Observatory (Isu)

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This article is about the Isu complex. You may be looking for another observatory.

"Dirty and decrepit. Not quite as I remember. But it has been over 80 millennia."

―Bartholomew Roberts, commenting on the state of the Observatory, 1719.

The Observatory's main chamber

The Observatory, also jokingly referred to as Captain Kenway's Folly, was an Isu site hidden in the jungles of Long Bay, Jamaica. Built to allow the remote viewing of any individual's vision through the use of a Crystal Skull, it was essentially a surveillance center used by the Isu to keep track of humanity.

Design

The Observatory operated by placing a vial containing a drop of blood from the person to be observed into a Crystal Skull located within an armillary sphere. The device would then project what the person was seeing and hearing into the room. Around the central altar, there were rows of seats that would allow for a large number of people to view the projection at any one time. In the hallway leading to the main chamber, the Observatory also contained a large storage of vials, each one holding a blood sample from a different Isu, likely for the purpose of being used with the complex.

The Observatory's skull was not a device that made the user truly omniscient. It could not project a person's experiences without a sample of their blood. Without this, the skull was rendered useless. Blood samples taken from people who were deceased would also not work, for obvious reasons.

Security measures

If the Crystal Skull was removed, the complex activated a lethal security system which could only be deactivated, in most circumstances, by a Sage. If left in operation, the system would project energy barriers at regular intervals, strong enough to vaporize humans on contact.

An active defense barrier

As part of its security measures, the Observatory's interior structure would also shift and separate into several platforms, in order to impede traversing the complex. During such instances, the only apparent way to deactivate the security system was to return the Crystal Skull to the complex's armillary sphere. In order to ensure the Observatory's security, indigenous Guardians were tasked by an unknown Sage to protect the structure from encroachers.

Additionally, the complex's main door could only be opened by inserting a vial containing the blood of a Sage, although the Sage Thomas Kavanagh, Jr. managed to open the door simply by pressing his finger into an opening in the façade.

History

Origin and early history

"There were many stories about this place once. Tales that turned into rumours, and again into legend. The inevitable process of facts becoming fictions, before fading away entirely."

―Bartholomew Roberts, on the legendary status of the complex, 1719.

The Observatory was built more than eighty thousand years ago, in the dense jungle of what would one day become Jamaica. Its construction and operation were overseen by the Isu scientist Aita, who would eventually have his genetic code and memories passed on to the humans who would become Sages. These individuals, as inheritors of Aita's genetic memories, possessed the power to use the facility that their predecessor had built.

Prior to the 18th century, at least two Sages visited the Observatory: an unidentified man during the late 15th century, who befriended the native Taínos and appointed them as guardians of the site; and Thom Kavanagh, who arrived there in the late 17th century and spent his final years in Jamaica before being buried by the Guardians in an unmarked grave.

Golden Age of Piracy

Bartholomew Roberts using the armillary sphere

In 1719, the Observatory was visited by the Sage Bartholomew Roberts and Edward Kenway, a fellow pirate. After neutralizing the Guardians protecting the complex, Edward learned of the Observatory's power to spy across vast distances and was sure he had found the perfect way to earn wealth and conquer the seas.

Edward was soon betrayed and sealed inside by Roberts, but managed to climb to the Observatory's ceiling and escape via a secondary exit leading to a waterfall near the beach. There, he was captured by Roberts and his crew, who sold him to the British authorities for the bounty on his head.

The Observatory's projector was rendered inactive once Roberts removed the Crystal Skull from its sphere, which caused the entire complex to enter into a state of lockdown that could only be undone if the Skull was returned to the chamber. Three years later, in 1722, Edward once again visited the complex, this time in pursuit of the Caribbean Templars' Grand Master Laureano de Torres y Ayala.

Ah Tabai returning the Crystal Skull

With Torres unaware of the complex's state, many of his men died both by Kenway's hand and the Observatory's defenses. Leaping and climbing around the walls and ceiling, Kenway was able to make his way across the chamber, before jumping down to assassinate Torres. Soon after, the Assassins Ah Tabai and Adéwalé, along with Kenway's quartermaster Anne Bonny, arrived. Ah Tabai returned the Crystal Skull to the sphere, calming the Observatory's systems.

The four then decided to seal the Observatory until another Sage appeared. However, by this point the blood vials had been removed, and the Assassins devoted themselves to locating and returning them to their rightful place, in time.

Modern times

In 2013, an Abstergo Entertainment employee noted that while the Observatory's observational facilities were on par with modern-day surveillance techniques, and thus not entirely important to the Templars, the location of the blood vials would provide them with an abundance of Isu genetic material to work with and possibly decode into viewable genetic memories. The following year, Juhani Otso Berg confided in his fellow Templar Violet da Costa that he would be traveling to the region to try to excavate the site.

From 25 to 30 May 2014, Berg oversaw the site's excavation and concluded that it had been deliberately buried between 200 and 230 years prior, presumably by the Assassins. After unearthing the Observatory's entrance, he suspected that the Observatory suffered a catastrophic collapse during the 18th century, causing the facility to be destroyed.

Gallery

Concept artScreenshots

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  The Observatory's exterior
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  The Observatory's hallways filled with blood vials
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  One of the Observatory's chambers
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  Observatory Machinary
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  Alternative design for the Main Chamber
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  The Observatory's main chamber
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  A projection being viewed in the Observatory
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  A battle in the main chamber, with the defenses active
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  The armillary sphere
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  A map to the Observatory's location in Jamaica

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  Exterior of the Observatory
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  Foliage outisde the Observatory
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  Entrance to the Observatory
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  Walkway leading through the cavern
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  Walkway chamber with security measures active
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  Blood vials housed in the Observatory
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  Isu symbols inside the Observatory
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  Entrance to the observation chamber
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  Overlook of the observation chamber
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  The armillary sphere model with a Skull
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  The empty armillary sphere model
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  A sketch of the armillary sphere
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  James Kidd holding a sketch of the armillary sphere

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (first appearance)
• Assassin's Creed: Black Flag
• Assassin's Creed: Memories (indirect mention only)
• Assassin's Creed: Identity (mentioned in Database entry only)
• Assassin's Creed: Rogue (mentioned in Database entry only)
• Assassin's Creed: Unity (mentioned in Database entry only)
• Assassin's Creed: Syndicate (indirect mention only)