Fall of an Empire, Rise of Another

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Fall of an Empire, Rise of Another was a virtual representation of one of Aya's genetic memories, relived by Layla Hassan through the Portable Animus HR-8.

Description

Aya traveled to Rome to finish her task.

Dialogue

As Aya looked at Bayek's Medjay badge aboard her ship, she was approached by Damastes.

• Damastes: Is that for Phoxidas? A gift?
• Aya: No, it's a relic. I don't want to talk about it, Damastes.
• Damastes: Isn't that Bayek's? Let me have it, I'll give it to Phoxidas myself. He loves these things.

Damastes took the badge, but Aya drew a knife and knocked it out of his hand, and then held the knife to Damastes' throat.

• Aya: I'll kill you. How about that? I'm in no mood for compromise today.

Damastes ran off.

• Phoxidas: We passed Neapolis in the crack of morning. With strong winds, you'll be standing in Rome's Forum in two days' time. It's over between you and Bayek, eh? I can feel... no decision is easy. But you are a chosen one. And now you're free. Like me.
• Aya: So begins a new day.

Aya looked at the badge one last time before throwing it in the sea. She then took the helm with Phoxidas and sailed forth with a group of ships.

• Phoxidas: Hm. A Roman fleet up ahead. Do you see?
• Aya: Don't drop your guard entirely. We should assume they're expecting us.
• Phoxidas: You sound thrilled about it.
• Aya: Eager, old man. Eager to be done with the scum. And move on to the next pile of scum.
• Phoxidas: Infinite scum. Such is the world we live in.

Flares were shot, and a fleet of Roman ships approached.

• Phoxidas: We have been spotted!
• Aya: Those flares will summon their navy!
• Phoxidas: Prepare yourselves!
• Aya: Here they come!
  Forward, men! Litter the sea with their shattered hulls!
• Phoxidas: Strike oars! Al-la-la-la-la!
  Ah, the songs they will sing about us when this day is out!
• Aya: If that happens, Phoxidas, I will wear seaweed like a siren and sing them myself.
• Phoxidas: I'll hold you to that!
• Aya: Believe me, you would be sorry. Now let's end this!
• Phoxidas: Ha ha! Another down!
  There is only one more left for the abyss!

The Roman ships were sunk.

• Phoxidas: They set fireships upon us!
• Aya: Gods. Out fleet is too tightly formed! They'll hit us!
• Phoxidas: We are overwhelmed! These hellships are too many!
• Aya: We must sink them before they reach us! They'll doom us if they strike us! Take them down!

Aya sank the fireships, but a pair of octaremes approached.

• Phoxidas: More fireships close! By the gods, they're everywhere!
  Fireships left!

Aya sank the remaining fireships.

• Phoxidas: Poseidon help us, it's an armada!
• Aya: Do we have the firepower to deal with this?
• Phoxidas: I can't see how! With our fleet dispersed and our allies gone, we're undone!
• Aya: Man up, you old salt-lick! Save your bloody ship!

Yet more Roman ships approached.

• Phoxidas: Blast! Jove's pissing on our heads from the top of Olympus!
• Aya: No, no! It's Brutus and Cassius! Look!
• Phoxidas: And our catapults with them! Put them to use! Brace! Men! Don't fear this beast. She's a great and girthy whale, but we'll dance around her bulk like minnows in a pond!
• Aya: You weren't a poet in your youth, were you, Phoxidas?
• Phoxidas: Oho! I should have been, I think! A philosopher, too. Ah, what we should have been! A million things, fair Aya!
• Aya: You must write your memoirs one day!
• Phoxidas: I may just do! And if you'll promise to sneak one copy into the Library, our legend will live on! Surely this chapter will be the most widely read of all!

With the help of the newly-arrived allied ships, Aya was able to sink the octaremes.

• Aya: Let it rain! Down, you demons! Into the sea!
• Phoxidas: Heyo, slackers! Form up with the rest! Today we sail together.
• Aya: What port are you taking us to?
• Phoxidas: There is a town called Antium I'd like to try. Lots of merchants sail in and out of there. Should be safe for you. From there it's a half day's ride to Rome.

Two years later, Aya met with Brutus and Cassius in the Theatre of Pompey.

• Aya: It is only a matter of days before Caesar will officially become a tyrant.
• Cassius: There he is.

File:FallofanEmpireRiseofAnother02.jpg

Caesar and Septimius speaking about the Senate

They spotted Caesar at the other end of the theatre with Septimius at his side.

• Septimius: The people love you, Caesar. You're a god.
• Caesar: The Senate will not bow so easily.
• Septimius: That parliament of clucking hens? Let me be your wolf.

