Talk:Persian Brotherhood of Assassins

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Iltani founder?

Per dialogue in Mirage should we put Iltani as the founder in the infobox? I also thought about suggesting a merge with the Babylonian Brotherhood but it is possible that Iltani was established her own branch separate from them rather than that group directly transitioning into this one. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 06:11, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

I remember encountering that mention in Mirage somewhere but don't remember exactly where. Can you please quote it and tell us exactly where it is found? And if I remember correctly, we still haven't finished figuring out whether these articles on Assassin sub-"brotherhoods" should be about the guilds or any branch of the Assassins that operated in the region. I believe we may have settled on the latter since the names are also used for cells, but we need to double-check on the past discussions. I don't see any basis for a merge with the Babylonian Brotherhood. Both the names Persian Brotherhood and Babylonian Brotherhood originated in The Essential Guide (1st ed.) where they are mentioned separately. In fact, it's not even clear if we should be treating this as the same as the branch based in Alamut in Mirage (although I would hope that this could be verified). A lot of editors seem to have a working assumption that branches of the Assassins and Templars would be co-extensive with country borders, which not only is not necessarily the case but also isn't very realistic. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 07:57, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

I believe it to be dialogue (possibly ambient or talking to random NPCs) in either A New Beginning or Taking Flight but transcriptions are not yet complete and the line is currently missing. I just put this on this talk page since we don't have a Hidden Ones of Alamut or whatever and didn't want to forget this later. You bring up a good point about the Persian and Babylonian Brotherhoods both being featured in the Guide as separate. I agree that rites and guild territorial coverage should, given actually good worldbuilding, be divorced from state borders (sidenote: this is a pet peeve of mine regarding the Harry Potter universe, if the Wizarding World withdrew from mundane society by the late 1600s why do the Ministries of Magic map to current polities for the most part). Lacrossedeamon (talk) 08:40, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

The was spoken by Tabid to Basim in Taking Flight. I have included the said quote on Iltani's page. Lady Kyashira (talk) 15:27, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Supposing that we do treat the Alamut branch as being founded by Iltani, do you think it'd be too weird to merge it with Babylonian Brotherhood but not the two with Persian Brotherhood? And what about the Levantine Brotherhood? Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 14:39, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Paraphrasing from Discord and to clear up my position. I am actually against merging the branches at this time because it is unclear if Iltani being a founder of the branch in Mirage (if Tabid is meaning the branch specifically rather than the Hidden Ones in general) means she was the founder of her original branch. She could be like the Polo brothers who started out at Masyaf but then established branches elsewhere. As for the Levantine issue that is complicated due to both how earlier entries depict their relationship and the fact that the establishment of the branch at Alamut has been retconned. We have a note from Rayhan alluding to the future establishment of the Levantine branch but since there is a couple intervening centuries it's basically useless. Any attempt to reconcile the difference would veer too much into headcanon/speculation. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 02:28, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

My concern at this time though is that we are inconsistently referring to Alamut as belonging to either the Levantine or Persian Brotherhood. If both choices constitute speculation, what is the proper course of action? Treating Alamut as "Levantine" had owed to two things:

1. The Essential Guide happening to call Hassan-i Sabbah a Levantine Assassin.
2. The belief that Alamut and Masyaf (and their respective proximal citadels if any) had to have de jure been the same branch as they were still seen as following a new iteration of the Assassins as a public state and preceding this state's dissolution by Altaïr. With Assassins and Hidden Ones being more and more synonymous and continuous and Alamut having already existed as a Hidden One stronghold in Mirage... maybe this is no longer a strong reason.

As we all know, The Essential Guide is not a very reliable source, and it is a one-off mention, but I didn't wish to cherry-pick either. Personally, I think it is far less confusing if we were to treat Alamut and Masyaf as separate branches on the basis that the AC1 guide describes Al Mualim splintering from Hassan the Younger and creating his own autonomous base. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 06:49, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Your final suggestion is one I am fond of. My idea for if we want to treat them as part of the same entity is that at the beginning the Alamut sect dominated the relationship between the two but as Al Mualim gained more power he was able to become the controlling voice with Alamut nominally the head but Masyaf the de facto leader which influenced what the branch was called. Basically the Nizari state being called the Persian Branch early on but later people coming to call it the Levantine Branch as the power dynamic shifted. I think until (if ever) we get an expanded look at Hassan-i Sabbah's life we just have to consider the Guide in error calling him a Levantine Assassin except in the loosest retrospective. I think the Secret Crusade might also have a bit dealing with the relationship between the two. I mean we can't just make a page for the Nizari state and at least call it a day on the branch post 1090 can we? Lacrossedeamon (talk) 08:26, 11 November 2023 (UTC)

