The Story of the Shroud in 12 acts - Part 2

Markuz, September 21, 2015
Translated by: Stefania

Act 7 - Perotto Calderon: the love and selfishness of a father

I'll say this without mincing words, Perotto Calderon has been my favorite character of the whole Assassin’s Creed franchise for a long time now. Not Ezio, not Connor, not Altair, but the way less known Perotto, and finally this article is giving me the chance to explain why.



Perotto Calderon was inspired by a character who actually existed, a young Spanish servant of Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia) called Pedro Calderon, the dead body of whom was found in the Tiber river in 1498. He was drowned because of an alleged relationship with Lucrezia Borgia, which, as a result, led to the birth to the "infans romanus", Giovanni Borgia.

This story appears in Project Legacy too, but with various differences. In 1498 Perotto was a skilled archer and a member of the Assassin Order, and also an undercover spy in the ranks of the Borgia family. His task,

"I am a fool! I have decided to follow my heart rather than my instructions..."

disguised as a Borgia courier, was to obtain useful information for the Assassins, and for this reason, he often delivered and read letters signed by the Borgias. He spent a large portion of his time at the San Sisto convent, where Lucrezia Borgia had “sought refuge from politics", to deliver her letters and get her replies for her father. Seeing the girl suffering for the political intrigues organized by her father for her, Perotto began to feel compassion for the girl and eventually fell in love with her. The two started to spend time together, although they knew that their relationship was a danger for both of them (Lucrezia, as a member of the Borgia family, could not be seen with someone of Perotto's status and he couldn’t, being part of the Assassins Brotherhood, date a Templar). Nonetheless, they continued their relationship and eventually Lucrezia got pregnant. The problem became even bigger, especially for Perotto, who had to take care of Lucrezia and spy on the Borgia at the same time, so he was forced to often leave the woman alone with her chambermaid, Giulia.
Perotto had also to face other problems: the doctor who examined the baby said that he was malformed, a man started to blackmail him saying he knew what he was trying to hide and, besides that, his role as an Assassin demanded him to take care of his apprentice, Francesco Vecellio. While he was able to dispose of his blackmailer quickly, he had a pretty hard time dealing with his pupil and thought he suspected something. Nevertheless, Perotto loved and trusted him (“In a way, I already have a child. His name is Francesco").
Here Project Legacy’s memories come to a halt and resume with Perotto wounded and imprisoned affirming that he cannot hope for his Brothers to rescue him, nor will he ever see Lucrezia again. Probably - but it has never been confirmed - once the baby was born, the Borgia found out about him and put Perotto in jail and the Assassins discovered what happened to their Brother and his relationship with Lucrezia. Perotto, therefore, seemed to be abandoned to himself, but then Giulia, Lucrezia's chambermaid, came to his rescue and took him his son, who was close to death.

Soon Perotto understood that he would have never seen Lucrezia again and decided he had to do anything to save his son. For this reason, Perotto came up with a fool and almost suicidal idea: his Brotherhood, the Assassins, had recently taken to Agnadello some “supposed miracles” that could save his son’s life. Thus, finally, the Shroud comes into play in this “act”. Perotto’s idea is as fool as representative of his intents: fleeing quickly from the prison and from Rome, with the certainty that the Borgia would have hunted him down, and riding as fast as possible to Agnadello in order to reach the artifact protected by the Assassins, who considered him a traitor and would have tried to kill him. All this for having even the smallest hope of saving his child, without knowing what the artifact was really able to do (“If it can heal my child, I will travel any distance!”).



So he confronted a Borgia soldier and after a tough duel in which he suffered several wounds, with strength born of desperation he defeated him and stole his horse. He then left with

The fight between Perotto and his Brothers

his babe in arms for Agnadello. While traveling, he found a group of Borgia soldiers near Florence and dealt with them using his bow, killing some of them and wounding the others, who were able to escape.
He had almost reached Agnadello when, as expected, he found himself in front of his Brothers protecting the town and the Shroud and he was forced to attack and kill them; some of them had been his mates during the training and some of them were just novices. Also in this case, Perotto wasn’t able to kill them all and left some wounded, but alive, “enemies” behind.

