Grand Temple

"Each Vault's knowledge was transmitted to a single place."

―Jupiter speaking of the Grand Temple.

The Grand Temple's main chamber

The Grand Temple, also known as the Central Vault, is a complex built by the Isu, located in modern-day Turin, New York. Like other Temples, its purpose was to create different methods of saving and preserving the world; it was the location where Jupiter, Minerva and Juno collected and tested the discoveries of the other Temples in the hopes of finding the most effective methods of Earth's salvation from the solar flare.

To maintain its operation, the Grand Temple was buried underground to protect its contents from the war with humanity and the solar flare, and was hidden beneath a statue dedicated to the Capitoline Triad. However, the statue was destroyed during the Great Catastrophe and, though several humans re-discovered the Temple's location over the centuries, none would learn the site's true purpose or how to access it until Desmond Miles' revelation.

The Grand Temple was also the place where Juno was imprisoned for millennia, in order to protect humanity from her plots of destruction, and held the device that would both set her free and protect the Earth from the second solar flare.

History

Isu Era

"It was our duty... mine, Minerva's and Juno's—to sort and sample all that was collected. We chose those solutions which held the most promise, and devoted ourselves to testing their merits. Six we tried in succession, each more encouraging than the last. But none worked. And then the world ended..."

―Jupiter to Desmond Miles.

Before the Human-Isu War, all information from the other Temples regarding any way to prevent the Great Catastrophe was sent to the Grand Temple for Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva to "sort and sample all that was collected." The three tested six possible solutions in succession, "each more encouraging than the last", but all six ultimately ended in failure.

Juno elaborating on the four towers

The first possible solution was to build four towers to collect the solar flare that would strike the planet, and virtually dispel it. While they had the means and resources, the time to produce the solution would take too long to be successful. The first tower was never completed and the research was eventually abandoned. However, Juno mentioned that some members of the First Civilization attempted to continue the pursuit of this solution, and sought to automate the construction process, hoping that the machines would have been able to finish the first tower.

Juno explaining the Rings of Eden

The second possible solution was to use the Rings of Eden on a much larger scale than ever before. The magnetic field emitted by the Shards could protect the planet against the solar flare, but it was too large to build and was considered impossible. The scientists hoped to save a possible half, a sixth, an eighth, or even a tenth of the planet. However, the lack of time and resources proved too great, and it was theorized that a city might have been spared at best, given more time. Like the first solution, this one was also abandoned in the end.

Juno explaining the enthrallment solution

The third possible solution was to use the Apples of Eden to control humanity into willing the threat away. If enough humans were compelled to believe in one singular idea, their thoughts took on form and became reality. The consequent solution involved launching an Apple of Eden into orbit, aiming it towards the planet, and commanding the entire human race to think one thought, "make us safe." However, even with a dozen of the Apples sent into orbit, the Isu lacked the means to direct and maintain the control beam, and simultaneously influence the humans on a global scale. The project was eventually abandoned.

Juno explaining the time manipulation solution

The fourth possible solution was to attempt to go back in time and prevent the disaster before it could occur. Minerva discovered that there was a pattern to the numbers and equations that define existence. If one could comprehend these numbers, time itself could be tamed. Unfortunately, it appeared that the scientists' attempts had no effect on the present. The device they created could, however, look into the future and see if the other solutions would prevent the disaster, but the result was always a failure. The solution was abandoned, though Minerva herself continued her studies on the underlying mathematics of the universe, and eventually used her knowledge to actively communicate with individuals in the far future, such as Desmond Miles, through the genetic memories of his ancestor, Ezio Auditore da Firenze.

Juno remaining by Aita's side

The fifth possible solution was to augment the bodies of the remaining First Civilization members to adapt to the hostile new climate which appeared on Earth following the catastrophe. Aita, Juno's husband, volunteered to test the method, resulting in his mind degenerating and becoming increasingly catatonic. With enough will, he wished for Juno to euthanize him, and she fulfilled it. The solution was subsequently abandoned.

The sixth and final possible solution was to create entirely new vessels that could safely transfer one's consciousness in a way that the former solution had failed to do. The new vessels would be able to withstand the new environment, and they could house the transferred consciousness. While transferring one's consciousness into the new vessel was relatively simple, subsequent releasing of oneself from the vessel was nearly impossible and required another being's sacrifice to be successful. As a result, this solution was ultimately abandoned.

