Isu Era

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A fragmented still depicting life shortly after the Great Catastrophe.

The Isu Era was a period of time marked by the existence of the Isu as the dominant species on Earth. What time period preceded the era's beginning is unclear, but the Isu species had a presence within the border of modern-day Jordan around 80,000 BCE.

Timeline

Pre 1923 IE

• Hephaistos created the Swords of Eden during the War of Unification.

1923 IE

• During the War of Unification, Consus created the first Shroud of Eden to treat casualties of the war. He later transferred his consciousness into the Shroud in a desperate bid to escape death, but became trapped within his own creation.

2161 IE

• Day 24: The High Council ordered the creation of a new workforce under the supervision of the Father of Understanding Yaldabaoth, the Mother of Wisdom Saklas, and the Sacred Voice Samael.
• With approval from the Isu's governing body in Eden, and directed by the scientist Phanes, the Isu enacted Project Anthropos, an initiative that saw the creation of humanity as slaves from a pre-existing species. The humans were made to be susceptible to the powers of the adamant-based Apples of Eden.

Unknown

• Seth killed his brother Osiris. Overwhelmed by grief, Osiris' sister-wife Isis used the Ankh to revive him for one night, during which they conceived their son Horus.

Atlantis before its sinking

• Poseidon took control of the city of Atlantis from his son Atlas, and let Atlas and his other sons serve as archons.
• Hades abducted Persephone and forced her to become his wife, with his brother Jupiter's approval. He imprisoned Persephone in an area of the Underworld that she reshaped as Elysium, which Hades allowed her to rule alongside her friend Hekate.
• The Sister Realms were formed between Atlantis, ruled by Poseidon; the Underworld, ruled by Hades; and Elysium, ruled by Persephone.

2194 IE

• Day 6: The human workers from a construction site in Qobustan, Azerbaijan, were reassigned to the sanitation of a nearby lake.

2195 IE

• The Isu scientist Juno was born in Feyan.

c. 2200 IE (c. 75,100 BCE)

• The Staff of Hermes Trismegistus was forged in the late "Isu Singularity Age".

c. 2223 IE

• Juno recovered the prototype Shroud of Eden housing Consus' preserved consciousness.

Unknown

• Poseidon granted Juno and her husband Aita access to Atlantis, where they secretly started the Olympos Project, in which they experimented on humans and created monstrosities. Poseidon banished them back to Feyan, and outlawed human experimentation in Atlantis.
• The Sister Realms held a summit through their Atlantean embassies regarding the findings of Atlantis' Solar Dynamics Observatory and the threat of solar instability. Hades was the only leader to attend but embraced the prospect of annihilation.
• On the advice of his dikastes Aletheia, Posidon destroyed Atlantis by sinking it into the ocean, due to recurring upheaval and friction between its Isu and human populations.

Adam and Eve fleeing Eden with an Apple

• Adam and Eve, two Isu-human hybrid slaves, escaped from the city of Eden with an Apple of Eden.
• Ruling as the new Father of Understanding, Mother of Wisdom, and Sacred Voice, the Capitoline Triad comprised of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, respectively, retreated to the Grand Temple to find a solution for the impending solar flare, ultimately trying six unsuccessful options.

The enclosed content covers events or items that, while canonically experienced, may or may not have been altered in some manner and cannot be taken at face value.

Balor killed Cú Chulainn but was struck by Cú's spear Gae Bolg, which became lodged into his back. Later, the Isu Odin faced Balor in combat and claimed Gae Bolg following his victory. After Odin learned from the supercomputer Yggdrasil that Loki and Alethia's illegitimate child Fenrir was projected to kill him during the impending catastrophe, he had the boy imprisoned for "invented crimes". Outraged at Fenrir's unjust imprisonment, and after learning that Odin's son Baldr was vulnerable to mistletoe, Loki arranged for the warlord Surtr to capture Baldr and have him fatally poisoned. Odin attempted to rescue him but arrived too late and could only grieve his own loss.

• After learning of Loki's involvement in Baldr's murder, Odin had him arrested, imprisoned, and tortured in an underground vault beneath what would become the fortress of Alamut.
• Aita volunteered as a test subject in an experiment to transfer Isu consciousness into human bodies, though his mind swiftly deteriorated.
• Juno continued researching this process and developed a serum that facilitated the Isu being incarnated as humans. Due to worries that it would pollute the human genome, Jupiter and Minerva abandoned the initiative and had the serum locked away.

The enclosed content covers events or items that, while canonically experienced, may or may not have been altered in some manner and cannot be taken at face value.
With Juno's aid, Odin stole the untested serum in order to survive the impending catastrophe. Taking a sample for herself, Juno secretly added parts of Aita's genetic code into the human DNA, allowing him to be reborn in humans as Sages, after which she agreed to end his suffering. Vejovis also took advantage of a similar method to develop Sages of his own self.

