Inner Sanctum of the Templar Order

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"The human body has its heart. The Earth has its core. All things have a center, whence comes their deepest strength. The Templar Order, too, has its Inner Sanctum. Nine there must be, three times three."

―Alan Rikkin during Simon Hathaway's induction, 2016.

The Inner Sanctum of the Templar Order, also known as The Nine, is a council consisting of nine of the best and brightest members of the modern-day Templar Order. Alongside the Council of Elders, the Guardians, and the General of the Cross, it forms the central governing body of the entire Templar Order, holding authority over the Outer Temple. During the modern era, its members typically hold key positions in Abstergo Industries, the Templars' front company, heading different branches of the organization.

Structure

Authority

The Inner Sanctum is one of the highest-ranking authorities in the hierarchy of the Templar Order, being answerable only to the Guardians, who review all decisions made by the Inner Sanctum and subsequently pass them on to the General of the Cross for approval. The General is the supreme head of the Order and their identity is kept secret from the members of the Inner Sanctum.

By the late 16th century, the Inner Sanctum had created the position of Black Cross for the purposes of combating corruption within the Order and locating Pieces of Eden. The Black Cross was answerable only to the Inner Sanctum, essentially acting as its enforcer, and held the authority to execute any Templar who betrayed the Order's principles, even Grand Masters.

The Ritual Garbs

During Simon Hathaway's initiation into the Inner Sanctum, he noted that the ritual garb had been made by hand and not machines, ranging from the sheep being hand-sheared and the wool carded, spun and dyed by human labor. This showed the Templars' ritual garbs were much like those worn by their forebearers over the centuries, which Simon, as a historian, valued and admired due to the Templars putting in effort towards genuine authenticity.

History

Sengoku period

The exact date of formation of the Inner Sanctum is unknown, but it has been active since at least the latter half of the 16th century. The Portuguese Templar Nuno Caro, who oversaw the Order's expansion to Japan during the Sengoku period, answered directly to the Sanctum and told them about the three Imperial Regalia safeguarded by the Japanese Assassins, which he intended to retrieve for the Templars. Although Caro led the Sanctum to believe the Regalia were Pieces of Eden due to their importance to the Japanese people, in reality the artifacts possessed no known abilities and were mere symbolic trinkets.

Caro lied about the Regalia's significance so that the Sanctum would increase his funding, and intended to maintain the lie once he delivered the artifacts to them, though he never had the chance to do so due to his death in 1582. After learning about Caro's failure and demise, the Sanctum authorized the Black Cross to travel to Japan and continue Caro's work establishing a foothold for the Templars in the country.

Age of Enlightenment

Under the Inner Sanctum's leadership during the Age of Enlightenment, the Templars embraced the rise of classical liberalism. Intellectuals such as Isaac Newton, Baruch Spinoza, John Locke, and Francis Bacon came to represent a new society grounded in science and rational thought.

By the 18th century, the Inner Sanctum continued to oversee the activities of the Black Cross, who served as an enigmatic enforcer tasked with rooting out internal corruption and recovering Pieces of Eden. The Black Cross operated in secret and reported directly to the Sanctum, helping them keep the various Rites' Grand Masters in check.

Prior to 1789, François-Thomas Germain petitioned the American, Roman, and Spanish Rites to support his efforts to depose Grand Master François de la Serre of the Parisian Rite. He recruited loyal followers for his coup, and eliminated those who stood in his way. Under Germain's leadership, the reformed Rite implemented Jacques de Molay's long-standing proposals from the Codex Pater Intellectus, such as abolishing the monarchy in favor of creating a capitalist society. With the backing of the Outer Temple, these ideas gradually reshaped the Order's global ideology under the Inner Sanctum's direction.

Modern times

In 1927, after the Black Cross Albert Bolden executed the British Rite's Grand Master Thaddeus Gift for his corruption, the Inner Sanctum sent him to Shanghai, China, to assist the local Rite, which was struggling to maintain order in the country amidst the constant conflicts between warlords and gangsters. The Sanctum also ordered Gift's son Darius to deliver a box to the Shanghai Rite, with strict instructions to never open it, as a way of redeeming his family's name. The package's contents were the severed finger of Darius' father and his Templar ring, which the Templars intended to present to the Kuomintang's leader Chiang Kai-shek as an invitation for him to join the Order.