Following this, the solar flare killed most of the Isu and left less than 10,000 humans alive. However, the two groups worked together, beginning around the remains of the Grand Temple. The members of the First Civilization attempted to pass on their gifts to humans through crossbreeding, resulting in some individuals being able to access Eagle Vision and use the Pieces of Eden.

The scientists determined a similar disaster would occur again in 2012. Minerva found a new solution from her research and created a pedestal, the global aurora borealis device, that would allow one who had the right genetic material to manipulate the numbers to protect the Earth. However, before Minerva could test it, she discovered that Juno had tampered with it. While the patterns to save the world still existed, they would also allow Juno to have total control and power. As such, Minerva forced the solution to be abandoned, and Juno's consciousness was imprisoned in the Grand Temple.

Norse expedition

Eivor: "What is he digging for?"

Olav: "That is a mystery he will not tell. But my guess is the best guess. He seeks the door to Jötunheim."

—Olav the Unlucky to Eivor Varinsdottir, on the purpose of Gorm's expedition to Vinland, c. 875.

In the late 9th century CE, the Viking Gorm Kjotvesson of the Wolf Clan, who served as the Maegester of the Order of the Ancients' Wardens of War sect, led an expedition to Vinland after acquiring a Crystal Ball which allowed him to communicate with Juno. Per the Isu's instructions, Gorm sought to locate the Grand Temple and free Juno from her imprisonment, but despite finding the Temple's entrance, all attempts to open the door proved unsuccessful. During this time, many of the Norse people who had accompanied Gorm came to believe that they were in fact searching for the "door to Jötunheim".

Eivor outside the Grand Temple's entrance

Around 875, Gorm's rival Eivor Varinsdottir of the Raven Clan tracked him to Vinland and assassinated him, retrieving his Crystal Ball in the process. The artifact then guided Eivor to the Grand Temple's entrance, but after inspecting the strange door and hearing Juno's voice speaking through the Crystal Ball, the Viking decided not to proceed any further, believing the message was intended for someone else.

Eivor subsequently entrusted Gorm's Crystal Ball to Konwahawíhshon, one of the leaders of the nearby Kanien'kehá:ka village of Karonhiakèn:iate'. The artifact would remain in the Kanien'kehá:ka's possession for generations to come, and through it the villagers communicated with Juno, who they believed was a god. The Isu instructed them to protect the "sanctuary" from outside threats, and so the Kanien'kehá:ka became guardians of the Grand Temple, though their duties forced them to isolate themselves from the other Iroquois tribes.

Over time, stories of the tribe's communications with Juno were painted on the Temple door, referring to the Isu as a motherly figure who watched over and protected the Kanien'kehá:ka.

Renaissance

"I will open that library, and I will find the Grand Temple. And with the power that is hidden there, I will destroy the superstitions that keep men divided."

―Ahmet to Ezio Auditore, 1512.

In 1499, after accessing the Vatican Vault in Rome, Ezio Auditore was contacted by a hologram of Minerva via the Eye, a device allowing the Isu to see possible futures. Minerva told Ezio about her race's history, their war with humanity and their demise during the Great Catastrophe, and urged an unseen person named Desmond to find the Grand Temple so that humanity could be saved from the Second Disaster. Unbeknownst to Ezio at the time, this message was intended for his descendant Desmond Miles, who would relive Ezio's memories through the Animus centuries later.

Ezio and Leonardo discovering the Grand Temple's coordinates

In 1506, Ezio and his friend Leonardo da Vinci discovered a smaller vault underneath the Temple of Pythagoras, which contained a set of coordinates: 43 39 19 N 75 27 42 W. While Leonardo was baffled by the information, Ezio inherently understood that these numbers were intended for Desmond and convinced Leonardo to leave the vault.

In 1509, Prince Ahmet, the Templar Grand Master in the Ottoman Empire, desired the location of the Grand Temple in order to end the differences between men and create a unified world. He believed that the legendary Assassin Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad had discovered the Temple's location, and that he had hidden that knowledge in his library beneath Masyaf. With this belief, he organized an excavation to find the library, which Ezio Auditore ultimately discovered.