Merge

To my memory, I do not believe Ubisoft has said anything about this group's connections—if any—to other organizations. As I said in my edit summary, having 4 Assassin groups—the Babylonian Brotherhood, the Protectors of Persia, the Alamut Hidden Ones, and the Levantine Brotherhood—operate in the Middle East in such close geographical proximity to each other is an absolute mess. Sol said above that "we still haven't finished figuring out whether these articles on Assassin sub-"brotherhoods" should be about the guilds or any branch of the Assassins that operated in the region" (I freely admit that I am confused by the distinction between a guild and a branch). But I also am unsure if there is enough of us for the...authority(?) to move pages of groups that were once named in the apparently-unreliable Essential Guide 1st ed. if Ubisoft remains mum on this. Can we try to resolve this mess, and if so, how? – Darman (talk) 19:55, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

First, I am of the opinion that creating a separate article for "Hidden Ones of Alamut" was premature.

Second, the distinction between guild and branch is that a guild is a specific administrative unit of the Assassin Brotherhood whereas branch is a general word. A guild is to the Assassins as a prefecture or province is to the Tang dynasty or a county or state is to the United States. But the administrative unit called a guild was created by Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad when he disbanded the Assassin Order in the face of the Mongol invasions. A guild is therefore the first-tier unit of the guild system, the administrative system established by Altaïr. The guild system was eventually superceded by the cell system, especially after the Great Purge in 2000 that drastically reduced the population of Assassins throughout the world. So the main operating unit of the Assassins today are cells, not guilds. Just like the administrative system of the modern People's Republic of China is not the same as the administrative system of the Tang dynasty, so too have organizations like the Assassins and Templar had different administrative systems throughout their history.

The term branch is broader because it is just a general word for, well, a regional branch of the Assassins, regardless of how it may have been officially organized throughout the centuries. Altaïr tasked Niccolò and Maffeo Polo with establishing the first guilds, and they did so in Constantinople and in Italy. So the Italian Brotherhood, when defined as the guild founded by the Polos is not the same thing as a broad idea of a regional Hidden One/Assassin branch in the Italian peninsula dating back to the time of Amunet.

The question we've never resolved is whether our articles on the Persian Brotherhood, the Egyptian Brotherhood, the Levantine Brotherhood, the Chinese Brotherhood, etc. should be narrowly about the guilds in Altaïr's administrative system or about branches of the Assassins within their respective regions in general. One of the arguments for the latter is that The Essential Guide uses the name Russian Brotherhood for both the Assassin guild of Russia in Nikolai Orelov's time and the lone Assassin cell of Russia in Galina Voronina's time. This suggests that the appellation "Brotherhood" is not exclusive to a guild. (It can be surmised that the name for the regional branch has persisted even after the Russian guild was reduced to the population of only a cell). The argument for limiting the scope of these articles to only being about Altaïr's guilds is greater clarity, with less muddling of the waters. The Italian Brotherhood, as a guild, was established by the Polo brothers in a way that makes it discontinuous from the earlier branch established by Amunet at the end of the Roman Republic. As I recall from my discussions with our retired administrator Master Sima Yi over Discord, we so far seem to have been leaning towards writing these articles as being about broad regional branches rather than guilds however.

But there are also multiple other complications to consider. On the question of whether the Assassins of Alamut are the same as the Levantine Brotherhood, the confusion stems from the two predating Altaïr's guild system. We have a temptation to refer to the Assassins from the time of Hassan-i Sabbah to Altaïr as the "Levantine Brotherhood". This is the practice of The Essential Guide, but it is retrospective. In the game guide of Assassin's Creed, it is explained that Al Mualim left Hassan the Younger in Alamut to establish his own autonomous branch based in Masyaf. It is unclear whether this was a schism or if Al Mualim was merely helping Hassan the Younger to expand the order as the Polo brothers did. It is unclear if the two became de jure separate branches, but we at least know that they were de facto independent of one another. It thus makes things confusing to treat them as the same unit, with even the Alamut Assassins being called the "Levantine Brotherhood" when Alamut is not geographically situated in the Levant. We even have extended the usage of the name "Levantine Brotherhood" to encompassing the activities of the Assassins in that region in Revelations, as part of the Mediterranean Defense game feature, but this practice of ours has not been canonically verified.

