Surrogate Initiative
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The Surrogate Initiative was Abstergo Industries' first attempt at exploring the genetic memory of an individual through a different subject, using Warren Vidic's Animus technology. The project started around 1980.
Spearheaded by Project Director Aileen Bock, the Surrogate Initiative centered around the principle of using donated genetic material to explore history. Any subject could access the memories of the donor's ancestors without needing a direct biological link to the historical figure in question. The Initiative borrowed its first genetic memory sample from Bock's son Seamus. Using herself as the subject, Bock explored the memories of Miriam Kurtz, her ex-husband's mother, during her imprisonment in Nazi Germany in World War II . This approach ultimately proved successful and laid the groundwork for the Sample 17 Project begun by Abstergo Entertainment in 2013.
Wanting his Animus Project to stay ahead of the Surrogate Initiave, Warren Vidic wire-tapped Bock's office to record the Surrogate Initiative sessions and recorded the taps to a set of 160 reel-to-reel tapes, which were discovered in his home and analyzed after he was killed by Desmond Miles in December 2012. The tapes were archived in the Abstergo mainframe, where they could be accessed by hacking into the system through any computer, including an Animus.