The Hidden Blade Assassin's Creed in Depth

I've also completed this and synced to the Cloud but haven't really looked into it. In Multiplayer, whenever Erudito hacks an Abstergo File, the Abstergo Industries logo is replaced by Erudito Industries. Maybe search for Erudito Industries on Google?

One of the first hits on google is the facebook page.

Since it shows your gamertag in-game i wonder if the number is unique to the player. Mine is: 5523C23D2553

• 5523C23D2553
  V3CTORL3O is synchronized with the Cloud.

It doesn't seem to be unique although it does display your Gamertag/PSN ID.
Firstly, every number and letter is the ID of a single Pivot. There are 12 Pivots in total, so it makes sense.
As for what the number actually means or does, I'm not sure. I don't think the Trophy/Achievement was meant to encourage players to locate all Pivots because it's Hidden before you unlock it. A nice little reward, nonetheless. Although I'm curious to know what the Cloud actually is, especially because it's capitalized, which suggests it's a unique/special entity or system.

Since we know we'll be playing more of Connor in the DLC, there may be a subplot involving whoever is sifting through Desmond's data now. (since it's implied that that's what the hackers are looking through)

Maybe the cloud will come into play?

Found something when sifting through ACIV things that FINALLY helps answer these questions.

(bold and italics added for emphasis)

Based on how they are prefacing the ACIV modern day things, I think the above paragraphs answer our questions.

WE, (scottishduck88, V3CTORL3O, Jedted), WE are an Abstergo Employee working to upload his data (William's?) to the cloud so that we (and others) will be able to sift through it at a future date. AKA - now we have access to William Miles's memories and can access the Kenway bloodline for ACIV.

No doubt, with this technology, Abstergo can now allow us to access other bloodlines in future games.

To add to above, when William said:

"I know they've been working on ways to extract memories and let others sift through those memories ... Maybe they're even analyzing mine right now."

I took it as "Of course they have, that's how we have multiplayer. We relive aspects as characters to create a training regimen."

When really it was "FORESHADOWING!!!"

As you can see by this picture, they'll be using Desmond's corpse to extract the genetic data necessary for the Abstergo analyst (us) to sift through his ancestral memories.

If it was a skin sample from William or something, why would they need the corpse, and why would Ubisoft go to the trouble of making this picture public for us to figure out what it means?

Clearly, Abstergo needs the body because William can only give them half of Desmond's genetic memories. We already know Desmond is a special cross of two bloodlines with high concentration of first civ DNA.

Regardless of whose genetics you're in, i think the premise is still viable at this point.

But Desmond's body has both families' DNA. And they've mentioned before that they can use dead bodies to enter an ancestor's memories. I can bet that William isn't going to be used that way. He's only one side of the family, and without him, it doesn't make a difference to Abstergo. So what if they got a DNA sample off of him? Desmond has an entire body's worth of genetic coding at their disposal.

Agreed.

All that is unknown is the TIMELINE of that photo, though. If we are to believe Abstergo pounced as soon as Desmond was a corpse, then yes, we could be in Desmond's DNA.

The timeline consistent with the hypothesis presented above is that Abstergo was practicing on William's DNA throughout the end sequences of AC3. Once Desmond is a corpse, we are now catching the tail end of the William tests while the body snatchers are off finding Desmond.

From the data we have, I don't think you can conclude one way or the other, or even rule out one or the other. William clearly states that Abstergo is likely working on letting others live through his DNA. (However, why the hell Abstergo doesn't just have bottles of DNA samples from Desmond already - from AC1 - I don't know).

Nice info about all of this, Mcstab. Clearly you've really done your homework. Honestly I think Ubi sucks at keeping us at pace with everything that's going on. You really have to pay attention to things to know whats going on. Some things a lot of people probably miss are the bleeding effect, Abstergo satellite, Lucy being a traitor and the deal with Juno and Minerva. Thanks for the lack of info, Ubi.

What really happened is Patrice Désilets (Director) and Jade Raymond (Producer) left after ACII and now the rest of Ubisoft is stuck with their creative vision and are trying their hardest to ignore Desmond and the modern day stuff/throw it under the rug and to get us to focus on cool guns and swordplay.

According to this picture from the AC Initiates site, they snatched his body the same day the solar flares occurred (see right above "Journey's End"). So we know the timeline, now. Clearly they were desperate for it.

