History Headscratchers / AssassinsCreedBrotherhood

** Also, as discussed in VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII YMMV page on MotiveDecay, the Assassins seem to have gone from stopping evil acts and schemes of the Templars, as we see Altaïr doing in ''ACI'', to "Killing anyone who is remotely allied with the Templars and keep humanity's free will at all costs, even if at the price of war and destruction". Plus, I think that Ezio has a lot of moments that show just how the Assassins aren't much better than the Templars or even the Hermeticists. They're dead-bent on their own vision of how to make a better world, and they're willing to kill for it. While Altaïr/Ezio might rebuke or ignore whenever a Templar tries a NotSoDifferent BreakingSpeech, a sharp-minded player can see that the JerkassHasAPoint. Either [[FridgeBrilliance the developers had this in mind(Subtly showing how all sides of the conflict had their points and similar flaws)]], or it's unintended and we're supposed to be playing under ProtagonistCenteredMoralty(Otherwise, the game's name would be Templar's Creed, Hermeticist's Creed, etc...). The Hermeticists may have been huge jerks in killing Lucrezia's former lover, attacking Ezio and beating Leonardo, but the Assassins are not beyond allying with morally ambiguous people or empires. ([[DarkActionGirl Caterina Sforza]] was no saint, Julius II(Rodrigo Borgia's successor as Pope and huge enemy of the Borgia Family) wasn't that noble and, in ''Revelations'', the Assassins ally with the Ottoman Sultan and Empire, but we're shown multiple times that they're very little different from the Borgia, and the Assassins just accept them because, well, they don't have any other option. One gets the impression the Assassins are more interested in killing Templars and following their Creed than taking more reasonable courses of action towards helping mankind...

---> '''Ezio:''' People... Twenty-two years ago, I stood where I stand now -- and watched my loved ones die, betrayed by those I had called friends. Vengeance clouded my mind. It would have consumed me, were it not for the wisdom of a few strangers, who taught me to look past my instincts. They never preached answers, but guided me to learn from myself. We don't need anyone to tell us what to do; not Savonarola, not the Medici. We are free to follow our own path. There are those who will take that freedom from us, and too many of you gladly give it. But it is our ability to choose -- whatever you think is true -- that makes us human... [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming There is no book or teacher to give you the answers, to show you the way. Choose your own way! Do not follow me, or anyone else.]]

** ^Confirmed in the Da Vinci Disappearance DLC in Brotherhood; two of the paintings were destroyed, but the Borgia took the rest.

** Its not an issue of hiding, its an issue of ''escaping'' and then ''keeping free''. Da Vinci is a strategic asset capable of manufacturing weapons literally centuries ahead of their time; if he escaped the Borgia would waste no time tracking him down, and if he hid in the Assassins' Guild, they'd begin house-to-house searches, and for all the Assassins' power, they're no direct match for a Borgia army. The only reason Ezio is able to get away with his shenanigans in Rome is because Caesar is away and leaving the city to a relatively incompetent relation and a power-hungry French noble. If Cesare returns to Rome and directly controls the Templar operations in the city, the Assassins are in for a world of hurt, and the escape of his resident superweapon-designer would definitely count. Indeed, one of the Courtesan missions is about replacing a letter warning Casare of trouble in Rome with one that says everything is fine because otherwise he would flood the city with soldiers.

** Consider this: they ambush Ezio early in the game with a dozen or so followers. According to the synchronization objective, he kills all of them without taking a single hit in return. Then he immediately goes to raid one of their lairs. When he reaches the end of it, the guy in charge, who is seen during a cutscene, is not to be found afterward. This is the only main game even with them and this is the reason for it: some of the sects decided that they weren't going to mess with this guy. This is also why some of the lairs are empty (i.e. abandoned) and why the higher-ups run away when they see Ezio and toss the new-and-ignorant-recruits towards him like canon fodder.

** As noted on the information listing in ''[=AC2=]'', most professional painters of the time specialized in making copies of existing famous works. You weren't buying the originals in the first game, you were buying duplicates.

** I had noticed part of this myself. The solution is simple. In AC2 Rodrigo Borgia is the ideal Templar. An immensely wealthy, internationally powerful and connected, highly cunning and intelligent ChessMaster. In the second game, he is a broken man, after realizing that he was not the prophet. Due to this, he effectively gives most of his power to Cesare. Here's the kicker. Cesare Borgia was all the things that are bad in a long term leader. Brilliant short term strategist, horrible long term planner(as evidenced by him running Rome into the ground, and bankrupting his father so that he needed to keep killing wealthy cardinals). He was a narcissistic egomaniac with no sense of his own shortcomings. I'm not even sure he was a Templar. Sure he effectively controlled all the papal resources, but I'm not sure he ever controlled any Templar forces unaffiliated with the church. Furthermore, even if he was a Templar, he was a bad one. Not only was he not content to use the behind-the-scenes manipulation that the Templars have always favored, instead publicly declaring his intent to become King of Italy. In the end, whether he was officially a Templar or not,I think Cesare viewed the Templar order in the same light as he saw the Vatican. Not as something that he was a part of, but as something that gave him power, yet retained enough power for itself that it would need to be destroyed later. The Templar ideology is of control. Rodrigo was obsessed with power, and so was a good fit for them. But for Cesare, it was about EGO. He's like a spoiled child. What other kind of freak would declare himself to be immortal via NoManOfWomanBorn? It's no wonder the greater Templar Order views his reign as an embarrassment.