Eventually our protagonist reached the house of Rinaldo Vitturi, a friend and the Keeper of the Shroud for the Assassins, and finally could try to save his son.
As narrated by Perotto in his memory, nothing has changed from what had been shown in the Mario Auditore’s memory. The artifact looked like “a plain thing, folded inside a simple wooden box". Also in this case Perotto said the Shroud was speaking to him and wanted to heal his own wounds, but he was there only for his son Giovanni. He wrapped his tiny body in the Shroud, which said “FLAWED MATERIAL". Perotto "ordered" the Shroud to cure his son anyway and in a matter of seconds he started to feel as though his head was going to burst, he heard his son crying in pain, the Shroud humming an “eerie song" and the voice in his head matching the tune. Eventually, the Shroud ordered, as happened to Mario, “YOUR PAIN IS TEMPORARY, IGNORE IT", disregarding the fact that it was giving this order to an infant.
Finally, Perotto removed Giovanni from the Shroud and noticed he was no longer crying. Wondering if he had truly been healed, Perotto returned the Shroud to its box and left with his child.

That’s why I love this character: despite being a member of one of the two orders that are ruling the fate of the world, he confronts both of them risking his life in order to save his son. This might seem a pretty egoistic approach, but it shows that for him being a father is way more important than being an Assassin, and this is the main reason why he’s my favorite Assassin since 2010.

These last events put in the spotlight once again the Shroud, which seems to talk to its user again, although it mostly uses the same messages, almost mechanically. Even the comment “FLAWED MATERIAL", which may be a reference to the fact that the subject is a child and not an adult (or also

Giovanni Borgia wrapped up in the Shroud

to the fact that he’s malformed), seems to be a mechanical comment, a cold and aseptic analysis.
Nonetheless, this is maybe the first case in which we see the Shroud healing someone. However, this event is surrounded by suffering and negativity: Perotto feels as though his head is going to explode and the child cries in pain while the Shroud is healing and telling him to ignore the pain because it’s temporary (before the definitive cure?).
Eventually the interaction between Perotto and the Shroud shows a new and almost celebratory element: an “eerie song”, with the voice (the supposed voice of the artifact) in his head almost matching that tune. A strange element, that appears when Perotto cradles his baby who is crying, and that raises doubts about the nature of the voice that the users of the Shroud heard.

How does Perotto's story end? Some memories of his apprentice Francesco Vecellio tell us that the Assassins assembled to decide on Perotto’s fate. During the assembly, Francesco begged his Brothers to spare his teacher’s life, but they didn’t want to listen to reason, since he had broken their tenets and compromised the Brotherhood.
The Brotherhood decided that Perotto had to die.

In the final scene of this chapter, the Assassins, among whom Francesco (whose former teacher looked at with sadness) found Perotto just outside Agnadello where he was camped with his son. Perotto was waiting for them and was ready to fight to the death for his child. The man bravely fought against his assailants but in the end the Assassins defeated him, sadly completing their mission.

"I am Consus, the Erudite God"

Lastly, it's interesting to mention the continuation of Giovanni Borgia's life in relation to the Shroud. Giovanni, as shown in Project Legacy, suffered as a child symptoms similar to the Bleeding Effect, probably due to his previous interaction with the Shroud, with dreams that contain memories of Marcus Junius Brutus and his father Perotto. In addition to this, and for the same reasons, since he was a child, Giovanni saw and spoke with what initially seemed like an imaginary friend called Consus but who soon after appears to more likely to be a member of the First Civilization. In fact, Consus advises Giovanni at first to give the Apple owned by the Borgias to the courtesan Fiora Cavazza, who was partially allied with the Assassins and later encouraged him just to join the Brotherhood. Finally, when Giovanni, now an adult, reached the Temple of Pythagoras (shown in AC: Brotherhood) in 1527 and reached the final room, Consus even got to "possess" Giovanni, and to call himself "Consus, the Erudite God ". This information, which can be found on this link and this link, show an indirect connection between the Shroud and Consus, who appears only after Giovanni interacts with / is cured by the Shroud, and only in his head .