Possible meanings of: 5523C23D2553

HEX to ASCII gives us: 55:23:C2:3D:25:53 = U#?=%S
Many people on the internets take this to be code to set your username to show up... when "%S" represents a string, likely "screenname" and "U#?=" simply means to set the username. But there's this pesky little problem with this interpretation... C2 is not a hexadecimal ascii character.

Okay, keeping with the HEX idea, what about a HEX to DEC conversion:
55 = 85
23 = 35
C2 = 194
3D = 61
25 = 37
53 = 83
Do these numbers mean anything? Lets try DEC to ASCII using these... only that now we don't have that ? from above: U#Â=%S.

It seems we're getting lost in this ASCII conversion at this point. Maybe it is simply setting your username as syncing the cloud... but what if it's not...

What if it is a different kind of encryption? Not HEX, but something else. After some digging, turns out Ubisoft used a base64 encryption on screen in a previous game to unlock videos in the Animus. So, HEX to BASE64: VSPCPSVT.

VSPCPSVT. Well shit, what does that mean?

Help me Leonardo Da Vinci! ... Aha! It's a Caesar Cipher! If you just move this letter over there, and shift this... There, I've got it.

VSPCPSVT = UROBORUS. Wait, what? A dragon eating its own tail? WTF, Ubisoft?

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF. IS THAT YOUR MESSAGE?

That's kind of a cop-out, I expect more...

.....

Wait... where have we seen an Uroborus before?

.....

Let's go back to another Jedted comment. That's right, The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

On this document, you can find not only the Masonic Eye and the Phrygian Cap.... BUT A FREAKIN UROBOROS/UROBORUS!

-----

Alright, Ubisoft... Stop fucking around with Pirates, and give us the Revolutionary France you've been hinting at for 4 years now...

Waow, cheese. If I understood Hex/Dec/ascii, this would be so much easier to praise you for doing. Since I don't understand, I'm just going to praise you anyways for getting this far (and hopefully further!)
Really cool dude! Hope you decipher it soon!

Dec = Decimal = Base 10
Hex = Hexadecimal = Base 16
ASCII = computer characters

For Dec, Hex, Binary, Octal, etc: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positional_notation

This leads to one of my favorite number jokes (Stabguy and Phi will especially like this):
Q: Why do computer engineers and mathematicians always confuse Christmas and Halloween?
A: Because DEC 25 = OCT 31.

I skimmed through part of that, but it looks smart, so good job!

You're giving me a headache, Cheese. But very nice work.

I get it. DEC stands for ten (deca), OCT stands for 8 (octo).

Heheh cheecky

Don't blame me. Blame Ubisoft. I've whole-heartedly taken the opinion that nothing in their games is an accident or purely aesthetic. Nothing. Every single blip on the screen is there on purpose. We just have to find out why it's there.

This would be one hell of an unintended coincidence.

Seeing as how I've now finally finished AC3 (minus some of the epilogue), is this made apparent in the epilogue or is it something from the multiplayer? I found the Papa Miles revelation about Abstergo working on developing methods to have people re-live others' memories to be fascinating, but not very revealing in HOW they can do that.

Some questions I have regarding it:

1) Does the person whose memories you're re-living need to be alive?

From your response above, it appears that the answer is no and that Abstergo merely needs the body (likely for the brain.

2) If the answer to #1 is as you say it is, then are ALL memories of the dead person available?

I'm just thinking back to the locked memories in AC1. Presumably the "player" of the memories can go back and unlock them. If the brain is no longer functioning, how are memories that Abstergo never had access to before death accessed? That one seems a bit far-fetched.

3) Papa Miles states that he was holding off Abstergo, but didn't know how much longer he could do so. Does this mean that when they were attempting to access his memories, he could block them by "offering up" alternative memories? Forgive my dorky Harry Potter reference, but similar to the use of occlumency? And does that work in conjunction with the "semi-self answered question above where a dead brain is incapable of offering resistance?

4) If he can block the memories, are we to assume that Abstergo is developing a piece of technology that can just break through the barrier and access everything?

I don't know, I guess to me some of it seems a bit too unclear. The revelation Papa Miles made was awesome and I assumed that it would play a future role, but I would have liked some more clarification. Occasionally answering some of our questions might be nice.

I looked up the actual quote and I guess they need SOME form of brain activity:

Desmond: "I am not going back in there!"
Vidic: "Then we'll induce a coma and continue our work. When we're done you'll be left to die. Truth be told, the only reason why you're still conscious is because this approach saves us time."