* 'Project Legacy' example: We see the death of [[spoiler: Niccolo di Pitigliano]] from his own point of view, and we get memories from [[spoiler: Perotto Calderon]] after he has [[UnusualEuphemism passed on his genetic material]]. If you think about the series' established rules of GeneticMemory (or, indeed, revisit the Altaïr flashback in ''[=AC2=]''), this gets a ''little'' confusing...

[[folder:Truck bettery]]

* Given how damaged the villa is, I assumed it was a ghost town or otherwise not an active residential area. Rather, a place history buffs and tourists visited during the day.

** The games main writer said that they actually planned that Ezio gives the last scroll to one of the heralds and from then on you would occasionally hear the town criers spreading the word that the Borgia were to blame for the attacks of the Followers. It´s not in the final game because that was apparently not possible to lock sound bytes for the random [=NPCs=] for limited time. It still would have been better when the random encounters had included bandits and Followers.

** Maybe da Vinci didn't really want to be rescued? His only complaint was the use of his war machines, but Ezio took care of that. He probably just got comfortable enough that he didn't think it was worth bothering his friend over. Perhaps he even said as much.
** Actually leaving Rome would be harder than it looks, with all those guards at the gates. And if Leonardo escaped from the Borgia, they would be ''after'' him like starving wolves. He's a strategic asset that Cesare cannot afford to let fall into the hands of any of his enemies. The only real way Ezio could rescue him from the Borgia would be to break their power; otherwise he'd be an eternal fugitive from the Templars.

** Its not an issue of hiding, its an issue of ''escaping'' and then ''keeping free''. Da Vinci is a strategic asset capable of manufacturing weapons literally centuries ahead of their time; if he escaped the Borgia would waste no time tracking him down, and if he hid in the Assassins' Guild, they'd begin house-to-house searches, and for all the Assassins' power, they're no direct match for a Borgia army. The only reason Ezio is able to get away with his shenanigans in Rome is because Caesar is away and leaving the city to a relatively incompetent relation and a power-hungry French noble. If Cesare returns to Rome and directly controls the Templar operations in the city, the Assassins are in for a world of hurt, and the escape of his resident superweapon-designer would definitely count.

** The [[http://assassinscreed.wikia.com/ wiki]] defines it this way: the Assassin Guilds are local city-based groups of Assassins. The Guilds all come under the greater Assassin Order, the head of which is the Grand Master. In Brotherhood, that's Ezio Auditore. Grand Master and Guild Master can overlap, so Ezio is head of both.
** Actually, throughout ''Brotherhood'', there are three Grand Masters: Mario, Machiavelli (''de facto''), and then Ezio.

* Let's take a quick glance at some enemy factions from Brotherhood. First, we have the Borgia. Led by a spoiled brat, they seek to control all of Italy by conquest. Then, in the Da Vinci disappearance DLC, we have the Cult of Hermes, who seek to use a "magic" artifact to force humanity as a whole to stop fighting. Hmm...which ones are the Templars again?
** The Borgia? You, know the ones who are affiliated with the Templars?
** Of course. My point was just that it's odd that the Borgia act less like Templars that the Cult of Hermes.

** Even if the Hermeticists weren't assholes (they stab a guy when they could have let him live, they try to kill Ezio repeatedly, and [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality THEY BEAT UP LEONARDO]]), the Assassins would still try to stop them. At the heart of their Maxim (Nothing is true, everything is permitted) is the philosophy that all men should be allowed to choose what they believe. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONQzYW81pmI&feature=player_detailpage#t=222s Ezio's speech]] at the end of The Bonfire of the Vanities is the perfect summation of just why the Assassins combat the Templars, the Hermeticists, and others like them:

** This was actually discussed in the game. In VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRevelations, one of the Templar Inner Circle documents that you can unlock in multiplayer reveals that the modern Templars view the period when the order was under Borgia leadership as an embarrassment and refer to it as 'the dark times'.

