Pearl Attaway

2017-01-09T20:02:25Z

138.68.90.191:

{{Era|ACS|UW|Templars}}
{{Spoilerhd}}
{{Quote|Refusing to marry is unbecoming. Refusing to allow a man to conduct my affairs is unbecoming. How unfortunate that I didn't accept your hand in marriage all those years ago [...] The omnibuses would be yours by right and I would be at home, acting as hostess to your guests instead of standing here being so... unbecoming!|Pearl Attaway to Crawford Starrick, 1868.|Survival of the Fittest}}
{{Character Infobox
|image = ACS DB Pearl Attaway.jpg
|birth = 20 October 1833<br>[[United Kingdom]]
|death = 1868<br>[[London]], United Kingdom
|affiliates = [[Templars]]<br>[[Attaway Transport]]
|appear = ''[[Assassin's Creed: Syndicate]]''
|voice = [[Nathalie Toriel]]}}
'''Pearl Attaway''' (1833 – 1868) was a [[United Kingdom|British]] [[Templars|Templar]] and businesswoman based in [[London]] during the mid-19th century.

The owner of [[Attaway Transport]], she was not afraid to act against her competitors, in particular the [[Millner Company]] that was in the hands of her cousin, [[Grand Master]] [[Crawford Starrick]]. In 1868, Pearl struck up an alliance with [[Assassins|Assassin]] [[Jacob Frye]], in an effort to gain a monopoly on English transportation.

==Biography==
===Early life===
Little is known of Pearl's early years and how she came to join the Order. Upon her father's retirement, she inherited the Attaway family's stagecoach company, which was originally centered around the delivery of goods. Pearl turned it into a private transporation service, but found little success in this endeavor.<ref name="Pearl Database">''[[Assassin's Creed: Syndicate]]'' - [[Database: Pearl Attaway]]</ref>

She subsequently changed businesses again, changing from private stagecoaches to public omnibuses. Pearl's new company, titled Attaway Transport, was immediately successful, to the ire of competitors like [[Malcolm Millner]]. At some point, Starrick asked for Pearl's hand in marriage, but she turned him down, wishing to keep Attaway Transport in her name.<ref name="Pearl Database"/>

===Eliminating the competition===
{{Quote|You must understand, I've received threats against my life. Malcolm Millner has all but waged war on me since Mr. Starrick bought out his company.|Pearl on Millner's attacks, 1868.|Friendly Competition}}
[[File:ACS Friendly Competition 3.png|thumb|left|250px|Pearl and Jacob agreeing to work together]]
Following Starrick's acquisition of the Millner Company in 1867, Pearl's business became the target of various attacks, with buses being set on fire and employees being abducted. On one such occasion, having arrived to see another one of her vehicles go up in flames, she was approached by Jacob Frye, an Assassin. Initially suspicious, Pearl quickly realized he did not know of her affiliation with the Templars and saw an opportunity to turn her situation around.<ref name="ACS">''Assassin's Creed: Syndicate''</ref>

Together, the pair tracked down one of Millner's employees, which led them to the businessman's storage yard. There, they discovered he planned to use parkesine to blow up one of Pearl's depots. At Pearl's suggestion, Jacob infiltrated the storage yard and ignited the explosives, destroying several of Millner's buses. Emboldened by this success, Pearl decided to extend her partnership with Jacob, officially "hiring" him, despite his protests, and then driving off in a carriage.<ref name="ACS"/>

Jacob subsequently tracked down the carriage and, without warning nor appointment, entered it. Pearl chastised him briefly, before revealing the next step in her plan. She requested that Jacob secure the internal combustion engines that were to be delivered to Millner and pass them on to her. On their next meeting, Pearl toasted to their success in ruining Millner, before telling Jacob to kill him, ending his business permanently.<ref name="ACS"/>

[[File:ACS Survival of the Fittest 3.jpg|thumb|250px|Pearl meeting with Starrick]]
Following the Assassin's departure, she went to meet with Starrick in a nearby warehouse, where they discussed what to do. Starrick was displeased, as Pearl had sabotaged his plans to create a monopoly on English transporation by having Millner eliminated. She justified her actions as being part of business, and reassured him his idea was still perfectly feasible, just with her company rather than Millner's.<ref name="ACS"/>