Caesar nodded and left.

• Aya: Go. Do nothing until I give the signal.

File:FallofanEmpireRiseofAnother04.jpg

Septimius standing tall against Aya

As Brutus and Cassius left, Septimius sent his two guards against Aya, who swiftly killed them. She then faced off against Septimius in a duel.

• Aya: So Caesar is the King of the order now?
• Septimius: Caesar is the Father of Understanding.
• Aya: You and Caesar will die.
• Septimius: You are meddling with the affairs of the Order. The Order is greater than Rome. Go back to Egypt, with the rest of the liars and slaves.
• Aya: Ha, you make me understand why murder is just.
• Septimius: I command armies! I control greatness!
• Aya: I will erase your Order from the annals.
• Septimius: Kneel to Caesar, kneel to Rome. It feels good to side with winners. We are the writers of history!
• Aya: Caesar will follow you to oblivion.
• Septimius: Your son pissed himself when he saw the knife.
• Aya: I will feed your heart to vultures. You have no honor. You stole everything from me!
• Septimius: I am a Gabiniani! I thought you would scurry away, little one. You should have taken your chance to drop off the map.
• Aya: Flavius isn't here to save you this time, Septimius. No Roman deals will be made.

File:FallofanEmpireRiseofAnother05.jpg

Aya looking at the apparitions of members of the Order of the Ancients

Aya defeated Septimius. In the latter's final moments, she looked at apparitions of members of the Order of the Ancients and the drawings on the sarcophagus in Alexander's tomb.

• Septimius: Damn you, lupa (she-wolf)!
• Aya: My son's heart. For your life.
• Septimius: Was revenge everything you hoped? You and the Medjay shall drench the sheets with your sweat tonight.

Septimius laughed with the members of the Order, but Aya took his knife and held it to his gut.

• Aya: The Staff...
• Septimius: With the Order. I served them and your beloved Egypt. And I'll be rewarded in the afterlife. An eternity of drinking and whoring with my brothers.
• Aya: The only thing that waits for you is oblivion. For your name, your Order and the rotting corpses of your Gabiniani!

File:FallofanEmpireRiseofAnother06.jpg

Aya standing tall against the Order of the Ancients

Aya slit Septimius' throat and drenched a feather with his blood.

• Aya: Apep devour your fetid heart.

Aya made her way to the senators and Caesar.

• Aya: Caesar must be in the Curia, with the rest of the Senate.

File:FallofanEmpireRiseofAnother09.jpg

Aya in the Senate

Aya reached the Curia and put on a senator's robe fashioned into a hooded cape.

• Caesar: I ask only this... that you join with me in building a new Rome.
• Cassius: A Rome with you as king?
• Senator 1: Let Caesar speak!
• Brutus: We want a Rome that offers justice, peace and land to all its citizens, not just the privileged few!
• Caesar: You are just as privileged as I?
• Brutus: I am not dictator for life!
• Caesar: An honor bestowed upon me by the people of Rome. Would you have me refuse such a gift?
• Senator 2: We would have you think of Rome before yourself.
• Caesar: I will unite the Republic. Senatus Populusque Romanus, for the Senate and the people of Rome.
• Senator 3: Republic? You speak of republic while coveting a crown?
• Caesar: Marcus Antonius offered me the crown, at the Lupercalia festival. I refused it.
• Senator 4: And what a pretty play it was.
• Cassius: You don't need a crown, they have made you a god!
• Caesar: Mark me, Gaius Cassius Longinus, support me in my dreams for Rome, and old divisions will be forgotten. Oppose me, and Rome will not forgive you.
• Cassius: Senators, the war is over.
• Caesar: The drums of dissent have reached a fever pitch.
• Brutus: Rome will not be a monarchy again.
• Caesar: It seems Brutus would start a revolution. But against what, my friend? We desire the same things.
• Brutus: How can you say that when you have raised yourself so far above the people?
• Caesar: I speak for the people!
• Cassius: You have seized the rights of the citizenry!
• Caesar: No! The people, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, offered up all of their rights to their leader and did it gladly so.
• Cassius: Who made you leader of Rome?
• Caesar: The eternal city herself!
• Senator 3: Caesar will not be reasoned with!
• Brutus: Senators, we still have a voice in this forum!
• Caesar: I will hear your complaints!
• Senator 3: Caesar deigns to listen, Romans rejoice!

File:FallofanEmpireRiseofAnother11.jpg

Aya stabs Caesar in the back

Aya snuck up behind Caesar and stabbed him in the back with her Hidden Blade, signalling the other senators to attack him and stab him to death. As Brutus approached with a knife, Caesar looked with shock.