** I had noticed part of this myself. The solution is simple. In AC2 Rodrigo Borgia is the ideal Templar. An immensely wealthy, internationally powerful and connected, highly cunning and intelligent ChessMaster. In the second game, he is a broken man, after realizing that he was not the prophet. Due to this, he effectively gives most of his power to Cesare. Here's the kicker. Cesare Borgia was all the things that are bad in a long term leader. Brilliant short term strategist, horrible long term planner(as evidenced by him running Rome into the ground, and bankrupting his father so that he needed to keep killing wealthy cardinals). He was a narcissistic egomaniac with no sense of his own shortcomings. I'm not even sure he was a Templar. Sure he effectively controlled all the papal resources, but I'm not sure he ever controlled any Templar forces unaffiliated with the church. Furthermore, even if he was a Templar, he was a bad one. Not only was he not content to use the behind the scenes manipulation that the Templars have always favored, instead publicly declaring his intent to become King of Italy. In the end, whether he was officially a Templar or not,I think Cesare viewed the Templar order in the same light as he saw the Vatican. Not as something that he was a part of, but as something that gave him power, but retained enough power for itself that it would need to be destroyed later.The Templar ideology is of control. Rodrigo was obsessed with power, and so was a good fit for them. But for Cesare, it was about EGO. He's like a spoiled child. What other kind of freak would declare himself to be immortal via NoManOfWomanBorn? Its no wonder the greater Templar Order views his reign as an embarrassment.

** It's the same thief. He's been able to remain a Templar spy in the employ of La Volpe for years because apparently La Volpe trusts his thieves while distrusting pretty much everyone other than Ezio.
** [[FridgeBrilliance Which explains why La Volpe was pissed at Machiavelli.]]

** Since the Templar Lairs were originally released as store-exclusive pre-order bonuses, they couldn't have put anything too desirable or necessary in there. At least the Palazzo Medici has a few more cutscenes with Lorenzo. What Just Bugs Me is that the Auditore Crypt - which is accessible to anyone with the game and an Internet connection - has no bonus for completing it beyond the bit of lore about Domenico Auditore.

* Couple of things in the modern portion of the game bugs me. In Monteriggioni: first of all, why is there no one outside at night? You'd think someone, anyone, would be awake and about during the night. And why does everyone bother to send e-mails to each other when they're right next to each other in the Sanctuary? Where are these meetings Lucy keeps mentioning? And finally, Desmond can go outside and see red footprints leading into the Villa entrance later in the game...and he doesn't tell anyone about it. Why would he not mention that the Templars are right there?!

* Not exactly a JBM, but something I'm curious about. In ''Brotherhood'', the Subject 16 puzzles have you getting hints from Shaun, and when you get The Truth there is a conversation involving the three modern Assassins. Does anything change if you leave it until after completing the main story before doing this?

* That lingerie Caterina wears for Ezio at the beginning of the game bugs me. Not that it wasn't nice to look at, but did skimpy lingerie like that really exist during that time period?

** Maybe in theory, but things like this, 8 minutes to get through a sprawling labyrinth, getting past an army of guards with only the Apple of Eden and taking no damage, etc. went WAY over the line. Just a massive rookie mistake on the part of UbiSoft (much like those shoving bastards and every loudmouth in the city giving the same 4 speeches over and over and over). Revelations' conditions are much more reasonable.

** Obviously they needed someone as skilled as {{Leonardo da Vinci}} to build it. What I asked was why they needed ''a whole separate set of schematics'' to build it. Why couldn't Leonardo have just puzzled it all out himself? It can't possibly be that hard to take the standard Hidden Blade model and build a mirror-image of that same design. Certainly not for someone like Leonardo da Vinci, a man whose engineering skill is generally regarded as unmatched by anyone else in his lifetime.

** The problem is synching up with the memories. As noted in AC1 you can't take a new user and drop them straight into a stressful memory, because their mind rejects what is happening and fights the process. So while you could view some memories without being a descendant (a la the DDOS from Project Legacy) it limits what you can see without your mind rejecting it and desynching you. Plus the DDOS only shows you events as they occurred and offers no control, which is another problem with the technology. The only use of the Animus in a context where it is not showing your ancestor's memory is the Multiplayer section of Brotherhood, and in that case it's not showing you memories but rather putting you in a fabricated environment, and whenever you perform the actions that your persona did, the Bleeding Effect transmits those instances of muscle memory into the Bleeding Effect.