In 1512, Ezio prevented the Templars under Ahmet from acquiring the keys to Altaïr's library and subsequently traveled to Masyaf to access the library himself. However, the chamber was empty, except for Altaïr's remains, a sixth key, and Altaïr's Apple of Eden. Weary of his life as an Assassin, Ezio chose not to take the Apple from the library. The Apple then began to glow and Ezio spoke directly to Desmond, asking him to make sense of the questions that had plagued him and to make the suffering he had endured worth something.

The Templars' search

"It could contain certain knowledge. Perhaps a weapon. Or something as yet unknown, unfathomable in its construction and purpose. It could be any of these things. Or none of them. They are still an enigma, these precursors. But of one thing I am certain—whatever waits behind those doors shall prove a great boon to us all."

―Reginald Birch talking about the Grand Temple, 1754.

In 1722, the pirate Bartholomew Roberts, one of Aita's reincarnations, also known as a 'Sage', discovered through visions of his past life the existence of the Grand Temple and Juno's imprisonment in it. During Roberts' last moments, he expressed his desire to visit Juno at the Grand Temple, confusing his killer, the Assassin Edward Kenway, before requesting that Edward destroy his body to prevent the Templars from gaining anything from it.

In his later life, Edward wrote a journal detailing his research on different Temples around the world, including the Grand Temple. In 1735, the Templar Grand Master Reginald Birch obtained Edward's journal after hiring mercenaries to kill the Assassin in his own home. Learning about the Grand Temple's location in the New World, Birch assigned his subordinate Lawrence Washington to find the site and be his eyes and ears in the Colonies. However, after over a decade spent in the Colonies, Washington had been unsuccessful in his search.

Haytham attempting to open the Temple door

In 1754, the Templar Haytham Kenway, Edward's son and Birch's protégé, was sent by his master to find the Grand Temple after acquiring an Isu key from the British Assassin Miko. Upon his arrival in the Colonies, Haytham assembled an expedition with his fellow Templars in the New World and befriended the Kanien'kehá:ka warrior Kaniehtí:io, who brought him to the Temple's entrance. To his dismay, however, Haytham found that his key did not open the Temple door and decided to abandon the search for the site.

Despite this, in 1760, a group of Templars led by Charles Lee organized another expedition to find the Grand Temple and traveled to the Kanien'kehá:ka village of Kanatahséton to speak with its elders. En route to the village, the Templars encountered and assaulted a young native boy, Ratonhnhaké:ton, who was secretly Haytham and Kaniehtí:io's son. When Kanatahséton was later set ablaze by the British Army, Ratonhnhaké:ton blamed the Templars for the tragedy and vowed revenge on Lee.

As a teenager, Ratonhnhaké:ton was contacted by Juno through his tribe's Crystal Ball and was tasked with joining the Colonial Assassins in order to prevent the Templars from ever accessing the Grand Temple. By 1782, Ratonhnhaké:ton had succeeded in wiping out the Colonial Templars and, after assassinating Lee, took the Grand Temple Key from him, which he subsequently hid away per Juno's instructions. The Assassin chose to bury the key in the grave of Connor Davenport, the son of his late Mentor Achilles Davenport, on the hill overlooking the Davenport Homestead.

Modern times

"That ominous date fast approaches. December 21st, 2012. None of us know what it'll bring - only that this is where they want us to be when it does."

―William Miles, on the Grand Temple and the impending 2012 disaster.

In 2012, Desmond Miles relived Ezio Auditore's memories and, upon reaching the moment of Ezio's discovery of Altaïr's Apple of Eden, the artifact triggered a Synch Nexus, allowing Desmond to speak with Jupiter. The Isu further elaborated on the First Civilization's history and fate and, similarly to Minerva, tasked Desmond to find the Grand Temple so that he could use the global aurora borealis device to prevent the Second Disaster.

Desmond opening the Temple door

Meanwhile, Desmond's fellow Assassins – Shaun Hastings, Rebecca Crane and his father William Miles – were able to learn the Temple's coordinates from Ezio's memories, and brought Desmond there so that he could access the vault. As Desmond approached the Temple entrance, he inserted Ezio's Apple of Eden into a hole in the door, triggering a mechanism that opened the door and allowed the Assassins to enter the Temple.

While investigating the Temple, the group found a large gate made of light that protected the global aurora borealis device, before Desmond passed out as a result of the Bleeding Effect and Juno's influence and was placed in the Animus. There, Desmond relived the memories of his ancestors Haytham Kenway and Ratonhnhaké:ton in order to find the Grand Temple Key, which could deactivate the gate blocking the path to the Temple's inner chambers.