However, due to the machinations of Soong Ching-ling, the widow of the Shanghai Rite's late Grand Master Sun Yat-sen, the package never reached Chiang, who ultimately double-crossed the Templars and revealed he had no intention of joining them, having only used them to increase his own power. Meanwhile, after Darius discovered that the Black Cross had killed his father, he shot Bolden, who fell off a rooftop to his apparent death. Suspecting the Black Cross might still be alive, the Inner Sanctum later tasked the Templar Rufus Grosvenor to find and bring him back to the Order, unaware that Grosvenor was a turncoat following his own agenda.

As Bolden never reported back after his disappearance in 1927, the Inner Sanctum did not appoint a new Black Cross for nearly a century, and the position gradually fell into obscurity. It was not until 2016 that the Master Templar and Inner Sanctum member Juhani Otso Berg, recognizing the growing threat of a fifth column that had infiltrated the Order, saw the necessity to revive the rank and assumed the mantle. This marked the first time a Sanctum member became the Black Cross, though because of his investigation, Berg chose to keep his double role secret. He went so far as to have André Bolden pose as the Black Cross during a Sanctum meeting in March 2017, in order to draw suspicion away from himself.

Known members

Current members

• 
  Agneta Reider
  Chief Executive Officer, Abstergo Financial Group
• 
  Laetitia England
  Head of Operations, Abstergo
• 
  David Kilkerman
  Research, Animus Project
• 
  Dr. Mitsuko Nakamura
  Research, Director of Lineage Research and Acquisition
• 
  Juhani Otso Berg
  Operations, Director of Abstergo Medical
• 
  Pr. Simon Hathaway
  Historical Research Division, Abstergo
• 
  Alfred Stearns
  Retired Head of Operations, Abstergo
• 
  Vacant
  since December 2016
• 
  Vacant
  since August 2018

Former members

• 
  Dr. Álvaro Gramática
  Research, Future Technology Division
  died 2018
• 
  Alan Rikkin
  Abstergo Industries Chief Executive Officer
  died 2016
• 
  Isabelle Ardant
  Operations, Historical Research Division
  died 2015
• 
  Daniel Cross
  Operations, Abstergo
  died 2012
• 
  Warren Vidic
  Research, Animus Project
  died 2012
• 
  Otto Schmidt
  Operations, Lineage Research and Acquisition
  died 2012

Behind the scenes

While the Inner Sanctum of the Templar Order has only been used explicitly in certain instances, the number nine occurs multiple times throughout Templar history: the number of men that Bernard de Clairvaux sent to Solomon's Temple, the number of Levantine Templars that Al Mualim tasked Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad to kill in his Hunt for the Nine, and the number of agents that Jacques de Molay sent out to the world during the persecution of the Templars. It is unknown if these other groups constituted as previous iterations of the Inner Sanctum.

Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple contains multiple references to Abstergo's "executive committee", which appears to comprise several high-ranking Templars, including Mitsuko Nakamura. However, it has yet to be confirmed whether this executive committee coincides with the Inner Sanctum.

Gallery

• 
  Juhani Otso Berg accessing the Inner Sanctum office
• 
  Laetitia England meeting with Berg
• 
  Warren Vidic and Laetitia meeting with Berg
• 
  A list of the Inner Sanctum members in 2012

Appearances

• Assassin's Creed: Revelations (first appearance)
• Assassin's Creed III (mentioned only)
• Assassin's Creed: Heresy
• Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants – Fate of the Gods
• Assassin's Creed: Templars
• Assassin's Creed: Uprising
• Assassin's Creed: Odyssey – The Fate of Atlantis
• Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood of Venice (indirect mention only)
• Assassin's Creed: Forgotten Temple
• Assassin's Creed: The Engine of History – The Resurrection Plot (mentioned only)
• Assassin's Creed Roleplaying Game (mentioned only)
• Assassin's Creed: Shadows (mentioned in Database entry only)
  • Story Drops (mentioned only)