** Also, as discussed in VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII YMMV page on MotiveDecay, the Assassins seem to have gone from stopping evil acts and schemes of the Templars, as we see Altaïr doing in ''ACI'', to "Killing anyone who is remotely allied with the Templars and keep humanity's free will at all costs, even if at the price of war and destruction". Plus, I think that Ezio has a lot of moments that show just how the Assassins aren't much better than the Templars or even the Hermeticists. They're dead-bent on their own vision of how to make a better world, and they're willing to kill for it. While Altaïr/Ezio might rebuke or ignore whenever a Templar tries a NotSoDifferent BreakingSpeech, a sharp-minded player can see that the JerkassHasAPoint. Either [[FridgeBrilliance the developers had this in mind(Subtly showing how all sides of the conflict had their points and similar flaws)]], or it's unintended and we're supposed to be playing under ProtagonistCenteredMoralty(Otherwise, the game's name would be Templar's Creed, Hermeticist's Creed, etc...). The Hermeticists may have been huge jerks in killing Lucrezia's former lover, attacking Ezio and beating Leonardo, but the Assassins are not beyond allying with morally ambiguous people or empires. ([[DarkActionGirl Caterina]] [[LadyOfWar Sforza]] was no saint, Julius II(Rodrigo Borgia's successor as Pope and huge enemy of the Borgia Family) wasn't that noble and, in ''Revelations'', the Assassins ally with the Ottoman Sultan and Empire, but we're shown multiple times that they're very little different from the Borgia, and the Assassins just accept them because, well, they don't have any other option. One gets the impression the Assassins are more interested in killing Templars and following their Creed than taking more reasonable courses of action towards helping mankind...

*** ^Confirmed in the Da Vinci Disappearance DLC in Brotherhood; two of the paintings were destroyed, but the Borgia took the rest.

*** I don't remember that. When does he say that? And if he did bring Ezio to Rome, why would he lie earlier when he said he thought Ezio was killed in Cesare's attack?
**** I can't remember exactly when he said it, but it was around the time Ezio became Grand Master. I'll do some searching to find it.
*** Why exactly was Machiavelli so damn cryptic about the whole thing? Yeah, being a puppet master is fun., but this is war, you jackass. Play it straight with us and we can make sure we don't run rimshot into one of your schemes and get a whole bunch of people killed.

*** Yeah, but...not even a mention of how they're doing? No question from Ezio about whether his friends in Florence and Venice are safe from the Borgia?
*** They're likely fairly safe anyway. Florence and Venice are controlled by Assassin allies, and are ''not'' tiny towns like Monteriggioni, which still took a massive Borgia army to destroy. They're fairly safe from overt Templar attacks, and, being Assassin-controlled, they're generally safe from subversive Templar efforts once Ezio has dealt with the Pazzi and Barbarigo forces. The majority of Ezio's friends and all of his surviving family are in Rome, and Antonio, Teodora, and Paola can take care of themselves when they've got the armies of Venice and Florence at their backs.
*** That's what your Brotherhood is for. Ensuring peace for those guilds. Don't you read the contracts? Defend the Courtesans in Florence?

** Because it was annoying. The average age of gamers is 30; this troper is 20. I can ''read'' faster than the voice-over. They were a complete waste of time. It's like the narrated Codex entries in Mass Effect; I just mute the sound and read it.

*** A unique weapon would have been nice, at least. Mass Effect 2 had exclusive weapons for players who bought from certain retailers. I don't see how this should be any different.

*** [[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedRevelations Revelations confirms this]] in the end; [[spoiler: Altaïr hid the Apple under Masyaf, and it stayed hidden in his vault under the castle. The Templars eventually penetrated the vault and retrieved it, and it eventually was destroyed in Denver.]]

*** That explains why the second blade is rare, but not why it's so unique that you need a whole other set of schematics for Leonardo to build it.
**** Well, all Assassins have the Hidden Blade on their right arms, right? So in order to make one that works, you just need to copy the same mechanism with only minor adjustments for size. But obviously your left hand has a different layout, so to speak, of bones, muscles, that sort of thing. Obviously the left hidden blade is just a reversed model, but you'd need someone who was quite knowledgeable about the human body to be able to get it to the precision the blade needs to be. So in short you'd need someone who was knowledgeable in both medicine and craftsmanship to do it.
***** Obviously they needed someone as skilled as {{Leonardo da Vinci}} to build it. What I asked was why they needed ''a whole separate set of schematics'' to build it. Why couldn't Leonardo have just puzzled it all out himself? It can't possibly be that hard to take the standard Hidden Blade model and build a mirror-image of that same design. Certainly not for someone like Leonardo da Vinci, a man whose engineering skill is generally regarded as unmatched by anyone else in his lifetime.
*** In that case, I was under the impression that Leonardo building the second Hidden Blade the first time in Florence was less "we can't build it without the schematics" and more of "here are schematics for a reversed blade...hey, that's a cool idea, let's make one!"