• Caesar: You too, my child?

Brutus stabbed Caesar in the abdomen, delivering a killing blow.

• Brutus: The tyrant is dead! You are free now!

File:FallofanEmpireRiseofAnother17.jpg

Aya and Caesar in the memory corridor

Aya spoke with the dying Caesar in his final moments, the latter appearing in military dress.

• Caesar: Do I know you? You, who strikes from the shadows?
• Aya: The same fate will come to all despots.
• Caesar: In the end, it is impossible not to become what others believe you are. And I was a god!

Caesar lifted a Roman standard.

• Aya: There is a new creed now.

Caesar planted the standard.

• Caesar: Rome is eternal!

Caesar appeared in his senator's dress, lying on the floor again.

• Caesar: She will never fall to you or your kind.
• Aya: Freedom is not given, Caesar. It is taken.

As Caesar succumbed to his wounds, Aya placed his sword on his chest.

• Aya: Requiescat in pace (rest in peace), Caesar.

Two days after her assassination of Caesar, Aya approached Cleopatra in a villa in the outskirts of Rome. The Queen was playing with her son, Caesarion.

• Cleopatra: Do you know what you've done? Caesarion would have sat on the throne of Rome.
• Aya: Listen to the cries on the streets. They call you a dead tyrant's whore.
• Cleopatra: I am still your Queen.
• Aya: You are a Queen of liars and snakes. I fought for you for five years. Our people worshipped you. Apollodorus died for you, for Egypt.
• Cleopatra: For Egypt? I am Egypt!

File:FallofanEmpireRiseofAnother20.jpg

Aya threatens Cleo with killing her if she fails to become a good Pharaoh

As Cleopatra was about to strike Aya, the latter flicked her Hidden Blade, but relented upon seeing Caesarion.

• Aya: Then be the ruler our people deserve, or nothing will save you from my blade across your throat. You are the last of the pharaohs.

As Aya left, Cleopatra embraced her son.

Outcome

Aya killed Septimius and Caesar, bringing a temporary end to the machinations of the Order of the Ancients.

Gallery

• Aya making her way through the Theatre of Pompey.
  Aya making her way through the Theatre of Pompey.
• The Triumphal Arch of Tiberius.
  The Triumphal Arch of Tiberius.
• 
  Caesar speaking to the Senators.
• Caesar being stabbed by the Senators.
  Caesar being stabbed by the Senators.
• Aya watches from a distance.
  Aya watches from a distance.
• Brutus betraying his benefactor.
  Brutus betraying his benefactor.
• Caesar's body laying on the ground.
  Caesar's body laying on the ground.
• Aya gives Caesar his final rites.
  Aya gives Caesar his final rites.
• Aya reunites with Cleopatra in Rome.
  Aya reunites with Cleopatra in Rome.

Trivia

• Some of Caesar's dialogue is taken from real-life sources:
  • His claims that "the drums of dissent [had] reached a fever pitch" and that people would gladly give up their rights when "infused with fear and blinded by patriotism", and his denial of having "seized the rights of the citizenry", were never actually said by Caesar, instead coming from a 2001 internet quote of unknown origin.
  • His response to Brutus being part of the plot against his life, "You too, my child?", has its origins in Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars. In chapter 82 of book I, which profiles Caesar, Suetonius writes that some authors had repeated the claim that these were Caesar's last words. However, Suetonius insists that Caesar said no such thing, instead exclaiming "Why, this is violence!" upon being grabbed, before wrapping his robe about his head and uttering only a groan as he died.
    • It should be noted that what survives of The Twelve Caesars is analogous to tabloids, merging facts with exaggerated drama and gossip. Additionally, Suetonius makes no attempts at hiding his biases, conscious or not, towards the Roman Senate, but this is due to his being banned from the Senate's archives and so forced to rely on unverified second-hand accounts, having been dismissed from his duties to Hadrian circa 121 AD. While vividly depicting various topics and being of great historical value, it does not cover administrative details and so should not be taken as absolute truth.
  • Like his "drums of war" dialogue, his dying statement that, "In the end, it is impossible not to become what others believe you are", also comes from modern times and has just as murky origins. The line seems to come from the 2004 novella Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, who quotes the 1983 collection of translated Latin texts titled The Ides of March by American papyrologist Naphtali Lewis as confirming the line's authenticity. Strangely, the line never appears in Lewis' text, nor in American playwright Thorton Wilder's 1948 historic fiction novel of the same name which also covers Caesar's assassination in epistolary fashion.