Meanwhile, Shaun realized that the Assassins required three Isu power sources to fully reactivate the Temple, otherwise opening the gate would be of no use. Over time, Desmond recovered these power sources from across the globe, and with each source plugged in, the Assassin witnessed visions of Juno explaining the six solutions devised by the Isu to save the planet from the solar flare.

Through the memories of his ancestors, Desmond eventually learned the Grand Temple Key's location and retrieved it from the Davenport Homestead's remains before returning to the Temple to deactivate the gate. This granted the Assassins access to the global aurora borealis device, though before Desmond could activate it at Juno's urging, Minerva suddenly appeared using a second Eye she had secretly constructed and told Desmond to do the opposite.

Desmond activating the global aurora borealis device

She explained that if Desmond followed Juno's instructions, the world would be saved, but at the cost of his life and Juno's release from imprisonment. Following this, Minerva showed Desmond that if he refrained from activating the device, the solar flare would once again destroy the world, but he and many other humans would survive. Additionally, Desmond would eventually become a religious figure that would rebuild the world, but upon his death, his ideals would be mistranslated and spark conflicts, effectively causing history to repeat itself.

Believing that humanity had a chance at defeating Juno, Desmond made his choice and activated the device, telling William, Shaun and Rebecca to leave the Grand Temple and prepare for the new struggle. The world was indeed saved, but Desmond perished and Juno was set free, promising to "play [her part]" just as Desmond had played his.

Several hours later, Abstergo Industries found the Temple's location and dispatched a team, led by Case Fisher. There, they found and retrieved Desmond's body, stripping him of his backpack and his Hidden Blade, which was broken into pieces and taken to Abstergo along with the rest of his belongings.

Behind the scenes

The entrance to the Grand Temple was located in the north of the Frontier within the Black Creek region, within a cave that was once the head of Minerva's statue, which crumbled during the Toba catastrophe. Over time, the statue's remains eroded and became little more than a massive rock edifice, with a tunnel carved out to access the Temple's entrance.

It was possible to visit the entrance while reliving Connor and Haytham's memories, though the door was closed. In The Tyranny of King Washington, the entrance is absent from the cave.

The shape of the temple from Jupiter's holographic flashback in Assassin's Creed: Revelations changed from an elevator shaft and a lobby to become much larger and sectioned off in Assassin's Creed III.

According to The Art of Assassin's Creed III, the three sections of the Grand Temple are respectively meant to be a computer server, sleeping quarters, and a research facility.

The barrier sealing off the Temple's inner chambers features a symbol consisting of an ouroboros surrounding a tetractys. The Grand Temple Key, which deactivates this barrier, also has a symbol of an ouroboros.

Contrary to popular theories making Jotunheim analogous to North America, Assassin's Creed: Valhalla's Lead Writer Darby McDevitt dispelled the notion that Gunnlöð's vault in Jotunheim was actually the Grand Temple.

Gallery

ScreenshotsConcept art

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  The Grand Temple's location seen within the Synch Nexus
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  Jupiter, Minerva and Juno seen in a hologram of the Grand Temple
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  The entrance to the Temple in the 18th century
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  Modern Assassins entering the Temple
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  The Assassins by the door to the Temple
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  Desmond opening the door
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  The barrier sealing off the Temple's inner chamber
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  First Civilization script inside the Temple
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  The entrance tunnel
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  The entryway to the main chamber
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  The room above the entryway
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  The prototype of the shield pylon
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  First Civilization technology
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  The right-side stairs to the upper level
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  The first room of the upper chamber
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  The second room of the upper chamber

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  Concept art of the Grand Temple as seen in Assassin's Creed: Initiates
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  Concept art of the interior of the Grand Temple
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  Concept art of the Grand Temple
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  Concept art of Desmond Miles entering the Grand Temple
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  Concept art of the underground Temple
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  Isu technology within the Grand Temple

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood – The Da Vinci Disappearance (first mentioned) (indirect mention only)
• Assassin's Creed: Revelations (first appearance) (entrance only)
• Assassin's Creed: Revelations novel (mentioned only)
• Assassin's Creed III
• Assassin's Creed: Forsaken (entrance only)
• Assassin's Creed: Initiates
• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
• Assassin's Creed: Rogue (indirect mention only)
• Assassin's Creed: Valhalla (entrance only)