* Why does it take so long to load the start menu and map? I know this sounds petty, but thanks to the inclusion of 100% sync tasks, any mission where you can fail that task in the first few seconds (such as not taking any damage when the start of the mission has you fighting dozens of enemies at once), odds are you're going to be restarting the level several times over. The start menu may only take a few seconds, but when you're doing it over and over and over, it gets really annoying really fast.
** The city map is really big. It takes a while to load.
*** Doesn't explain why the map screen and start menu take so long to load.
**** Are you kidding? The bigger the map the longer it'll take to load. Without actually being able to see the game under the hood I wouldn't be able to give you a straight answer, but my guess is that when you open either the game has to perfectly keep everything in memory; considering the amount of [=NPCs=] in any given area it might be that the game has to keep notes on what to do when the game is unpaused.
** Don't forget, also, that they not only have to reload the map, they have to "reset" key characters in their starting zones (Ezio, patrolling guards, key targets) and then after THAT, the random crowds.
** The loading period after "Skip Cinematic" is just as annoying, since most games just deal with this by, you know, a button press, rather than having to pause mid-scene, selecting the option, and then being sent back to white space while waiting for the game to reload.

*** Yeah, but by the start of Brotherhood, Ezio and Claudia have been living with him for over twenty years. That's longer than they lived with their father and brothers.
*** True, but that doesn't necessarily mean they were close. Ezio was busy doing Assassin stuff so much during those 20 years that his relationship with Claudia became a total wreck. Maybe Mario was so busy doing mercenary stuff that Ezio and Claudia never had a chance to get all that attached to him.

*** Perhaps they both know that worrying about Mario will only leave them vulnerable to the Borgia, as they intended it to do. Besides, they may very well have had some intense mourning time off camera...methinks a repressed memory?

*** ''"We are unsure if Ezio ever spawned a child"'' - he certainly had at least one after the events of his games, the whole point of the Animus is that it's letting Desmond relive the lives of his ''ancestors''.
*** Exactly the idea. We don't know if he spawned a child before Desmond's obvious ancestor. So it is kind of odd to say that Ezio had multiple children before the point of conceiving Desmond's ancestor.

*** The problem is synching up with the memories. As noted in AC1 you can't take a new user and drop them straight into a stressful memory, because their mind rejects what is happening and fights the process. So while you could view some memories without being a descendant (a la the DDOS from Project Legacy) it limits what you can see without your mind rejecting it and desynching you. Plus the DDOS only shows you events as they occurred and offers no control, which is another problem with the technology. The only use of the Animus in a context where it is not showing your ancestor's memory is the Multiplayer section of Brotherhood, and in that case it's not showing you memories but rather putting you in a fabricated environment, and whenever you perform the actions that your persona did, the Bleeding Effect transmits those instances of muscle memory into the Bleeding Effect.

*** So if I was walking around with the cape bearing the coat of arms of a well-known Assassin family, that wouldn't make the Borgia guards (aka guards who work for Templars) suspicious?
*** Did you bother reading the description of the Auditore Cape? The cape was ''owned by the Borgia'' at the time. Anyone walking around while wearing that cape is ''clearly'' in the favor of the Borgia if they were given said cape. The only other reason they'd be wearing the cape would be if they were an Assassin, and [[RefugeInAudacity we all know that's just ridiculous!]]

* What the hell was the dev team smoking? In the mission where you get to drive a tank in Brotherhood they put in a NO DAMAGE TO THE TANK EVER apart from bullets? And then put in a Battle royal with THREE Tanks AND explosive barrels? In the end I had to resort to cheat-esque maneuvers. JUST WHY!!!!!!

*** I never had problems when calling the recruits for the kill. Even an Arrow Storm was registered as a recruit kill, IIRC (I recall thinking "easiest 100% ever" for that very reason). You sure it wasn't bugged?

*** Maybe in theory, but things like this, 8 minutes to get through a sprawling labyrinth, getting past an army of guards with only the Apple of Eden and taking no damage, etc. went WAY over the line. Just a massive rookie mistake on the part of UbiSoft (much like those shoving bastards and every loudmouth in the city giving the same 4 speeches over and over and over). Revelations' conditions are much more reasonable.
**** If you're talking about the Catacombs Romulus Lair as the sprawling labyrinth, I found out that there's an easy way to navigate the maze: At intersections, go in the direction of where the torch is hanging on the wall. But yeah, the tank mission and the mission where you have the Apple and need to make a break for it were the most annoying ones.

*** This is a pretty big factor. And TruthInTelevision, to boot. In RealLife, Cesare was an impressive fighter and general, but overall a very poor statesman and politician: shortly after his father died and the Papacy shifted hands, most of his former allies in the Vatican, including the new Pope, turned against him, with Pope Julius outfoxing him politically at every turn. On the matter of statesmanship, Cesare conquered a lot of Italy very quickly, sure, but didn't really seem to understand that to keep the whole thing together he would have to stop relying on the iron word-is-law of the Papacy backing him; his proto-kingdom quickly and rapidly imploded after the Pope died and it became obvious the new Pope wasn't going to back him up, because none of his conquests felt any endearment or loyalty to maintaining what he was trying to build.

