Olivier Garneau

Olivier Garneau (died 2014) was the Chief Creative Officer of Abstergo Entertainment, a subsidiary of Abstergo Industries, as well as one of the few members of Abstergo Entertainment aware of its true nature as a Templar organization.

Biography

CCO of Abstergo Entertainment

On 11 October 2013, Olivier appeared in an Abstergo News Wire article celebrating Abstergo Entertainment's first anniversary. The Assassin leader Gavin Banks was immediately suspicious of both the company and Olivier, and asked the Assassin technician Rebecca Crane what Olivier really knew.

On 29 October, Olivier met a new research analyst who had just started working with Abstergo. Curious about their role, he asked which ancestor's genetic memories they were exploring as part of the Sample 17 Project, to which Project Lead Melanie Lemay replied that they were reliving Edward Kenway life, much to Garneau's excitement.

On 5 November, Abstergo Industries' administrator and Inner Sanctum member Laetitia England contacted Olivier demanding a progress update on that same analyst's work in locating the Observatory, an Isu site that worked as a surveillance center. Although he believed Kenway's life as a pirate was more exciting and that focusing on the Observatory could jeopardize the company's flagship media project, he advised the analyst to redirect their attention to any leads they had on the .

The next day, Olivier sent an email to Melanie, Kama Neron, Kloé Lesney, Christopher Darby, and Evan Dean in which he mentioned that he would be attending a shareholders meeting from the 15th–17th inclusive in Chicago, where he would showcase the data they had uncovered up until that point. He then asked whether the team felt they could explore other ancestors in the Sample 17 Project, look at other histories with past Animus Subjects, or try a different leading to a lively discussion on the matter

A week later, on 12 November, Olivier requested a meeting with Melanie and the analyst to discuss using the footage in a trailer for the planned film Devils of the Caribbean. However, before the pair even arrived at his office to talk, an irate Laetitia called him and requested an immediate conference call with Melanie. Once Olivier was in his office, Laetitia told him in no uncertain terms that when Abstergo Industries wanted footage something that interested them, he was to focus on that and nothing else. Olivier tried to explain that the studio had comparatively low funding compared to the parent company and so did not have the resources to do twice the research with less staff, but Laetitia brushed off his concerns, saying that finding that balance was his job as a manager.

Shortly thereafter, ^{[citation needed]} Olivier left for the meeting in Chicago but never arrived. Concurrently, Abstergo Entertainment's cybersecurity team had caught on to all the hacks that the analyst had done under coercion from John Standish, the head of the technology department who was also a Sage of the Isu Aita. These attacks had compromised various computers and security cameras in the facility, prompting a security lockdown. Melanie took charge in Olivier's stead and managed the breach, which she later concluded had been caused by John. Shortly after, she had a call with Laetitia and informed her of John's culpability in everything and Olivier's disappearance.

Death and aftermath

Unbeknownst to his Abstergo colleagues and the Templars as a whole, Olivier had evaded detection and was alive and well. For the next six months, he lived alone and without a trace. His last recorded appearance was on 25 May 2014 around 8 PM at the fast food establishment Quinkie's along Chicago's North Michigan Avenue, where he ordered a dinner consisting of lobster chowder appetizer, chicken pot pie, fries, a glass of Zinfandel wine, a cup of coffee, and chocolate ice cream.

Five days later, while driving in Chicago, an unknown assailant intercepted Olivier's rented car and murdered him in the street. Despite this, official word from Abstergo was that Olivier never reached Chicago at all. In late 2017, the Abstergo employee Layla Hassan obtained CCTV footage of the assassination, which she kept in her personal files on other mysterious disappearances and deaths related to Abstergo.

Behind the scenes

Olivier Garneau is a character first introduced in Ubisoft's promotional media site Assassin's Creed: Initiates. He later appeared in the 2013 video game Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, where he was voiced by Canadian actor Vincent Hoss-Desmarais. He shares his name with an AI/Game Programmer at Ubisoft Québec.

As revealed in an email to his Abstergo colleagues, Olivier was a descendant of François-Xavier Garneau, a 19th-century Canadian writer and historian.

In 2014, scriptwriter Darby McDevitt stated via Twitter that he originally thought of Olivier defecting to the Assassins as the canonical explanation for Olivier's disappearance, but with the 2017 release of Assassin's Creed: Origins and its depiction of Olivier's assassination in Chicago, this has been rendered untrue.

Olivier's death at the hands of a masked assailant is a reference to "Requiescat In Pace", a side mission from the 2014 video game Watch_Dogs, where protagonist Aiden Pearce is hired by the Assassins to incapacitate Garneau. Despite the similarities, the mission is not proof of the Watch_Dogs and Assassin's Creed series being part of a shared universe, but rather a non-canonical Easter egg, as confirmed by both Darby and Assassin's Creed's Brand Manager Aymar Azaïzia. To support this, there are several discrepancies across the two games, such as Olivier being described as the "CEO of Abstergo Entertainment" in Watch_Dogs instead of the CCO; the mission's objective being explicitly to subdue Garneau non-lethally; and the event being dated to 30 May 2014 in Assassin's Creed: Origins, whereas Watch_Dogs is set in late 2013.

Gallery

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  Concept art of Olivier Garneau
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  Melanie introducing the research analyst to Olivier
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  Melanie speaking with Olivier in her office
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  Olivier meeting with the research analyst
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  Olivier meeting with Melanie
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  Chicago CCTV footage of Olivier's assassination

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Initiates (first mentioned)
• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (first appearance)
• Assassin's Creed: Origins (CCTV footage only)