Isaiah
- "I am no longer a Templar! I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."
- ―Isaiah quoting J. Robert Oppenheimer, 2016.[src]
Isaiah (died 2016) was a member of the Templar Order, serving as the director of an Abstergo Industries complex called the Aerie. He was also secretly a member of the Instruments of the First Will, until he betrayed both them and the Templars to pursue his own plans for global domination.
As Isaiah believed in the cyclical nature of Ragnarök, after the Second Disaster was averted in 2012, he tried to take matters into his own hands and use the Trident of Eden to bring about the end of the world so it could be reborn when the cycle was renewed. However, he was stopped by the combined forces of the Assassins and Templars during a final confrontation at the Aerie.
Biography[edit | edit source]
Plans for world domination[edit | edit source]
By 2016, Isaiah was a member of the Templar Order and the director of the Abstergo institution known as the Aerie.[1] Secretly, he also joined the Instruments of the First Will.[2]
After learning about the Abstergo scientist Sebastian Monroe's work with the Ascendance Event, Isaiah became obsessed with it and sought to understand it, believing the Ascendance Event could grant him power.[3] Following Monroe's defection from Abstergo, Isaiah and the Templars discovered that he had recruited a group of teenagers to help him find the prongs of the Trident of Eden. Seeking the Trident for their own ends, the Templars attempted to track down Monroe.[1]
In parallel, Isaiah formulated his own plan to achieve world domination and separated himself from both the Templars and the Instruments. However, since he required Abstergo's resources to find the Trident, he maintained the facade of following the Templars' goals, while keeping his affiliation with the Instruments secret.[4][2]
Search for the Trident of Eden[edit | edit source]
The Faith prong[edit | edit source]
In October 2016,[5] after the Templars found Monroe by tracking his stolen Animus, they captured most of the teenagers he had recruited, although Monroe himself and two of the teens—Owen Meyers and Javier Mondragón—managed to escape. Sean Molloy, Natalya Aliyev, and the siblings Grace and David Collins were subsequently brought to the Aerie, where Isaiah and Victoria Bibeau greeted them and introduced themselves.[1]
To discover what the teenagers knew, the pair decided to use honesty, with Isaiah confirming that he and his colleagues were Templars and that Abstergo was indeed a front for the secret society. However, Isaiah and Victoria both insisted on the benevolence of their organization, which convinced some of the teenagers to reveal the location of a dagger, which was in actuality a prong of the Trident of Eden owned by Ulysses S. Grant until his death.[1]
Before either the Assassins or the Templars could retrieve the prong from Grant's former home, Isaiah secretly took it for himself, leaving the stash empty.[6] This led Owen, Javier, and the Assassin Griffin, who arrived there at the same time as a Templar strike team, to speculate that Monroe had taken the artifact.[7]
The Voynich manuscript[edit | edit source]
Over the next few weeks, Isaiah and his fellow Templars focused on searching for the remaining two Trident prongs by having the teenagers explore the memories of different ancestors to look for any leads.[8] Isaiah took a particular interest in Sean's lineage and personally oversaw his Animus sessions as the teenager relived the memories of Pinkerton detective Tommy Greyling.[9]
While Sean was in the Animus, Isaiah spoke with him about the Precursor box and pages of the Voynich manuscript being stolen and possibly held in London. He then gave Sean a break for the day and contacted Victoria on video call, as the latter had traveled to London on a different assignment. Isaiah expressed his belief that Sean's genetic memories could lead the Templars to the manuscript, which would help them better understand the Trident's powers, and dismissed Victoria's concerns for Sean's well-being.[9]
The next day, during his Animus session, Sean witnessed a conversation between Greyling and Mark Twain, where the latter mentioned the presence of Pieces of Eden in multiple cultures' folklore. Isaiah realized they were on the right track and continued to push Sean further into the simulation despite the teenager's worries.[10]
After Sean suffered a sudden desynchronization from Greyling being stabbed, Isaiah took him to the infirmary, but this caused Natalya to burst in and blame Isaiah for making Sean addicted to the Animus. However, Sean, along with Grace and David, wanted to continue their Animus sessions, leaving Natalya fed up. While Sean returned to the Animus, Isaiah spoke with Victoria, who similarly reprimanded her colleague for using Sean like this. Despite their conflict of interest, they agreed to let Sean continue, and Victoria told Isaiah to check on the other teenagers and make sure they were fine.[11]
Later, Isaiah pulled Sean out of the Animus when Greyling seemingly lost Alice's trail, and dismissed him after deciding that Greyling's memories were a dead end. However, upon further contemplation, and after listening to Sean and his friends' logical arguments, he allowed Sean to return to the Animus. Learning that Alice had destroyed the manuscript pages and committed suicide, Isaiah apologized to Sean and expressed his appreciation for all of the teenagers' hard work, giving them some free time to enjoy themselves. In private, however, he declared that the real work was about to begin.[12]