• Juno secretly tampered with Minerva's Eye, a device that could calculate potential futures, to manipulate humanity and ensure her global domination. After her treachery and role in Odin's theft of the serum were discovered, the High Council stripped her of her title, before Minerva and Jupiter attacked and killed her in the Grand Temple. However, Juno survived and digitally transferred her consciousness inside the temple's walls.

The enclosed content covers events or items that, while canonically experienced, may or may not have been altered in some manner and cannot be taken at face value.

With Surtr's wife Sinmara having extracted Baldr's soul into the Salakar artifact, Odin obsessed over trying to revive him and traveled the world seeking answers. With no luck, he entered Hel's domain of Niflheimr to demand Baldr's return, but after she thwarted his repeated attempts, he had a vision in which Baldr revealed that he would resurrect and lead the world to a brighter future, but only if his enemies perished in the catastrophe still believing that he remained dead.

• With Odin distracted, Loki and Aletheia stole the serum from Ásgarðr, but Aletheia was gravely injured in the endeavor. Loki helped upload her consciousness into the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus, and the pair hoped to reunite after the impending catastrophe.

c. 75,010 BCE

• Humanity rose up in rebellion against the Isu, prompting a ten-year long war. Juno's father Saturn was one of the war's first victims.

2306 IE (c. 75,000 BCE)

Earth after the Great Catastrophe

• Minerva made preparations for another solution involving the global aurora borealis device to be tried during the next solar cycle, hoping that it would be successful without Juno's influence.
• The Great Catastrophe occurred when a coronal mass ejection struck the Earth. Less than 10,000 humans and far fewer Isu survived the cataclysm, bringing an end to the Human-Isu War.
• As the Great Catastrophe struck the Earth, Odin, Týr, Thor, Freyja, Idun, Frey, Sif, and Heimdall used the serum to upload their DNA into Yggdrasil to be incarnated as humans in future generations, before meeting their inevitable doom. Loki killed Heimdall before he could leave Yggdrasil's chamber, and secretly used the serum to be incarnated as well.

Post 2306 IE

• Three months after the Great Catastrophe, six Isu Messengers recorded reports over two weeks' time intended for Layla Hassan, which were stored in vaults scattered around Egypt. In order, they were the Amun Amunet messenger at Oun-mAa Niye Ressoot, the Nomarch messenger at Seshem.eff Er Aat, the Khufu messenger at Khesesh Em Sesh Em Eeneb, the Khnum and Hequet messenger at Eeyoo Sekedoo Aat, the Seth Anath messenger at Qeneb.too Kah'Aiye, and the Sphinx messenger at Eesfet Oon-m'Aa Poo.
• In the wake of the Great Catastrophe, Earth experienced severe climate changes, with the ash in the atmosphere making the air toxic and causing global temperatures to drop, as a result of the particulate matter backscattering incoming solar radiation and inducing a volcanic winter.
• The human and Isu survivors of the Great Catastrophe worked together to rebuild civilization. The Isu influenced human civilizations' early stages and would subsequently come to be revered as gods by the humans.

c. 74,900 BCE

• The last Isu died roughly a century after the Great Catastrophe, according to estimates made by the Assassins.

Behind the scenes

The page image comes from a database entry in the 2014 video game Assassin's Creed: Unity, which presents it as a fragmented representation of an unidentified Isu's genetic memory of their time. From a development angle, it is a collage made up of various unrelated pieces, some of which have been released and identified as part of the environment concept art for the Assassin's Creed series' later 2017 entry, Assassin's Creed: Origins. The stone pillars in the top right are from a work by Raphael Lacoste, while the lone figure on a camel in the bottom right is from Martin Deschambault's concept of the vault Qeneb.too Kah'Aiye.

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed II (first appearance)
• Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy (indirect mention only)
• Assassin's Creed: Revelations
• Assassin's Creed: Initiates
• Assassin's Creed: Rogue (indirect mention only)
• Assassin's Creed: Unity (mentioned in Database entry only)
• Assassin's Creed: Syndicate (mentioned only) (first identified as Isu Era)
• Assassin's Creed: Uprising
• Assassin's Creed: Origins (indirect mention only)
• Assassin's Creed: Odyssey – The Fate of Atlantis (simulation)
• Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood of Venice (indirect mention only)
• Assassin's Creed: Valhalla (Seer vision)
  • Dawn of Ragnarök (Seer vision)
• Assassin's Creed: Mirage
• Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple
• Animus Hub (mentioned in Database entry only) (indirect mention only)