Assassins

"Nothing is true, Everything is permitted."

―Hassan-i Sabbah, founder of the Assassins' order

The Assassins, also known as the Hashshashin, are an organized Order of Assassins, who are in a constant low-scale war with their greatest adversaries: the Knights Templar. The order has existed over at least a millenium, including the Third Crusade, the Renaissance, and even lasting into the year 2012. The order believes in a firm creed of values that strictly govern their way of life, consisting of three tenets: stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent, hide in plain sight, and to never compromise the brotherhood. The tenets are lived by daily in the fight for "peace in all things". The Assassins carry out their duties through political strategic assassination, and by doing so, potential threats to peace will be forever suppressed.

Through their work, Assassins could be easily looked at as political keepers of peace. Fighting on behalf of the people who do not possess the abilities, or better put, resources to speak out against the men in power who harm them. Assassins speak to these men of corruption for them, by introducing them to the sharp edge of a blade. By doing so, the people are freed from the shackles of their oppression. Even though the Assassins fight for the people, they are feared, because no matter how you look at it, killing is killing. The only way to truly justify it is self-defense, if in fact that's what it truly was. The Assassins were most feared due to the terrifying reputation for taking life in public. Creating the atmosphere of it not being safe to commit ill acts under the sun spreads fear amongst their enemies, never knowing when they may fall to an enemy who they can't see or hear.

Assassins possessed a specific weapon most efficient for assassinations, it was the Hidden Blade. A single thrust from this weapon could change the course of the Holy Land's future, as well as history. Such power could easily go to a blade hand's mind, causing him to lift himself above others knowing he could change history. But the devotion to their cause (peace in all things) and the knowledge of the "Assassins Creed" provided the guidance necessary to detour them from such thoughts. This was not always the case. In order to have a precise impact caused by an assasssination, the Assassins possessed extensive political knowlege, always intune with the ever-changing politics surrounding the empires of the Holy Land. They used this to decide whose death would most benefit the land.

Obtaining information was done by stationing agents within the cities to keep an eye on their actions. When deployed on missions, elite master assassins or blade hands were the ones responsible for carrying out public assassinations. They worked alone in the field, usually disguised as holy scholars or other suitable images. When stationed in a city, the Assassins would spend an immense amount of time getting acquainted with their environment and learning where and when it would be best to strike at their marked target. The actual strike itself took place in public. By performing the murder in the public's eye, the Assassins knew without a doubt that news and information about the assassination would spread quickly amongst the people, and those possibly tied to the one assassinated, effectively spreading fear and disrupting the chain of command targeted by the Assassins.

Known Assassins

Third Crusade

• Al Mualim (Master and leader of Syrian-Assassins)
• Altair Ibn-La'Ahad (Master Assassin and field instructor)
• Malik (Dai over Jerusalem's Assassin Bureau)
• Kaddar (Member of the Assassins and Malik's younger brother)
• Raoul (Member of the Assassins)
• Abbas(Member of the Assassins)
• Masun (Traitor of Masyaf)
• Jimmy(The Rapist)
• The Instructors and Rafiqs
• Jamal (possible Assassin that betrayed Masyaf)
• Bahir (Damascus - Rooftop Race Informant PC version)
• Karim (Acre - Rooftop Race Informant PC version)

Renaissance

• Ezio Auditore di Firenze (A nobleman and member of the Assassins)
• Mario Auditore da Firenze
• Giovanni Auditore da Firenze
• Paula

Modern Times (2012)

• Desmond Miles
• Lucy Stillman
• Shaun Hastings (most likely as he helps Desmond)
• Rebecca Crane (most likely as she helps Desmond)
• Any remaining assassins alive (although Dr Vidic believes they are all dead)

Assassin's Creed

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."¹

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."2

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.But not only that:And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

                Free at last! Free at last!

                Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!3

Assassin's Creed II

It has been announced in the May 2009 issue of Game Informer that the Assassins have "gone underground", but the order still continues their battle with the Templars. Ezio, who was announced as the game's protagonist, is an Italian nobleman who joins the order to get revenge on the people that killed his father. It may be indirectly or directly due to the Templars.

Real History

The Hashshashin (also Hashishin, Hashashiyyin, or Hashasheen), from which the word assassin is thought to originate, was the Persian derived designation of the Nizari branch of the Ismā'īlī Shia Muslims during the Middle Ages.