*** It's hardly a city - more like a small village. Presumably bars and night-clubs are a bit thin on the ground. And in-game, you can see that the gates are closed at night, with a notice on them that cars aren't allowed in the town after nightfall.

*** Because there's no actual conclusion to that plot point. There were still a couple of priests that the Cardinal was controlling on the loose, not to mention the actual followers. They are never really destroyed, they just vanish from the plot when Ezio isn't around one of their bases, and he eventually runs out of bases to rob.
**** Just because Ezio didn't hunt down and kill every single Follower of Romulus doesn't mean he didn't destroy the organization. If they're scattered and on the run, it's as good as being destroyed.

*** Info about the next game, Revelations, would seem to discredit the double simulation idea. In it, Desmond is trapped in a coma and is in an animus to keep his mind working, which fits perfectly with the voices heard during the credits, at least one of which can be assumed to be those of the high-up assassin mentioned in the team emails.
*** Assuming I understand you correctly, even if that's the case then it still means everything we've seen ''including'' the "real world" segments have been an Animus simulation, which was the original troper's point of contention. But we'll have to wait for the next game to be absolutely sure.

*** Yeah, it's implied that while Ezio is weakening Borgia influence within the city, the Borgia still have all passages in and out of town locked down. Ezio can get in and out because he's a badass Assassin and not everyone knows his face. Leonardo on the other hand is a well-known figure in Roma and the guards at the outer gates have probably been instructed to keep an eye out for him so he can't flee the city. And even if he does somehow get out, he'll be a wanted fugitive until Ezio can take down the Borgia. And since Ezio was going to do that anyway, Leonardo has nothing to gain from going on the lam. As a virtual prisoner of the Borgia government acting as a double agent was the best he could do.
*** And he couldn't just ask Ezio for some Assassins to escort him out? Or even just move to the Assassin's Guild? Besides, it's highly doubtful that the Borgia would be smart enough (albeit Cesare is paranoid enough) to have guards in the underground-tunnels. Ezio can keep passing through those unnoticed, and a genius like Leonardo Da Vinci didn't think of that?
*** Its not an issue of hiding, its an issue of ''escaping'' and then ''keeping free''. Da Vinci is a strategic asset capable of manufacturing weapons literally centuries ahead of their time; if he escaped the Borgia would waste no time tracking him down, and if he hid in the Assassins' Guild, they'd begin house-to-house searches, and for all the Assassins' power, they're no direct match for a Borgia army. The only reason Ezio is able to get away with his shenanigans in Rome is because Caesar is away and leaving the city to a relatively incompetent relation and a power-hungry French noble. If Cesare returns to Rome and directly controls the Templar operations in the city, the Assassins are in for a world of hurt, and the escape of his resident superweapon-designer would definitely count.

*** Which brings up the question of why does Desmond keep his blade on the *outside* of his sleeve?
*** Probably because he doesn't need to hide it at this point.
*** Maybe he doesn't want to punch holes in his jacket? A blade can be stopped by a layer of fabric if it get caught just right, and it would be awfully embarrassing for Desmond to try to pop it out only for it to get caught up on his sleeve.

*** The glitch idea doesn't make sense though, since it always starts and finishes showing at the same points in the game. My guess would be that it's ParanoiaFuel, to keep people on their toes by wondering what the hell those footsteps are.
*** Well, maybe not so much a glitch as the remains of something cut from the game at the last minute.
*** Actually, I always thought it was the dripping blood from Ezio's wound. I mean it followed the same path and I thought it was there to keep it like some sort of brick joke or something.
*** Actually, the red footprints are just something from when the game was being tested, because playtesters got lost in Monteriggioni as Desmond. Those red footprints are still there because they never got it out on time.
*** I always assumed that, once the player received more information about the Lucy plotline, it was supposed to imply that Lucy had been sneaking around as a double agent. Not only this, but the Eagle Vision viewed it as red because she had turned and could no longer be consider trustworthy or an ally. Eagle Vision shows enemies with a red aura, and that is what Lucy had become; though not inherently visible, his 'sixth sense' had detected this change in alignment.
*** WordOfGod says the footsteps are there [[TheUntwist to help guide the player back to the villa.]] Apparently the red was an oversight.

*** Of course. My point was just that it's odd that the Borgia act less like Templars that the Cult of Hermes.
*** [[SarcasmMode Because organizations devoted to lofty goals have never been sidetracked by ambitious leadership.]]