The Fear prong[edit | edit source]
After learning that the Trident's Fear prong was somewhere in Mongolia, Isaiah determined that Natalya had an ancestor who had lived during the Siege of Diaoyu Castle. Despite Natalya's outlook on reliving the battle, Isaiah continued to pressure her but advised her to take it one day at a time.[8] Checking on Sean again, Isaiah and Victoria informed him that his time with Greyling had plateaued but his own motor cortex had increased. Telling him that his next ancestor was from Ireland,[13] the Templars informed Sean of his potential.[14]
While taking care of the teenagers' needs and desires at the Aerie,[15] Isaiah still sought to capture the remaining two teens, Owen and Javier. However, after learning about the Templars' recent failure to catch them and that the two boys had joined up with the Assassins, Isaiah ordered his head of security, Cole, to mark them for termination, fearing that Owen and Javier could lead the Assassins to the Trident prongs.[16]
One morning, Isaiah and Victoria argued about Sean's usage of the Animus, as she accused him of manipulating the boy. Upon Sean's arrival, they introduced him to Dr. Thomas Marshall and talked about the data from his Animus sessions being used to create prosthetics to allow him to walk again. While Sean sensed the tensions between Victoria and Isaiah, the director insisted that Sean resume his sessions, this time exploring the memories of his Viking ancestor Styrbjörn the Strong.[17]
After reviewing security tapes from a previous night, Isaiah and Victoria learned that David had been scooping around the Aerie after hours without permission. The two Templars subsequently gathered the teenagers and informed them that a strict curfew would be put in place and the doors to their rooms would be locked.[18] The Aerie was later raided by the Assassins and Monroe, which led to Javier and Griffin rescuing David and Natalya, but Owen and Monroe were captured by Isaiah's guards.[4]
Grouping Grace, Owen, and Sean together, Isaiah tried to convince Owen that the Templars were not the enemy and enticed him with the opportunity to relive his father's memories. While Owen remained defiant, Isaiah wanted to continue his progress with Grace and Sean. Grace admitted to wishing to pause her Animus sessions, but Sean instantly agreed to return to the machine.[19] Afterwards, Isaiah showed Owen the last memories of his father's crime, yet he doctored the memory to influence Owen's allegiance, making it look like the Assassins had framed his father.[20]
Defection from the Templars[edit | edit source]
Despite Natalya's escape from the Aerie, the notes from her last Animus session indicated that her Mongolian ancestor Bayan had witnessed Möngke Khan being buried with the Fear prong. Thus, Isaiah hastily relocated to Mongolia alongside his forces to find the artifact before the Assassins.[20] Before leaving the Aerie, he left a note for Victoria and the Order, announcing his defection from the Templars.[6]
In Mongolia, Isaiah and his men began an excavation to uncover Möngke Khan's tomb and the prong.[21] However, they soon noticed an unmarked aircraft and had it shot down, fearful of the Assassins catching up to them.[22] Corresponding with Victoria, who remained oblivious of his true intentions, Isaiah learned that a container in his camp held Owen, Grace, and Monroe. Preparing to attack, he called them out and had them cornered.[23]
After apprehending the trio, Isaiah learned of the Assassins' survival and their makeshift camp. As he ordered his men to blow them up, Grace, realizing her brother David's life was in danger, pleaded with Isaiah not to attack the camp. Instead, she came up with a plan to lure David to them, using a series of light signals similar to the one they had seen in the memories of their Tuskegee Airman ancestor. Believing Grace was signaling him to come to her, David arrived at the camp and was promptly captured and interrogated by Isaiah for the Assassins' whereabouts. At Grace's insistence, David told Isaiah that they had gone around them towards a turtle statue.[23]
Readying his men, Isaiah and his team left the camp to follow David's directions. However, suspecting that David had lied, Isaiah made sure that Owen, Monroe, and the Collins were able to escape the camp, so he could follow them to the real location of the Assassins. Indeed, the teenagers unknowingly led Isaiah to the real site of Möngke Khan's tomb, whereupon he had his men hold them at gunpoint. However, the guards were ambushed by the Assassins Griffin and Yanmei, allowing the teenagers and Monroe to escape.[6]
During the resulting chaos, Isaiah fled into the Khan's tomb, followed closely by Owen and Javier. After acquiring the Fear prong, he used its powers to inflict Javier with nightmares before running back outside. Arriving at the cave's entrance, Isaiah used the prong against everyone around him, tormenting them with terrible visions. When Owen and Javier exited the tomb, they also fell under the artifact's influence. Yanmei tried to attack Isaiah, but he impaled and killed her with the prong. He then proclaimed himself no longer a Templar and left alongside his remaining troops.[6]