Nevertheless, Pearl agreed to give back the internal combustion engines and, at Starrick's behest, oversee their transfer to one of his factories. The two then departed, ignorant to the fact that Jacob had been [[eavesdropping]] on them, having learnt of Pearl's allegiance from a dying Millner.<ref name="ACS"/>

===Death at Waterloo station===
{{Dialogue|Pearl|You will get your engines back. Our new motorized buses will bring us both a lot of money.|Starrick|I'll need to arrange proper transport for the engines to get back to my factory. I want you at Waterloo, personally, to ensure that nothing goes wrong.|Pearl and Starrick discussing the engines, 1868.|Survival of the Fittest}}
[[File:ACS End of the Line 12.jpg|thumb|250px|left|Pearl assassinated by Jacob]]
Later, Pearl arrived in [[Waterloo station]], which was being occupied by members of the [[Blighters]], with the engines and prepared to have them unloaded and moved to the factory. Residing in a fortified wagon for protection, she was nonetheless assassinated by Jacob, who had made use of a structural weakness in the wagon's roof. With her dying breath, she warned the Assassin that Starrick would seek retaliation for her death.<ref name="ACS"/>

Following Pearl's demise, the London transportation network became destabilized, with both Attaway Transport and the Millner Company having lost their leaders and no other enterprises available to replace them. As well as this, Blighters managed to acquire the deed to Attaway Transport and began harassing omnibus builders like [[Edward Bayley]] to work for them. [[Evie Frye]] put a stop to this malpractice by stealing the deed, allowing Bayley and his associates to form a united transport company.<ref name="ACS"/>

==Personality and characteristics==
{{Dialogue2|Pearl|What a shame. Good partnerships are hard to come by.|Jacob|Ours is most certainly dissolved.|It's business, Mr. Frye. One does what one must to come out on top.|Pearl justifying her actions, 1868.|End of the Line}}
An ambitious woman, Pearl went against many conventions of the time, being determined to create a career of her own. This led her to reject Starrick's proposal, as she intensely disliked the idea of being a mere hostess to guests while her husband led the company. As a result, Pearl was frequently criticized by male contemporaries for her "unbecoming" behavior.<ref name="ACS"/>

[[File:ACS End of the Line 4.png|thumb|250px|Pearl's final moments]]
Cunning and ruthless, Pearl built up Attaway Transport on her own, a fact she was very proud of, and went to great lengths to see it prosper. Its importance to her was tremendous, as she was prepared to act against the very interests of the local Grand Master to ensure that it was her company, not Millner's, that would have the monopoly on London's transportation. Indeed, even in her final moments, Pearl only lost her composure when she realized that the business for which she had sacrificed so much would cease to exist with her death.<ref name="ACS"/>
==Trivia==
*Attaway is a shortening of the words "at the way", denoting someone who lived close to the road.
*Pearl's death is the subject of an era-appropriate folk song, called "The Late Pearl Attaway", that was created for ''[[Assassin's Creed: Syndicate]]''. Similar "murder ballads" were made for [[John Elliotson]], [[Philip Twopenny]] and [[Maxwell Roth]].
* Pearl Attaway's name is included in both allies and enemies section of the database

==Gallery==
<gallery captionalign="center" position="center" spacing="small" widths="180">
ACS Friendly Competition 2.jpg|Pearl and Jacob plotting against Millner
ACS Research and Development 1.jpg|Jacob dropping in on Pearl unannounced
ACS Survival of the Fittest 1.jpg|Pearl and Jacob toasting their success
ACS End of the Line 13.jpg|Jacob kneeling beside Pearl's dead body
</gallery>

==References==
{{Reflist}}
{{ACS}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Attaway, Pearl}}
[[Category:1833 births]]
[[Category:1868 deaths]]
[[Category:Individuals]]
[[Category:Englishmen]]
[[Category:Templars]]
[[Category:British Templars]]

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Pearl Attaway