Furthermore, we have the complex case of the Chinese Brotherhood. From the Q&A with Dynasty's author, we know that the name "Assassin" was applied more broadly among the Chinese. It became an underground mantle by which newer generations of xiake could repeatedly readopt even after a previous group of Assassins had been purged. The Chinese name for the Assassin, Cike, predates the Hidden Ones' presence in China. To reconcile this with the mainstream canon, I surmise that the original Cike in the Warring States period would have been a different and indigenous group. At some point, the Hidden Ones arrived in China, and the Cike became subsumed into the Hidden Ones of China, and in the Chinese language, the names Cike and Assassin (i.e. the name from Persian) became identical. But being the frequent target of purges, in Li E's time, there was another lull in their presence in China. The Hidden Ones of the Great Desert were a separate group of Assassins who operated in China's periphery. By chance, Li E became one of them then later adopted the legacy of the earlier generations of Hidden Ones/Assassins in China as well under Pei Min's guidance. He founded the Hidden Ones of the Great Tang, another group of Chinese Assassins. Thus, with this complicated history, it can be suggested that the article on the Chinese Brotherhood is actually about the history of multiple different groups of Assassins in China across the ages.

Turning back now to the Egyptian Brotherhood and Persian Brotherhoods, one of the problems is first that both names are retrospective (i.e. The Essential Guide (1st ed.) used them to refer to Amunet and Darius' groups respectively). Another is that we have been inferring that we can extend their scope to cover Assassins in Egypt and Persia in later history. This practice of ours is technically speculative. We do not know for sure that Salah Bey, though he was a Persian Assassin, was a member of a "Persian Brotherhood". Nor do we even know that Numa Al'Khamsin was a member of an "Egyptian Brotherhood"; we know he was an Egyptian Assassin, but the name Egyptian Brotherhood hasn't been explicitly linked to him.

Therefore, the primary problem is that we do not know the appropriate scope of these regional "Brotherhoods". Our practice has been to haphazardly make inferences based on geography despite the fact that the territorial jurisdiction of Assassin administrative units need not be coextensive with the borders of modern sovereign states. (My headcanon for a long time was that the "Spanish Assassins" of Aguilar was different branch from the Assassins of Granada and the Assassins of Aragon, at least until the Reconquista was completed). We don't know if the Hidden Ones of Alamut in Mirage should be considered the same branch as the Persian Brotherhood, but if we follow the same logic of why we included Salah Bey to the list, that should mean erring on the side of caution means to also include them just because Alamut is in Persia.

Finally, I need to remind you that although The Essential Guide is unreliable (though officially authoritative), even more-so the first edition, our understanding of Assassin branches comes predominantly from this text. The very names Babylonian Brotherhood, Egyptian Brotherhood, Levantine Brotherhood, Persian Brotherhood, etc. originated in this book (to be reinforced by scattered mentions in a few other games released around its time). What this means is that our empirical evidence for these administrative units, their names, and how they are used are linked to The Essential Guide. That is why I said that it would be awkward to exclude all mentions of Darius from "Persian Brotherhood", when official sources have only ever used this name for him, while including Salah Bey under the "Persian Brotherhood", when his link to it is based on our own inference. So no matter how unreliable we think The Essential Guide is, as long as we are using the very concepts it has given us, it would be disingenuous to use them in our own alternative ways, like treating the Babylonian Brotherhood, the Levantine Brotherhood, and the Persian Brotherhood as all the same as you so suggest. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 01:04, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

My own proposal is as follows, but I certainly welcome you all to suggest alternatives since this is such a sticky problem:

• I think the regional "Brotherhood" pages should by default be a broader article about a regional branch that encompasses a history of other earlier groups that played a role in its history. This parallels how the Wikipedia articles on China, Iran, and Egypt are not just about the modern countries but also earlier states and regimes that are part of their histories, even though there are many debates about to what extent some of those past regimes were proper representatives of these nations.
• But where we know of a more specific and concrete group in these branches' past, like the "Protectors of Persia" or the Hidden Ones of the Great Tang or the Roman Hidden Ones, they merit their own separate articles, just like how in Wikipedia, we have an article on China but also a separate article on the Tang dynasty, an article on Iran but also a separate article on the Achaemenid Empire, an article on Italy but also a separate article on the Roman Empire. The broader "Brotherhood" pages can mention them more briefly in summary as part of their histories. These earlier groups evolved to become the modern branches we know today.
• Sometimes we have a case where a regional "Brotherhood", especially a newer one, is synonymous with a more concrete unit. For example, we know that the Colonial Brotherhood, later renamed the American Brotherhood, was specifically founded by Achilles as part of Altaïr's guild system. This parallels how the United States of America, as a more recent creation, is a nation without previous regimes that we have to reference (unless we count older colonial governments preceding the founding states). In this case, we can approach the article accordingly.
• Levantine Brotherhood and Persian Brotherhood should remain separate. This is partly our call, but it is much too confusing to treat the Assassins of Alamut as part of the Levantine Brotherhood. Our reasoning should be based principally on the AC1 game guide's description of Al Mualim establishing an independent base in Masyaf from Alamut. So, analytically they are separate branches. I would propose that while the Assassins of Masyaf be called the Levantine Brotherhood, the Assassins of Alamut established by Hassan-i Sabbah should be called the Persian Brotherhood despite this being an inferred application of that name. But I am open to a better idea for the name. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 01:25, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Oh by the way Darman, saying that the Babylonian Brotherhood, the Protectors of Persia, the Alamut Hidden Ones, the Levantine Brotherhood, and the Persia Brotherhood should be treated all the same just because they all operate in the "Middle East" is... a bit problematic to me. The Middle East is a present-day social, cultural, and political category, and the region has comprised many diverse polities throughout its millennia-long history. They're not all in "such close geographical proximity" to one another, anymore than the French, Spanish, and Italian Brotherhoods are "in such close geographical proximity" to one another. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 01:37, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

I'll try to think on your broader points while out IRL, but I'll first come clean and say that I was wrong to refer to these Brotherhoods as "the same" just because they operated in the Near East. While the cities Babylon and Baghdad may be close together, they were indeed separated by thousands of years, countless demographics, and are actually quite some distance from both Masyaf, which was further west relative to them than I had thought, and Alamut, the remains of which are further north than I thought near the Caspian Sea's southern edge. Applying the same distance scales in Europe would clearly cross into many modern countries and I should not have been so flippant in my history/geography. – Darman (talk) 04:40, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

To give my thoughts on the matter, I think I agree with Sol Pacificus in that the pages for an Assassin/Templar branch/guild/rite etc. should cover the entire history of the Assassins/Templars' activity in that region. Ofc, I think there are some exceptions; for example, in the case of the Levantine Rite, we shouldn't cover the Templars' expedition in Masyaf in Revelations, because, even though Masyaf is part of the Levant, the game quite clearly establishes that it is the Byzantine Rite that is doing the expedition.

Also, regarding the Persian/Levantine Assassins/Alamut Hidden One situation, I think the current version of the pages is fine the way it is. From my understanding, the Alamut Hidden Ones are a predecessor/verly early incarnation of the Persian Assassins, but they are different enough, so they should get their own page. Kind of like how the Hidden Ones of the Great Desert have a different page from the Chinese Assassins. Ofc, the page for the Persian Assassins should still cover the history of the Alamut Hidden Ones (albeit in less detail), because, like I said, it should include the entire history of the Assassins/Hidden Ones' activity in Persia. As for the Levantine Assassins, to avoid confusion and bloating, I believe it should just include information relating to the branch established by Al Mualim and based in Masyaf, as well as the references to early Assassin/Hidden One activity in that general regional (basically just Bayek sending a few Hidden Ones there and Rayhan discussing the possibility of establishing a permanent stronghold near Jerusalem). – Gener4l Cl4ank4 (talk) 19:40, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Sol's proposal sounds good to me. I would counter Grievous over here and say we don't actually know enough about Persian Assassins (post the name change) to say if they are different enough we don't even know how continuous they are post the Mongol expansion. I would like to extend this sort of discussion over to Templar administrative units because I feel splitting the Knights Templar into Levantine and French Rites during the period it was operating openly doesn't make sense to me ie Hugues de Paynes and Robert de Sable being considered leaders of separate Rites doesn't make sense to me. I have brought this up here: https://assassinscreed.fandom.com/wiki/Talk:Templar_leader#Parisian_and_Levantine to no avail. Lacrossedeamon (talk) 07:49, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

It's a little unclear to me which point of Grievous you're countering. Sol Pacificus^(Cyfiero) 18:24, 10 March 2024 (UTC)