Assassin-Templar War

I wanted to ask you something. Which is... what's your name? This article title is conjecture. Although the article subject is canon, no official name for it has been given.

Patience, brothers. Soon we will reveal the secrets of the Assassin's Creed series. This article has been identified as being out of date. Please update the article to reflect recent releases and then remove this template once done.

Charles Lee: "Why do you persist...? You put us down. We rise again. You end one plot – we forge another. You try so hard... But it always ends the same. Those who know you think you mad and this is why... Even those men you sought to save have turned their backs on you. Yet you fight. You resist. Why?"

Ratonhnhaké:ton: "Because no-one else will!"

—Charles Lee, a Templar, and Ratonhnhaké:ton, an Assassin, discuss their continual conflict, 1782.

Template:War The Assassin–Templar War was a covert war of devastating proportions between the Assassin Order and their enemies, the Templars.

Said to have started with the killing of Abel by his brother Cain, the "first Templar", for his Apple of Eden, the Assassin-Templar War was fought in shadows of history. The conflict was largely fought by proxy through the manipulation of governments and organisations in order to achieve each Order's various aims. It was rare for the conflict to ever become particularly conspicuous, although there were occasions, such as the Third Crusade, where the Assassins and Templars openly fought alongside those they were manipulating.

More concrete reasons of the war can be found in the aftermath of the Human-First Civilization War.

History

After the Disaster, the leaders of the humans had in their possession multiple Pieces of Eden, and an idea of how best to lead humanity into the future. They were heavily scarred by the knowledge that their former slavers had interfered with their evolutionary destiny, and sought to bring about humanity's "rightful" path by any means necessary. Justified with this belief, they utilized the Pieces of Eden as tools, but were distrustful of any who had made peace with the First Civilization.

Those who represented the Assassins had always wanted to free humanity and envisioned a world where all beings could live according to their own will. As such, the Creed "Nothing is true, everything is permitted" became their philosophy, exemplifying the belief that all were free to determine their own existence. They also believed that the misuse of the Pieces of Eden to control others was against all they had worked and suffered for, as it would enslave humanity once more.

Throughout the conflict's long history, a number of different powers became embroiled, such as; the newly forming United States and Soviet Union, the Ottoman and Holy Roman Empires, on the side of the Assassins; and the Byzantine Empire, the Sikh Empire, and the Renaissance-era Papacy - dominated by the House of Borgia - on the side of the Templars. These affiliations were rarely exclusive, however, and often changed along with the country's leaders.

By the 20th century, the conflict had truly removed itself from the public eye, with the Templars operating mainly through their public front, Abstergo Industries, while the Assassins struggled to survive on the fringes of society.

The conflict was also integral to the plans of the First Civilization, namely Juno, Jupiter and Minerva, and their plans to avert the Second Disaster. In the Grand Temple in 2012, Juno commented to Desmond Miles that the two factions had "quarreled over our refuse, and wasted centuries", centuries that could have been better used to locate the Temple and continue the work of the First Civilization, saving the world without requiring Desmond to sacrifice himself. 

Alliances

Assassins and Templars

The Assassins and Templars are not above working together for a common goal. The first example of such an alliance was with the Syrian Assassin Altair Ibn La-Ahad and the English Templar Maria Thorpe, who worked together a few times during the Crusade period and even got married.

The more notable alliances were in the Colonial era. The Trinidadian Assassin Adewale would help a Templar brothel owner named Bastienne Josèphe to free slaves around Port-au-Prince and defeat Pierre, Marquis de Fayet, the governor of Port-au-Prince and a notable slave-trader. This lead to the victory of the Maroon rebellion led by the former slave Augustin Dieufort.

Another example was during the American Revolutionary War. When the Templar traitor Benjamin Church turned on George Washington and stole Valley Forge cargo and betrayed the Colonial Rite of the Templar Order, the Grand Master of the Order, Haytham Kenway himself, went on a hunt for him and allied with his Native American Assassin son Ratonhnhaké:ton to catch him. After Church died, they still worked together to allow the British empire to lose the war. But when George Washington orders a nearby Iroquois village burned and Haytham told his son of this, ties were cut between the both of them.

Another example was in the French Revolution, where the Assassin newcomer Arno Dorian and his adoptive Templar sister Elise de la Serre both had a matching motive: kill the new Grand Master Francois-Thomas Germain as revenge/redemption for the death of Elise's father Francois de la Serre, who also sought to open up peace between the two warring organizations.

Other factions

Besides working with Templar "traitors", the Assassins also caught the attention of other organizations. During the Renaissance period, the Assassin's de facto leader Mario Auditore had hired and led a band of mercenaries to perform on various assignments, such as an attack on Tuscany and attacking Vieri de' Pazzi inside the city. Other Assassin mercenary leaders were Bartolomeo d'Alviano and Caserma di Alviano. Some courtesans in Italy were led by Assassins. These Assassins were Paola, Teodora Contanto and Claudia Auditore da Firenze, all working in Florence, Venice and Rome, respectively. Even thieves were led by Assassins, such as La Volpe and Antonio de Magianis.

Trivia

• Despite the secretive nature of both the Assassin and Templar Orders, the conflict sometimes gained the attention of a number of other, equally clandestine, organizations. Such organizations included the Erudito hacking collective, the Hermeticists, and the Initiates.