Act 8 - Bartolomeo d'Alviano and the Battle of Agnadello

Bartolomeo d'Alviano never owned or touched the Shroud, but he had (or tried to have) an important role in defending it.

His memories in Project Legacy are set in 1509, thus after the events he was involved in through Assassin’s Creed II and Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. As always, we find him on the battlefield, specifically in the town of Agnadello.

Also in this case, a preamble is necessary. The battle of Agnello, fought on May 14th, 1509, was one of the crucial battles of the war between the League of Cambrai (founded five months earlier) and the Republic of Venice, which had to surrender to the French forces of Louis XII, King of France. Bartolomeo d’Alviano was leading the Venetian rearguard, while the vanguard was under the command of Niccolò Orsini, Count of Pitigliano, cousin of Bartolomeo. Around the town of Agnadello, an unwanted contact happened: the venetian rearguard met a detachment of the French army.

At the beginning the French, forced to march up a hillside that soon was filled with mud, were in trouble. Meanwhile Niccolò di Pitigliano was already far from Agnadello (in a small town called Pandino) and so Bartolomeo d'Alviano was forced to reach out to him to ask for the immediate intervention of the greater part of the army. Although a quick support was possible, his cousin Niccolò di Pitigliano replied that the orders of the Venetian senate were to avoid the battle and urged Alviano to abandon the battlefield and reach him.

Bartolomeo disobeyed the order of his superior and remained where he was and this is more or less where the memories in Project Legacy start.



All these memories are dedicated to the battlefield and show Bartolomeo who was in difficulty and had to recover and to find his sword Bianca lost in the mud and who, despite the almost certain defeat, tried to give everything he got. Eventually, the troops of Louis XII, who, according to Bartolomeo, “would not abandon his prize”, set fire to Agnadello. Bartolomeo searched for allies in the town, among the villagers, but unfortunately the French charge was unstoppable: Bartolomeo was struck several times and in the end he was forced to surrender. These are the last words of his memory: "Once again, I taste my own blood! The bodies of my fallen Brothers are strewn about the city. An endless wall of enemy blocks me from escape. Their leader gloats. I stare into his face, one I know all too well, as he shackles me."

While the memory may seem hard to understand, the previous information coming from Perotto Calderon can give us a clearer idea. Bartolomeo, being an Assassin, was not in Agnadello by chance, considering that the Shroud was kept in that town. So, as happened to Mario Auditore, a seemingly normal battle (that actually occurred for real), fought by two armies, was actually a conflict to seize the Shroud, “the prize" Louis XII was referring to. However, in contrast to what happened with Mario, the outcome was different: probably the Shroud was recovered by the other faction, Bartolomeo's “Brothers” (the Assassins) were slaughtered and Bartolomeo was captured and chained by the commander of his enemies. One mystery remains at the end of the battle, because Bartolomeo looked at the commander and stated he knew him well… Lucklily the identity of this commander is one of the mysteries of Project Legacy for which it's possible to hypothesize a solution, but for this we'll need the next act (spoilers, the answer is in the title).

Act 9 - Niccolò di Pitigliano and Francesco Vecellio's mission

Francesco Vecellio, picture from Assassin's Creed: Memories

In line with the Assassin’s Creed traditions, Project Legacy also shows the memories of Perotto Calderon’s favorite apprentice, Francesco Vecellio, during the years after the execution of his master.

Just to be clear, Francesco Vecellio is a character who existed in real life. He was the brother of the famous painter Tiziano and was a painter himself and a politician.