*** Even if the Hermeticists weren't assholes (they stab a guy when they could have let him live, they try to kill Ezio repeatedly, and [[ProtagonistCenteredMorality THEY BEAT UP LEONARDO]]), the Assassins would still try to stop them. At the heart of their Maxim (Nothing is true, everything is permitted) is the philosophy that all men should be allowed to choose what they believe. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONQzYW81pmI&feature=player_detailpage#t=222s Ezio's speech]] at the end of The Bonfire of the Vanities is the perfect summation of just why the Assassins combat the Templars, the Hermeticists, and others like them:

*** Which makes sense. The people were ''pissed'' at the Borgia, and the Assassins were constantly coming out ahead no matter what the Borgia did to counter them. Templars rule from the shadows and need to keep the people complacent. Besides, Rodrigo's time as head of the Templars saw their greatest defeats - the loss of the Apple, the loss of control of Rome, and the deaths of dozens of high-ranking Templars.

*** I'm fairly certain I read somewhere that the DDOS uses a different system to show users the events as they happened, but doesn't create an full 3D interface for users to play around in. But it also has it's drawbacks and disadvantages, which is probably why they need the Animus program to begin with. The DDOS is probably just an experiment to see if they can get any tangible benefits out of such a system.
*** Actually, the DDS isn't a full-blown Animus, but a "Data Dump Scanner", able to force random memories (seemingly coming from their "rightful" owners' minds) into the brains of willing applicants. The introduction cutscene before any memories warns the user of the possiblity of mindblowing glitches. Literally.
*** It's possible that Perotto had other kids who were born after the memories, and the two genetic lines simply [[KissingCousins converged]].

*** [[FridgeBrilliance Which explains why La Volpe was pissed at Machiavelli.]]

* I was not sure where to put this, since it kind of spans the whole series, but I decided on Brotherhood, since it's in this game that the clearest example occurs. The Apple of Eden was designed by the First Civ to exploit genetically engineered neurons in the human brain in order to create illusions and control the minds of men. I was under the impression that that was all it does. The only time in the first two games when it does something different was when it created a map to the other Apples, which is feasible given that they are such powerful tools, and when it opens the vault, but at that point it was combined with the Staff, so all bets are off. However, in Brotherhood, people start talking about it as if it were some kind of font of knowledge. How? How did the Apple "reveal" to Altaïr advanced metallurgy and explosives technology? How did it show Ezio Cesare's activities after escaping from prison? It's a universal remote control, not a scientific database or a spy satellite.
** It can, it could feasibly create illusion to show people this.
** That doesn't answer my question. I know that the Apple can create any kind of illusion, but the only way I can think of that it could be used to gain knowledge would be for its wielder to use it like some kind of 3 dimensional smartboard for knowledge the wielder already had. However, Ezio did not know where Cesare is any more than Altaïr had any idea how a firearm worked. The Apple gave them knowledge. Heck, in Altaïr's case, what it showed him could not have possibly come from a human source (since pistols were almost unheard of until around AC revelations). This is not part of what we were told the Apple's functions were. It's an enslaver, not a computer
** It's primary function may be control, but maybe it has a backup harddrive with some remnant info from the first civilization. As for locating Cesare, it could easily just trace him using the same artificial neurons it exploits.
*** I was under the impression, that Apple of Eden is also the aforementioned Apple of Knowledge. You know, from the Bible. Also, June was it? One of TWCB clearly stated that humans could be turned into reality warpers, as long as they are One. I assumed that Apple, while controlling humans, simply sends them image, and details, of an item TWCB need to create, and humans wish it into existence. Kinda like that. Meaning that Apple is both a tool to control, and a database of both past high tech and future low tech. And also a vessel, me thinks.
*** Its actualy Fridge brilliance I think: Imagine you are member of technologially super advanced race, but you use a slave force. For building complex devices and technologies, you would have to give them education HOW it works, and that is dangerous and very long term. I believe Apples do not just mind control humans, but also contains knowledge, so the slaves would have been show what to do by apple.
** The pieces of eden are part of a larger system put in place by Those Who Came Before to manipulate future history along the path they needed in order to prevent the coming disaster (thwarted at the end of III). In addition to many PoEs, we also know there are temple complexes with lots of machinery that have different functions. There's one in the Caribbean that's basically a blood-based surveillance system (seen in Black Flag) and a number whose purpose is apparently to keep certain land-masses stable (Rogue). How does the Apple know so much? Bluetooth. It's connected to the network, and the network can see the future.

** They were probably using satellite and drone surveillance to look for Desmond and co. rather than border patrols. They do have a [[TheMasquerade Masquerade]] to maintain, after all.

** There were several different Apples throughout the history. Ezio's Apple was hidden there for 500 years, while others were being used.

** They were probably using satellite and drone surveillance to look for Desmond and co. rather than border patrols. They do have a [[TheMasquerade Masquerade]] to maintain, after all.

*** It's possible that Perotto had other kids who were born after the memories, and the two genetic lines simply converged.