The Devotion prong[edit | edit source]
Returning to the Aerie, Isaiah dismissed Anaya Chodary from supervising Sean and took him away from Victoria and Abstergo to find the last remaining piece of the Trident: the Devotion prong.[24] With the two prongs he had in his possession, he manipulated all the security from the Aerie and took Sean to the Isle of Skye, where he set up a temporary base. When the Templars sent two teams after him, Isaiah used the prongs to enslave the first team to his whim before moving to another base in Sweden to avoid the second team.[25]
There, Isaiah kept an eye on Sean while lying to him about his friends and Victoria betraying the Templars to work with the Assassins.[26] Using a van with artificial intelligence, Poindexter, he made sure that Sean entered the Animus with ease and supervised him as he relived the memories of his ancestor Styrbjörn. When Styrbjörn met the Danish King Harald Bluetooth, who held the Devotion prong, Isaiah realized that Sean's ancestor was immune to the artifact and decided to end the simulation. When Sean refused, Isaiah abruptly ended the session, hurting Sean's exit from the Animus, and used the prongs against him as punishment.[27]
After tormenting Sean by showing him his worst fears with the Fear prong, Isaiah used the Faith prong to manipulate the boy into obeying him without question. Letting Sean continue, he learned that Styrbjörn had taken Harald's prong, which caused the king to betray and abandon him ahead of the Battle of Fýrisvellir.[28] After determining that the prong had been placed in a mound as a gift to the gods during Styrbjörn's wedding to Thyra Haraldsdottir, Isaiah initially pulled Sean out of the Animus while thinking about another path.[29]
Out of options, Isaiah forced Sean to relive all of his ancestor's memories in a last-ditch effort to find any missed detail. Although Sean begged him to stop, Isaiah continued the sessions with Sean. Cole soon came and informed him about her discovery of the prong in Västerås, as well as the arrival of Griffin, Owen, Natalya, and Grace. Relieved, Isaiah stopped Sean's session but left him restrained in the Animus. Before leaving, he stated to Sean that he had no use for broken things.[30]
At night, Isaiah ordered his men to break into the building which housed the prong. However, they were met by Griffin, who stole the artifact first and escaped, though not before taking a shot to the stomach.[31] Soon, Isaiah and his men lost track of Griffin and the teenagers. Finding the Assassin's car, Isaiah knew that they could not be too far away and decided to wait for his enemies to draw themselves out.[32]
When the teenagers arrived at the car without Griffin, who had succumbed to his wounds, Isaiah and his team cornered them before Cole took the prong from Grace. Announcing himself to be Fenrir, about to swallow the Moon and the Sun, he was met with resistance by Owen, who called him out on his delusions and stated that Monroe had figured out the Ascendance Event. After contemplating how to proceed, Isaiah decided that the teenagers had to die, for they posed too much of a threat now that they had accessed the Ascendance Event.[32]
As he lined them up to be shot, Isaiah ridiculed them all for their fears and regrets and pointed his gun at Owen. Suddenly, however, Isaiah moved out of the way as Poindexter arrived, driven by Sean, who came to rescue his friends. After the teenagers entered the van, it drove away to coordinates sent by Victoria.[33] Having failed to eliminate the teenagers, Isaiah deduced that they were headed to the Aerie and prepared an assault.[34]
Attack on the Aerie and death[edit | edit source]
Isaiah and his mind-controlled forces stormed the Aerie via both ground and air assault. However, they faced heavy resistance from the teenagers, Victoria, and Monroe, who had blocked the roads and laid traps around the facility. Even after losing a helicopter, Isaiah's forces proved greater as they cornered his opponents in the garage. Isaiah then revealed himself, wearing a white robe and wielding the Trident, and ordered his men to kill everyone. However, Sean challenged him to a duel, claiming that he knew Isaiah's fears.[34]
Angered, Isaiah used his completed Trident against all of them. However, Owen broke through his fears and told his friends to accept them. Soon, they all overcame the Trident's power. Surprised, Isaiah tried using the artifact twice more, but the teenagers were unaffected and attacked him together. Unable to fight them all at once, Isaiah was disarmed and beaten sorely to the ground. Before he could reach for the Trident, Javier came towards him with Griffin's Hidden Blade and fatally stabbed him, freeing all of the Templar agents from Isaiah's control and ending his plan for world domination.[34]
Gallery[edit | edit source]
-
Render of Isaiah -
Close-up of Isaiah
Appearances[edit | edit source]
- Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants (first appearance)
- Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants – Locus
- Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants – Tomb of the Khan
- Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants – Fate of the Gods
References[edit | edit source]