In Project Legacy Francesco is the protagonist of two chapters. In the first one, set between 1501 and 1503 (3-5 years after the death of Perotto), Francesco was sent to Rome and trained by none other than Ezio Auditore to arrange a team (together with the Assassins Cipriano Enu and Tessa Varzi) dedicated exclusively to interfere with Cesare Borgia’s influence in Italy. The group was very successful until when, in 1503, Cesare Borgia and Charles de la Motte (and their respective armies) ambushed them and killed Enu and Varzi.

Francesco survived (unfortunately we don’t know how) and, thanks to the second chapter of Project Legacy dedicated to him, we meet him again 7 years later, in 1510 (one year after the battle of Agnadello).

Preparation to Francesco's mission from the Data Dump Scanner in Project Legacy

So in 1510 Francesco was in Lonigo, a little town in the North-East of Italy. His mission was to assassinate... Niccolò di Pitigliano, the cousin of Bartolomeo d'Alviano. Being the target of a by now skilled Assassin surely makes us doubt his alliance with Bartolomeo d'Alviano in the battle of Agnadello, but let’s go on.
Francesco proved to be a skilled Assassin because, when he reached Lonigo, he used various techniques to get close to Pitigliano: he gathered information in taverns, he intercepted some couriers from Rome (a proof of the connection between Niccolò and the Borgias and so the Templars), spread rumors about his target in order to generate discontent in the city, he studied his habits and the various changings of the guards at his residence. Lastly, he got rid of the corrupted politicians and men of faith supporting Niccolò and instigated the townspeople against his target.

At this point, while the crowd was already in an uproar, Francesco directed his attention on Niccolò’s palace, in which he blocked all the escape routes. The uprising attracted the major part of the guards towards the gate and so Francesco was able to enter the palace, thanks also to the support of other fellow Assassins. Francesco was so close to his “prey” when...

... Niccolò di Pitigliano becomes the protagonist of the memory. Niccolò says that he had been struck true by Francesco’s hidden blade, yet he was still alive and he was surprised because, quoting him, he still felt the presence of the Shroud. This meant that the Assassin hadn’t find it yet.

These few words clearly explain the true intent of Francesco’s mission. The assassination of Niccolò di Pitigliano was only one of the two objectives of the Assassin: the other, and most important, one was the retrieval of the Shroud on behalf of the Brotherhood.
This is not the end of the story, though: the fact that Niccolò had the Shroud isn't a coincidence, considering that he had taken part in the battle of Agnadello. History tells us that, as we saw, Niccolò refused to help Bartolomeo d'Alviano and, in the Assassin’s Creed universe, the latter, after he surrendered, stated that he knew the commander of the army that defeated him all too well.

So what emerges from this - again in the AC story - is a sort of betrayal by Niccolò against the cousin in order to get his hands on the Shroud that, at that time, was in Agnadello. Probably - although it's not confirmed - Niccolò was a Templar or was funded by the Order, considering that the troops Bartolomeo dealt with belonged to King Louis XII of France (who was an ally of the Borgias and influenced by them) and that the couriers arriving in Lonigo came from Rome.

So, at this point, it’s easy to understand how Niccolò di Pitigliano had remained in possession of the Shroud for a year (from 1509, the year of the battle of Agnadello) and so why - coming back to Lonigo in 1510 - he was happy he had survived Francesco’s attack. For this reason, almost dying, he dragged himself to the place where the Shroud was hidden, which, once again, "spoke" to its user. This time, even before Niccolò touched it, the artifact spoke “in a language he did not understand” but he sensed what it meant anyway:

“GET UP"
“YOUR PAIN IS TEMPORARY. IGNORE IT.”
“CONCENTRATE. CLOSE THE WOUNDS."
“OPEN YOUR EYES. SLEEP IS DEATH.”
“DO NOT BELIEVE IN YOUR FRAILTY."
“COME CLOSER."

"... My world is enveloped in brilliant light..."