*** And he couldn't just ask Ezio for some Assassins to escort him out? Or even just move to the Assassin's Guild? Besides, it's highly doubtable that the Borgia would be smart enough (albeit Cesare is paranoid enough) to have guards in the underground-tunnels. Ezio can keep passing through those un-noticed, and a genius like Leonardo Da Vinci didn't think of that?
*** Its not an issue of hiding, its an issue of ''escaping'' and then ''keeping free''. Da Vinci is a strategic asset capable of manufacturing weapons literally centuries ahead of their time; if he escaped the Borgia would waste no time tracking him down, and if he hid in the Assassins' Guild, they'd begin house-to-house searches, and for all the Assassins' power, they're no direct match for a Borgia army. The only reason Ezio is able to get away with his shenanigans in Rome is because Caesar is away and leaving the city to a relatively incompetent relation and a power-hungry French noble. If Caesar returns to Rome and directly controls the Templar operations in the city, the Assassins are in for a world of hurt, and the escape of his resident superweapon-designer would definitely count.

*** Actually, the red footprints are just something from when the game was being tested, because playtesters got lost in montergonni as Desmond. Those red footprints are still there because they never got it out on time.

** I had noticed part of this myself. The solution is simple. In AC2 Rodrigo Borgia is the ideal Templar. An Immensely wealthy, internationally powerful and connected, highly cunning and intelligent ChessMaster. In the second game, he is a broken man, after realizing that he was not the prophet. Due to this, he effectively gives most of his power to Cesare. Here's the kicker. Cesare Borgia was all the things that are bad in a long term leader. Brilliant short term strategist, Horrible long term planner(as evidenced by him running rome into the ground, and bankrupting his father so that he needed t keep killing wealthy cardinals). He was a narcissistic egomaniac with no sense of his own shortcomings. I'm not even sure he was a templar. Sure he effectively controlled all the papal resources, but I'm not sure he ever controlled any templar forces unaffiliated with the church. Furthermore, even if he was a templar, he was a bad one. Not only was he not content to use the behind the scenes manipulation that the templars have always favored, instead publicly declaring his intent to become King of Italy. In the end, whether he was officially a templar or not,I think Cesare viewed the templar order in the same light as he saw the vatican. Not as something that he was a part of, but as something that gave him power, but retained enough power for itself that it would need to be destroyed later.The templar ideology is of control. Rodrigo was obsessed with power, and so was a good fit for them. But for Cesare, it was about EGO. He's like a spoiled child. What other kind of freak would declare himself to be immortal via NoManOfWomanBorn? Its no wonder the greater templar order views his reign as an embarrassment.

*** I'm fairly certain I read somewhere that the DDOS uses a different system to show users the events as they happened, but doesn't create an full 3D interface for users to play around in. But it also has it's drawbacks and disadvantages, which is probably why they need the Animus program to begin with. The DDOS is probably just an experiment to see if they can get any tangible benifits out of such a system.

* Okay, so towards the end of the game we see Ezio place the Apple in the container beneath the Colosseum, and it's implied that it never left said tomb/ruins place until Desmond and Co. found it. HOWEVER, in the previous game there was a glyph, a very early one, I believe it was the second one, that showed George Washington got a hold of it. How did this happen? Are there multiple Apples? is George a time traveler? Did he get it from a time traveler? did someone find the door, guess the password, complete the free-running/parkour challenge, get a hold of the Apple, deliver it to george, either directly or indirectly, and then get it put back ALL within those ~500 years?
** There were several different apples throughout the history. Ezios apple was hidden there for 500 years, while others were being used.

* I was not sure where to put this, since it kind of spans the whole series, but I decided on brotherhood, since its in this game that the clearest example occurs. The apple of Eden was designed by the First Civ to exploit genetically engineered neurons in the human brain in order to create illusions and control the minds of men. I was under the impression that that was all it does. The only time in the first two games when it does something different was when it created a map to the other apples, which is feasible given that they are such powerful tools, and when it opens the vault, but at that point it was combined with the staff, so all bets are off. However, in Brotherhood, people start talking about it as if it were some kind of font of knowledge. How? how did the apple "reveal" to Altaïr advanced metallurgy and explosives technology? How did it show Ezio Cesare's activities after escaping from prison? Its a universal remote control, not a scientific database or a spy satellite.

** That doesn't answer my question. I know that the apple can create any kind of illusion, but the only way I can think of that it could be used to gain knowledge would be for its wielder to use it like some kind of 3 dimensional smartboard for knowledge the wielder already had. However, Ezio did not know where cesare is any more than Altaïr had any idea how a firearm worked. The apple gave them knowledge. Heck, in Altaïr's case, what it showed him could not have possibly come from a human source (since pistols were almost unheard of until around AC revelations). This is not part of what we were told the apples functions were. Its an enslaver, not a computer