The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

Imagination helps make the game more immersive and more fun. Everyone creates their own version of the AC universe, but sharing ideas can help. I start this topic in hope of reading some ideas from you that I haven't thought of myself, and which I can then integrate into my gameplay.

Let me try to kick it off with some of my thoughts:

I like to think of Abstergo and the whole 2012 timeline as something less real than Altair's adventures. The 1191 story is immersed in historical facts, from Rashid ad-Din Sinan to Richard's campaign and the political triangle between Saladin, the Assassins and the Templars. Abstergo on the other hand is completely fictional. Yes, the game presents Abstergo as a more immediate reality, and Altair as a secondary mnemonic reality. But it doesn't force that on you.

I prefer to think of Abstergo as just a playful, childish metaphorical reflection of some of the political themes in the 1191 story.

As for the Piece of Eden: it doesn't exist. Noone really ever uses it for any actual gain during the game. The artifact itself is irrelevant. It works perfectly for me as a metaphor for religious control over people's minds. The Assassins were quite an eschatological and utopian cult, and Rashid Sinan especially was a messiah-figure for his followers, with extremely grandiose "designs upon the Holy Land", as Robert puts it in his final words. Some say that the Assassins were the prototype for many European secret societies and the kind of mystical-political-utopian plans that the story revolves around are very much in line with historical Assassin ideology. Religion is not missing from the game. It's just turned into a metaphorical tale about the Piece of Eden. There is no Piece of Eden. There is just politics and religious mind control.

Which brings me to Altair's personality. That's what I'm the most intrested in your ideas about. It's the most immediate context for the gameplay, and it's a very rich ground for possibilities.

The framework for his personal growth is his innate immunity to the mystical illusion. I like that. But what is his loyalty based upon then? The Ismaili were no great theologans, but they had an extensive social philosophy. Altair thinks in terms of social justice when confronted with his enemies. He wants to be a hero. He's also an arrogant egoist, and it's obvious that he picks and chooses religious tenets according to his needs for self-justification. "Everything is permitted" means for him that he can do anything he wants. The Ismaili mystical teachings about reality being an illusionary emanation of God means that killing people is not real. God is working through him. He probably has some kind of a god-complex, just like his master.

Justification is one thing. But there's also the question of motivation. According to the canon, he was born in Masyaf, from a Christian mother and a Saracen father. How will such a protected environment create an individualistic personality like Altair? And how does a christian woman become an Assassin?

I prefer a different background for him. He was born in a crusader city like Jerusalem or Acre, to an Arab woman and a crusader soldier. He thinks that his mother was brutally defiled by the crusader, that's where his hatred for the invaders comes from. In reality, his mother may just have been a prostitute, but that doesn't matter. They moved to a saracen city, like Damascus, to escape persecution from fellow muslims. He grew up on the streets of Damascus, and he learned how to survive in a hostile environment. Then his mother was killed by the locals for having a bastard child. And the Assassins saved him and took him in. Maybe in reality his mother sold him to the Assassins, because she needed the money. That doesn't matter. What matters is that he hates the saracen soldiers because he thinks they killed his mother.

Hatred, forced independence, a manufactured self-esteem in the face of persecution and everyday struggle for survival shaped his personality. He looks at the world through the eyes of an All American hero.

That's just one possible way of looking at him, and I like to play around with different variations. I'd love to read anything that comes into your mind.