Hope Jensen's gang

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.

The Colonial Assassin Hope Jensen led a gang in New York City during the mid-18th century. They stole weapons from the British Army and solicited the aid of Benjamin Franklin in developing chemical weapons and gas masks.

The gang was dismantled over the course of the Seven Years' War by the Assassin-turned-Templar Shay Cormac, who drove the gang members out of their hideouts and eventually assassinated Hope, depriving them of leadership.

History[edit | edit source]

Establishment and rise to power[edit | edit source]

After Hope Jensen joined the Colonial Brotherhood of Assassins led by Achilles Davenport in 1746, she was tasked with setting up an information network in New York. To this end, she resolved to take control of the city's criminal underworld, which she succeeded in doing by the early 1750s.^[1] With all of New York's gangs unified under the Assassin banner, the Brotherhood was able to greatly expand its influence in the Thirteen Colonies, despite opposition from the British Army, which was backed by the Templar Order.^[2]

At the height of its power, Hope's gang maintained six hideouts in New York's various districts, while also having additional strongholds in Albany, Lac Eternel, Two Bends, and Halifax. Each hideout was headed by a gang leader, who was typically an Assassin and had access to all of the Brotherhood's techniques and tools, including the Hidden Blade and smoke bombs.^[2] At some point, Hope also acquired a mansion in New York, which became the gang's primary headquarters.^[3]

The gang members provided intelligence reports, support, and manpower to the Colonial Assassins, holding strategic positions from the British, spying on Templar movements, and supporting the Assassins' French allies in naval and infantry combat during the Seven Years' War. In the districts they controlled, the gang members would typically hang large orange banners from buildings and clothes lines, some bearing the Assassin insignia, as well as marking graffiti on walls.^[2]

The gang also maintained a fleet which patrolled the northern Atlantic Ocean and acted not too differently from pirate hunters, pursuing anyone who had sunk too many of their ships or those of their French allies. Like their hideouts, each gang ship was captained by an Assassin.^[2]

Downfall[edit | edit source]

By 1756, the gang members had started harassing New York's populace, extroting money out of citizens and preventing businesses and homes from being renovated. That year, the gang suffered its first major loss when the former Assassin Shay Cormac ousted them from one of their hideouts, eliminating its leader and cutting down its flag. This allowed the British troops in the city, led by the colonel and Templar George Monro, to take over the stronghold and renovate the buildings in the district, with Shay's assistance.^[4]

Shay continued to interfere with the gang's operations in New York, preventing them from hanging the Templar Christopher Gist at Fort Arsenal. Shay subsequently expelled the gang from the fort, which became his new home, and recovered his ship, the Morrigan, which had been left in the gang's possession following his betrayal of the Assassins.^[5]

After killing the smuggler Le Chasseur, who had been supplying the Assassins with poisonous gases,^[6] Shay learned that Hope had commissioned Benjamin Franklin to create new weaponry for the gang, including a prototype grenade launcher, which Shay ended up claiming for himself. He went on to use it to destroy a factory that housed a large supply of poisonous gas, thwarting the gang's plans to use chemical weapons against the British authorities.^[7]

Over the following three years, Shay continued to weaken the gang's presence in the colonies, clearing all their remaining hideouts.^[2] The gang's downfall culminated in October 1759, when Shay and his fellow Templar Jack Weeks disguised themselves as gang members and robbed the British Army's treasury in New York.^[8] In retaliation, the British troops launched an attack on Hope's mansion to wipe out her gang, and during the assault Shay chased and killed the Assassin.^[9]

Despite the loss of their leader and headquarters, some gang members continued to operate in small enclaves throughout the colonies,^[2] and a number of them even accompanied the Assassins on their their expedition to an Isu temple in the Arctic Ocean in early 1760.^[10] However, they would eventually be crushed by the British Army and the Templars.^[2]

Behind the scenes[edit | edit source]

As seen in concept art, the gang's original emblem was a hand holding a knife rather than the Assassin insignia. A similar emblem would later be used for the Blighters in Assassin's Creed: Syndicate.