Fanfic / Vox Populi

cover art by author

Vox Populi is a series of Assassin's Creed fanfics written by Aelwyn and hosted on Archive of Our Own. It also contains Crossover elements with Watch_Dogs and Prince of Persia.

Somehow, at the end of Assassin's Creed III, Desmond lives - but him having a heartbeat doesn't save him from being captured by the Templars, along with many, many other people. And well, Assassins always work best when they're united, don't they?

Thus begins Desmond's adventures as he is trying to save as many people as possible from Abstergo with the help of his new friends and allies, while his old friends are going through their own struggles.

The series consists of the following parts:

1. Vox Populi: Complete. Takes place during Assassin's Creed (2016), when Desmond wakes up captured in Abstergo's Madrid facility.
2. Omnes Oculi: Ongoing. Desmond is now in charge of his own indepedent faction, and the consequences of there-of.
3. The Codex: The Manual, containing official art and background information on the series, such as character profiles.
4. [Podfic] Vox Populi: A podfic of the first fic by Puffinbeaks. In progress.

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Let's reveal what secrets are hidden here...

In General

• Dead Person Conversation: Due to the Bleeding Effect, many characters can talk with their ancestors.
• Famed In-Story: Moussa informs Desmond at the beginning of the first fic that everyone knows that Desmond saved the world.
• Gratuitous Latin: The fic titles are in Latin. "Vox Populi" means "voice of the people" while "Omnes Oculi" means "all eyes" or "all-seeing".
• In Spite of a Nail: Even though Desmond has survives and is very active, the fic is canon compliant as he never reunites with Shaun and Rebecca.
• Multinational Team: The cast is made up of people from many ethnicities and many mixed ones.
• Omniglot: As a result of having the memories of several of his ancestors, Desmond has a varying degree of mastery of more or less fifteen languages, plus a few programming ones thanks to Clay, and he's studying Esperanto on top of that,
• Original Character: There is a ton of them, usually people kidnapped by Abstergo.
• Shared Universe: With Watch_Dogs, hence the Crossover elements.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The whole premise of the series is that Desmond survives his canonical death at the end of Assassin's Creed III.
• The Stations of the Canon: Despite the major divergence, all the modern day events from Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag to Assassin's Creed: Valhalla happen exactly as canon.
• Take a Third Option: Due to the Templars being the obvious enemy, but the Assassins also following questionable methods, Desmond and his allies decide to start their own faction called "Vox Populi", which follows traditional assassin values more closely but also operates as a community.
• Title Drop: "Vox Populi" is the name of Desmond's new faction.
• Uneven Hybrid: Desmond and a number of other characters are descendants of Isu who had children with humans.
• Unwitting Test Subject: More or less 90% of the cast is made up of people who were kidnapped by Abstergo to conduct experiements on for their genetic research.

Vox Populi

• Anti-Villain: Sofia Rikkin is soft-spoken, honest, and under a ton of pressure from the higher-ups to live up to her father, while they constantly downplay her efforts and expertise.
• Almighty Janitor: Desmond gets a surprisingly level of authority in the Madrid facility very quickly (such as being allowed direct access to the stored Assassin weapons) because the Templars are afraid of him.
• Bilingual Bonus: Desmond occasionally slips into other languages when speaking, and some of that goes untranslated. An example is when he called an orderly "poor naive summer child" in Italian.
• Born Lucky: Charlie's former teammates assumed that he was this trope as he has an uncanny ability to find whatever they need. Then they find out it's actually Eagle Vision.
• Brain Uploading: Clay uploaded his "essense" into Desmond's genetic code at some point in the past, so now Desmond has access to his hacking skills.
• Clarke's Third Law: Referenced. Back during Altair's days, the majority of people thought the Apple of Eden was witchcraft. Only Altair, Malik, and a few others realized that it was advanced ancient technology instead.
• Death Glare: Sofia Rikkin shoots one to Desmons and Clay when she finds out Clay hacked himself into Desmond's memories and can now mess with their interfaces.
• Demoted to Extra: The protagonist of the 2016 movie Callum Lynx is mostly pushed to the side as the fic focuses on Desmond.
• Didn't Think This Through: Early on, Desmond wonders who in Abstergo thought it'd be a good idea to trap a bunch of Assassin descendats with their weapons in the same building. Sure enough, he starts an uprising and they escape by using those weapons.
• Distinction Without a Difference: Sofia Rikkin always introduces new subjects to the part of the facility where they keep the Bleeding Effect's dementia victims. Desmond says that she does it to show them what happens if they don't comply, but Sofia says that it's to "let them know how serious it is to not work with the equipment the way it is meant to be operated". Desmond's response of "to-may-to, to-mah-to".
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Everyone in the Madrid facility call each other by the names of their ancestors, since due to the Bleeding Effect and the change in their circumstances they don't really feel like themselves anymore.
• Fiery Redhead: Charlie's former teammate Jacqueline is a red-haired, green-eyed Irish woman with a temper fitting the stereotype.
• Good All Along: Mavis Truth, the Abstergo physiotherapist, turns out to be an Erudito spy.
• Hidden Depths: It's implied that Mavis works with Abstergo because she lost someone close to her in the army. Later it turns out she's an Erudito spy.
• Named by the Adaptation: The Prince of Persia is named "Sahin Farrokh". Farrokh means lucky, which Charlie really hates since it used to be his nickname.
• No One Could Survive That!: Charlie tells Desmond in no uncertain terms that his old burns should have killed him, and even if they did not then it should have been equally impossible to recover from them. Humans simply don't work that way. Alan Rikkin later makes it clear that the only reason Desmond did survive that is because he's not fully human.
• Scars Are Forever: Despite Abstergo's best efforts and countless skin grafts, Desmond maintains a massive scar across his burned arm that resembles white circuity. Desmond privately thinks it looks awesome.
• Shout-Out:
  • Desmond makes a "Grand Theft Auto me" joke.
  • At another he's humming The Twilight Zone theme.
• Time Skip: The fics prologue takes place immediately after Desmond's Heroic Sacrifice, following the Abstergo team that came to gather his remains. The next chapter starts three years later, some time after Desmond wakes up.
• Unseen No More: Alan Rikkin was only heard talking a couple of times off-screen in Assassin's Creed. Here he shows up in person to talk to Desmond.
• You and What Army?: A man named Vasquez asks Desmond a variation - "you and what ancestor" - when taunting him during a fight. Desmond lists all his famous ancestors from the previous games.
• You Are Number 6: In the Spain facility all prisoners are assigned a Subject Number - Moussa for example is Subject 7.

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