of Odyssey and because the Cult is destroyed and eradicated, apart from what Aspasia may have done after her last meeting with Kassandra, according to the main game it looks like it never had a direct influence on what would become the Templar Order… Or did it? Many of you will already know the answer to that question, but we have already run out of time and space so we’ll leave it at that for now! We strongly suggest you to follow us as in a few days we will release the second part of the article where we are going to draw a comparison between the philosophies and objectives of the Cult of Kosmos and the Order of the Ancients, then have a look at the attitude of the two organizations towards the Tainted Ones / Bloodline and finally get to a conclusion about whether or not the Cult should be considered a proto-Templar organization! Stay synchronized with us!
comments powered by Disqus |
FOLLOW US ON