As soon as Niccolò touched the Shroud, the object enveloped his body in a brilliant light. The man extended his arms, he experienced “an infinite sea of perception", he felt his tongue rolling up and unrolling, his face twitching. A white light stained his hands and travelled through his veins, he tried to close his eyes but he "had none".
Thus the Shroud healed him or, to better put it, considering the description of the actions, “reconfigured” him, turning an almost dead man into an almost healthy one.
Niccolò was soon back on his feet, the pain was extreme but he was rejuvenated and tried to escape from his residence with the artifact.
However his palace was burning and it was hard to escape, also due to the fact that Francesco had blocked all the escape routes. Eventually, intoxicated by the smoke, Niccolò reached the gardens in front of his residence and dropped onto the grass. Considering his situation, he believed he wouldn’t have been able to escape Lonigo and reach another city.

The other solution that came to his mind was to use the Shroud a second time, wrapping himself in it. Unfortunately in the memory appropriately called “Side Effects”, the result wasn’t the one he was expecting (I warn you, this isn’t a pleasant picture to think about :D): Niccolò began to vomit and then expelled at first a blood gush and then his insides. Later he heard a thousand voices shouting in his head and his body folded upon itself, with the muscles “pulling tighter than should be possible” and he felt his bones snap.
Eventually Niccolò said he was no longer in control of his own body, which “reconfigures as the voices demand!". The result was that Niccolò had stopped breathing, one of his eyes had gone blind

The second 'reconfiguration' of Niccolò di Pitigliano's body

while the other was slowing losing focus. The last thing he saw was Francesco Vecellio who approached him and pulled the Shroud from his grip, saying “Disgusting!"

Once again, the Shroud finds a new owner, but the important detail here is what the artefact does to Niccolò in the last part of the memory, although it’s not pleasant to imagine. As Niccolò himself says, the Shroud reconfigures his body a second time. A reconfiguration that, it seems, is controlled by a voice, probably the same voice that the various owners hear when they’re near the artefact.

It seems, therefore, that the continuous use causes a new (or maybe more?) reconfiguration of body, muscles and bones, a sort of induced evolution that, however, the human body (or at least the body of Niccolò) isn’t able to bear. And, after all, this theory isn’t so far from the plot of Assassin’s Creed: the evolution “from archaic hominids to modern mankind (Homo Sapiens)" was caused by the Pieces of Eden, as shown in Glyph 20 of Assassin’s Creed II.

Act 10 - Evie Frye and Lucy Thorne

Although at present there isn’t much to say, it’s worth to jump forward of 350 years and reach the moment when the Shroud reappeared: 1868, the year Assassin's Creed Syndicate is set in.



From the little we know, in this year both Master Assassin Evie Frye and Templar Lucy Thorne are searching for the Shroud. In particular, in the demo shown at Gamescom, Thorne says that the Shroud is in a chest - maybe the same one showed in the memories of Project Legacy? - matching a key that probably the Templar has.

Almost at the end of the demo, we find out that Thorne is sure Evie has the Shroud but, as shown in the White Room during her assassination, she’s wrong. Thorne, before dying, says she hopes that the Assassin never finds the Shroud, because she has no idea what the artifact can truly do.

At this point, considering that these missions are in an advanced phase of the game, Evie doesn't seem to be in possession of the Shroud and doesn’t know its true powers. One might wonder how Evie intends to use the Shroud and why, but probably we'll need to wait for the release of the game.

On the other hande, while it was only hinted at during the commented demo, Brand Manager Carsten Myhill has recently confirmed the presence of a Piece of Eden hidden inside the Tower of London. It is very likely it will be the Shroud (unless we are going to face a plot twist), so we are at least aware of where the artifact will be located.

Act 11 - Milan, the Baguttiani and the alleged Abstergo agent

No, we’re not talking about the "Agent" from the Abstergo Employee Handbook. This time, the Shroud reappears on December 25, 1944, in Milan. We’re in the midst of World War II and in this period (as many other times in the previous years), Milan and Lombardy are the target of several bombings by the English and American troops.

