Memory Seals

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File:Masyaf-keyrender.png

Memory Seals are Precursor relics with the ability to contain the recorded memories of their users, whether Isu or human.

History

Isu Era

While the Isu Capitoline Triad of Minerva, Jupiter, and Juno worked within the Grand Temple to avert a solar catastrophe, Minerva and Jupiter recorded messages on several seals that were intended for Desmond Miles to view thousands of years later. However, after Juno was imprisoned within the Temple, she found the seals and threw them into the chasm below the compound, believing them to be nothing more but "filled with lies".

Middle Ages

A Memory Seal in Caliph Al-Mutawakkil's locked box

In 861, the thief Basim Ibn Ishaq hoped to ingratiate himself with the Hidden Ones and sneaked into the Winter Palace in the Abbasid Caliphate's capital of Baghdad, intending to bring them the contents of a chest there that they sought. Making his way to where Caliph Al-Mutawakkil was meeting with the Order of the Ancients, he broke the lock when their backs were turned and saw a single Memory Seal on a cushion, only to be spotted when the caliph turned around. In the ensuing struggle, Basim inadvertently killed the caliph before escaping the palace in shock with the seal still in his pocket.

Altaïr passing the seals to Niccolò Polo

In his late life, Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, Mentor of the Levantine Assassins, came upon six Memory Seals after discovering that the Assassin fortress of Alamut was built upon the remains of a small Isu temple. This temple contained a large number of memory seals, and Altaïr used 6 of them to record important events in his life, five of which also became the keys necessary to enter his library hidden beneath Masyaf. The six memories that Altaïr chose to record all took place within Masyaf. In order, they involved a Crusader skirmish in 1189, the revolt shortly after Al Mualim's death in 1191, Maria Thorpe's death and Altaïr's exile in 1227, Altaïr's return to Masyaf in 1247, Niccolò and Maffeo Polo's departure in 1257 during the Fall of Masyaf, and Altaïr's death shortly thereafter. At Altaïr's request, Niccolò Polo took the 5 Memory Seals and hid them underground throughout Constantinople. Respectively, the seals were placed within Topkapı Palace, the Yerebatan Cistern, Galata Tower, the Forum of the Ox, and the Maiden's Tower. The sixth memory seal remained with Altaïr inside his library, where he recorded his final moments.

Renaissance

Ezio retrieving a memory seal

In 1511, two Memory Seals in Alexandria were located by Mamluk Sultan Al-Ashraf Qansuh al-Ghawri's soldiers during the excavation of the Library of Alexandria. These seals, kept within a chest dated to 331 BCE, were recovered by both the Egyptian Assassins and their Ottoman brethren shortly afterwards. The seals were later taken to the local Assassins' headquarters, where they were studied by an woman initiate. As she worked to "unlock the mysteries" of the seals, the Templars led an attack on the headquarters, though they were thwarted again by the Ottoman Assassins.

The next year, the Italian Assassins' Mentor Ezio Auditore journeyed to Constantinople and uncovered four of the seals, reclaimed the fifth one from the dying Byzantine Templar Manuel Palaiologos in Derinkuyu, and found the final one upon entering Altaïr's library.

Modern era

In 2013, an embedded file in the Abstergo Entertainment mainframe focused on several different First Civilization technologies, including memory seals.

Gallery

• Minerva's Vatican Vault projection depicting a glowing Memory Seal
  Minerva's Vatican Vault projection depicting a glowing Memory Seal
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  Basim staring at an inert Memory Seal
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  Ezio reliving a memory stored in one of the Memory Seals
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  Memory Seals in Galata headquarters
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  A Memory Seal on an extract of the Voynich manuscript
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  Abstergo Industries comparing a seal to the Phaistos Disc

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Revelations (first appearance)
• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
• Assassin's Creed: Mirage