Though this doesn't say that they can't use a dead body and have it perform as slow as someone in a coma; but even in a coma, there's still brain activity. Maybe that's all Desmond is in?

Are you suggesting Desmond is in a coma at the end of AC3 and not dead? hmm...

He was in a coma all through ACR... and still was able to relive things... even if no outside observer could monitor.

Having someone relive something first hand has to be faster than simply giving someone a filing cabinet of information and saying, "find the needle in this haystack - and we don't know where in this haystack it is."

The thing that gets me is that just 3 months ago, Abstergo had Desmond in their control for a week and could easily have a blood sample. Why they need his body now, I don't know. It's genetic memory... meaning they could get in by any tissue sample at all. They really shouldn't need his body anymore. Either that or they really weren't thinking ahead. I like to think that they would have samples from all 17 subjects to date so far, though.

And, as I said before to you, especially Clay, given the finger painting we saw at the end of AC1.

"The Cloud" basically allows several people to explore the genetic memories of a person's ancestors by a single sample of DNA. This doesn't answer the question of where the DNA came from (either Desmond's corpse or William's interrogation), but it at least comes from an AC worker: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=EiWdO6NP4hc#t=33s

EDIT: So this means that the man that shouts "Vegas baby! Vegas!" is an Abstergo employee. So it looks like it came from Desmond's body. So they ARE farming it for genetic memory.

Not sure how this verifies it as Desmond? It's likely, but they could have a sample from William too, right? From when they kidnapped him?

It just doesn't seem like it would all be based on a sample from William from what we've been given. Why take Desmond's body? Why wait until after the game ends to mention the Cloud? Why keep mentioning that Desmond is still a major part of the modern day story? All fingers point at Desmond, not his dad. It's just logical. They need his body for something, otherwise why not just leave him if William's sample is all they require?

Desmond's body probably also has larger significance, given his TWCB DNA. They can use it to research human resistance to pieces of eden.

I think at this point it's pretty obvious that this is what desmond's body is being used for, though. They probably had no plans as far as exploring Edward's memory when they kidnapped wiliam, so taking a DNA sample wouldn't have made much sense, and I doubt it works as easily as just having someone's hair. Having Desmond's corpse is probably a speedier process than a small sample of William's DNA.

To be clear: I do think that it makes the most logical sense to be exploring Desmond etc... But because nothing has been confirmed nor denied, and may not be, I'm just playing Juno's advocate (err... devil's advocate) to progress some discussion forward and provide alternate viewpoints.

Also, if it truly is genetic memory, they really don't need a whole body anyway. But maybe Abstergo's technology isn't there yet.

If I'm Abstergo: Yes. I want Desmond's body. Maybe he has other clues and markers to help the humans conquer once and for all TWCB. But also, I want DNA/tissue samples from every single person I come in contact with... who knows what secrets someone could have in their genetic DNA, even if they have zero TWCB DNA in them. Example: there is no record (that I'm aware of) of Da Vinci having TWCB DNA, he's just a friend to the Assassin's. A descendant of Da Vinci could still be useful, as he's a brilliant man and may have other information you can't access as Ezio wasn't present at the time of a discovery, for example.

To sum up - If I'm Abstergo, I want as much genetic material as I can get from as many people I can get it from. I'm the Jenna Jameson of companies, if you will.

Killer ending there, McStab.

http://www.google.nl/imgres?start=214&sa=X&biw=1241&bih=640&tbm=isch&tbn...

That is an oroborus

A.K.A the shape of the key desmond uses to open the way to his death.

so no nothing is coincidental with ubisoft everything ties into something , bigger .

hell of a job deciphering btw !

pardon my awful writing grammar

To get back to the French Revolution connection... there may be hope for people that like Connor.

Consider this: Connor could get back and visit France to fight in the French Revolution (1787-1799).
In a conversation Lafayette invited him.
And Juno said to Connor: "You have made a difference... and you will do so again." (unless this was simply talking about the DLC and disposing of the Apple from Georgie)

It was very obvious from the end of AC3 that Connor was just getting started, but the Tyranny DLC was definitely only a small (albeit important and significant) experience.

I would be totally happy with hearing about his experiences and continued adventures in some other form. If the camera sees everything, the world seems a bit smaller.

And boom goes the dynamite.

Kudos to other people that contributed to this theory, here and elsewhere on the internet.

Very impressive.

Very impressive.