The protagonist of the memory, once again from Project Legacy, is a man who, with a bag full of money, walks the streets of Milan, among people who are suffering and starving to death, looking for an artifact. Soon, he reaches a restaurant and meets one of the members of the so-called Baguttiani, whom he describes as “a bunch of artsy thinker types who sit around all day contemplating the importance of sitting around and contemplating."

The Trattoria Bagutta today

The restaurant is the famous Trattoria Bagutta, where the very first Italian literary prize, the Bagutta prize, was established in 1926. In 1944, our protagonist finds the restaurant empty. Inside, a man is nervously waiting for him. In fact, our protagonist draws his pistol and the man points to a wooden box sitting on a bench (the same kind of box shown in the memories of Mario Auditore and Perotto Calderon).

The memory’s main character sits the bag full of money down on the table - suggesting a sale / trade - and, very skeptical, opens the box to check out its content. In 1944 (at least according to the story in Project Legacy), the Shroud in the box smells of mold and it’s “dirty as hell".

The next move of the memory’s protagonist is unexpected: he dangles the metal company logo at the end of his key chain and watches it jitter as he moves it near the box. Seeing what happened, the protagonist, who until that moment couldn’t believe he had found the Shroud after 20 years of searches, finally is sure that the real artifact is in his hands. The time of his memory is up, though, and unfortunately this is the last information we have about the Shroud, following the chronological order.



Summing up, in 1944, during World War II, an agent who probably works for Abstergo - considering that he has a bag full of money and trades it for a Piece of Eden - gets his hands on the Shroud, identifying it thanks to the continuous vibration of a metal object (a new element of the Shroud’s powers, unless that Abstergo logo was made out of a TWCB metal).

The fact that now the Shroud may still be in the hands of Abstergo (just seventy years have passed after all), opens various interesting scenarios. For this reason, there’s still one last and final act in the story of the Shroud.

Act 12 - Present day: theories and hypotheses

Summarizing all that we have seen, the Shroud has these abilities:

• It is a golden (NOT red) "striped" mantle or cloth, which originally was somehow attached / connected to a single structure to which the other Pieces of Eden were attached. A "whole" that in some cases is associated to the form of a tree that was protected by someone or something similar to a snake.
  
  
• It's a worn-out, dirty, yellowed mantle which presents blood stains.
  
  
• It is often contained in a wooden box.
  
  
• It is potentially able to carry out the so-called "Calculations", the predictions of the possible futures (although this is not confirmed).
  
  
• It has the potential to create illusions.
  
  
• It can reanimate the user, especially when used a very short time after his / her "death" but NOT to resurrect him / her (proof of this comes from the events relating to Brutus).
  
  
• It has the features of a man lying with his arms along his body and hands on his lap (recalling the real Shroud), but these traits have changed over the centuries. It's possible that the Shroud keeps the appearance of its last user.
  
  
• The users that are in its proximity hear a voice speaking in their head. This voice, which speaks in an unknown language, although its words can still be understood, tempts the potential users and draws them towards the Shroud promising to heal them. The voice also seems to speak based on mechanical reasoning or, at least, with a way of thinking other than human ("FLAWED MATERIAL" referring to a malformed newborn and "YOUR PAIN IS TEMPORARY, IGNORE IT").
  Besides this, in some cases people around the Shroud can feel as though their head will burst and even can hear a resounding "eerie song" and the voice in their head echoing the melody.
  
  
• Potentially it also works as an information database, whereas Niccolò di Pitigliano says he experienced "an infinite sea of perception".
  
  
• It reconfigures the body of its user. Specifically, this category includes all the "healing" features of the Shroud, but it is not a "simple" activity. The Shroud pulls the muscles and bones of the user tight and it tenses his / her face or body, sometimes causing it to even fold upon itself, to get it back to an acceptable condition. Hence the use of the term "reconfiguration".
  A continuous use of the Shroud, however, leads to an excessive reconfiguration of the body up to the potential death of the user.
  
  
In light of this information it is interesting to consider the potential of what might happen in the present day shown by Syndicate, whatever its "shape" will be.

Given the fact that the Shroud is probably still in the hands of

"Among the Assassins", not in front of a desk of the Assassins.

Abstergo after the events of 1944 (unless there is more than one Shroud ...), one may wonder why the company have ever used it. Thus, unless other events related to the Shroud have happened in the last 50 years, I think it's unlikely that Syndicate will be set in one of the Abstergo offices or following the Templars in general. On the contrary I think it's much more likely that the present day will take place on the Assassin side (considering that, apart from Unity that almost doesn't count, it has been since AC3 that the present day was not shown "among" the Assassins).

Following this line of thought we may think that the Assassins, after the failed (or successful?) attempt to reach François-Thomas Germain’s DNA before the Templars, devoted themselves to the search for a Sage during the Victorian era or, on the contrary, abandoned this quest to go back to the Pieces of Eden and so to the Shroud.

Why, then, could the Assassins be interested in the Shroud?

#No

In this case the first hypothesis many fans come up with is the frantic attempt to revive Desmond Miles. As for me, I disagree with this hypothesis because, as we saw, the Shroud can reanimate or reconfigure a body that is still alive, while it doesn’t work with corpses.
On the contrary, in my opinion, the Assassins may be interested in the Shroud obviously because they want to steal it from the Templars but maybe also because the artifact is connected to Those Who Came Before. The voice we can hear, for instance, is not, in my opinion, “the voice of the Shroud”, because, at least up until now, the Pieces of Eden have never been “intelligent” or “sentient”, while they always had a member of TWCB speaking through them (for example Juno who talked to and controlled Desmond through the Apple at the end of Brotherhood).



CLEAR YOUR MIND. GENERATE. I hear Consus.

In this case, therefore, the member of TWCB behind that should be Consus, who appeared in the life of Giovanni Borgia after his interaction with the Shroud (and so he probably transferred at least a part of his conscience in the baby. Clay wanted to do the same with Desmond, after all). The fact that the voice the various users of the Shroud heard belongs to Consus is demonstrated by two sentences in the memories of Giovanni Borgia, which have the same formatting and also the same style of the ones belonging to the “voice of the Shroud”: "Consus? Are you there, Consus? SLEEP, CHILD, FORGET THESE DREAMS.” and “CLEAR YOUR MIND. GENERATE. I hear Consus."

Thus, the Assassins may be in search of the Shroud also to interact with Those Who Came Before, who may support them in the almost impossible war against Templars, especially considering that Consus has in some way facilitated the Assassins in the few occasions in which we saw him.

On the other hand, if the point of view in the present day setting of Syndicate is once again the Templars’ one, the outlooks would be just as interesting. As we saw, the ability that the Shroud is most famous for is the cure / reconfiguration. Specifically, as I hypothesized, those reconfigurations go beyond the simple “cure” and, as happened to Niccolò di Pitigliano, can cause a sort of “inducted evolution” that, however, the body can't always sustain. The search in the past of Syndicate, therefore, may let us see how Darwin, thanks to the Shroud, was able to give his contribution to the theory of evolution, formulating the theory of the natural selection. Also, in the present day the Templars may use the Shroud to perform experiments on the Sages at their disposal, once again for the artifact’s ability of reconfiguring a body. Considering that the DNA and body of the Sages contain 5-6 % of precursor DNA, as stated in the files in the Assassin Intel in Unity, it’s possible - and this is just my imagination running wild - that the interaction of the Shroud with the body of a Sage might lead to a reconfiguration sustained by the Sage himself, which might cause an inducted evolution… and maybe recreate the body of a member of TWCB, which would be very useful to study although dangerous to create. Besides, the Templars already have the body of a Sage that they are more or less keeping alive...



John Standish, the Triple Helix DNA 'donor'



Such an objective may obviously also be of interest for the Instruments of the First Will and for Juno, who finally may have her "vessel", in other words the right body to transfer herself into. In this way, Juno finally might go back to be the serious threat she deserves to be... but at present this is just a hypothesis.