Line #82 Headscratchers/AssassinsCreedRogue


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5	[[folder:Earthquake Survival]]
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7	* During the [[spoiler: 1755 Lisbon Earthquake]] what do you think is the better strategy for survival? Finding an open clearing away from any collapsing buildings or [[ViolationOfCommonSense running through several hundred of them at top speed]]?
8	** When you are a well trained assassin bad-ass who can leap up an around buildings with cat-like grace, I think you are allowed a bit of leeway with your course of action. Also, what open areas? The entire city was collapsing around him!
9	** With the entire city falling apart, literally, running to open ground would be suicidal. No direction is safe, no person outside of the fringes of the city could get away from it in time, and open ground would eventually be swallowed up too (shifting crust and all that). In the heat of the moment, the only real safe haven for Shay was out at sea on the Morrigan, which was 'just' outside of the disaster area...
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13	[[folder:Finnegans]]
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15	* When Shay is trying to help the Finnegans by wiping out the local gang harassing them, how does he miss [[spoiler: all the Assassin paraphernalia about the place? Hell, their flag is the Assassin A.]]
16	** On a similar note to the above, how did Shay miss [[spoiler: he was killing Assassins while trying to recover the Morrigan? They have all of the skills of his people and it's not like he doesn't know his ship is with them.]]
17	** Shay had just emerged from a near fatal encounter with the Assassins, hell I'd be surprised if he HADN'T been a bit out of sorts after that kind of confrontation
18	** ''Does'' he miss it? I'm confused as to why most people think he didn't realize he was working against the Assassins. He had already trained with people using the same gang colors as the ones he slaughtered, already knew about Hope running the gangs, saw stalkers using Assassin techniques, saw the gang flag with the Assassin symbol on it, outright stated he suspected the [[spoiler:plot to poison civilians]] was Hope's work, knew that the Finnegan son and Gist were business partners of Monro and in the same "club" despite being non-military, and to top it off, he's wearing a freaking Templar cross on his chest. The letter from Monro seemed pretty casual about the Templar thing, Shay didn't act surprised about that part IIRC, so I was under the impression he had figured it out already (or had been told offscreen). It was strange to me that they wouldn't show him learning/piecing it together, but my first reaction to the scene was that Shay had already been told about the Templars. Remember all the hoops Lee had to jump through to get inducted? I figured that's what happened in the time skip.
19	** I also don't think he missed it. The Assassin have proven that they will not listen and in fact have tried to kill Shay all before he encountered the Finnegans. So the Assassin have established themselves as Shay's enemy. I figured this was just Shay feeling out the Templar cause from the inside-out since he had only seen the Templar from an Assassin point of view.
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23	[[folder:Shay and innocents]]
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25	* Shay is the Assassin ''most'' concerned with not harming innocents yet is able to do it in gameplay without desynchronizing. What's that about?
26	** Shay believes he's responsible for [[spoiler: the Lisbon Earthquake]] so in his mind he's ALREADY killed innocents. That may be why he doesn't desynchronize like the others. In which case, it becomes FridgeBrilliance.
27	** I found it odd, too, but I think the pre-release source of that info said it was because the Templars have no rule against it like the Assassins do. I still think it was a poor choice given the plot, though.
28	** The answer is simple: GameplayAndStorySegregation. Plus it has been seen before by Altair, as a reward for completing ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedI''.
29	** Shay is no longer a member of the Assassins, so he's not bound by their first tenet: "stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent."
30	** Plus, Shay's story is being relived using an Animus directly linked to the Abstergo database. A Templar-based company trying to sway people to their side (while also keeping those chosen to be Animus guinea pigs in line) would have little problems with stroking the player's dark side a little bit. The more enjoyable the Animus is for the worker, the more they'll keep coming back.....and the higher the chance they'll make an important discovery....
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33	[[folder:Assassins and criminals]]
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35	* What the heck happened to the Assassin Order in the colonies? They used to just associate with thieves, criminals, and pirates, but now they are the active majority amongst the Assassin ranks. With Achilles' off hand dismissal of Shay's concern about Precursor superweapons, it seems like the Assassin have adopted view that they are incapable of doing wrong as long as their actions are anti-Templar.
36	** In fact, the Assassins have had a significant criminal presence since the time of Ezio, when both La Volpe and Antonio were members of the Italian brotherhood in good standing despite controlling organized crime in two cities. It's just that here we see the negative effects when the Assassins actually have control, and therefore let their minions run wild. It may well be Ezio's policies that started them on this path, as Ezio supported several ''very'' questionable people (such as Lorenzo de Medici, Caterina Sforza, and Selim I) in his lifelong war with the Templar Order, not to mention the countless innocents that he killed in Derinkuyu.
37	** Also note that in III's prologue, the only sign of the Colonial Assassins was a rather large, well-manned fort full of gang members/mercenaries. They decided to capitalize on that, probably because dozens of hooded master Assassin mooks would get kinda silly.
38	** Wouldn't be the first time that Assassin leadership focused more on the war with the Templars than on fulfilling and promulgating the very ideals that the war is supposed to be about...
39	** Shay calling out the Assassin's on them becoming more focused on killing Templars + fighting them at every opportunity rather than doing what they're preaching (which lasted into the modern era, as indirectly noted by Shaun and Rebecca in III) is part of his tale.
40	* Speaking of which, is it ever explained why the Assassins are so hell bent on killing Ben Franklin in Paris? I thought Franklin was rather well regarded by them, even if he didn't realize just who they were. I know they're never technically called such but they act like Assassins and it's not like Shay hasn't referred to Assassins using the generic "Criminals" before. Assuming of course it wasn't just an excuse to lead into Shay's final scene.
41	** It's not explained clearly, so obviously it's just an excuse. The Paris section is weird since it's not made clear why Templar Shay can't get into Rogue by appealing to the Grand Master de la Serre who as per the prologue of Unity was present there. Shay's reference to "Starting a Revolution" indicates that he's allied with the Revolutionary Templars. So most likely you can infer that the Rev. Templars tell him to find Franklin while they stage a FalseFlagOperation and hire criminals to attack him so Shay can look a hero. That probably makes the most sense. Since the French Assassins as per Unity's database are friends with Franklin and wouldn't do this attack.
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44	[[folder:Juno and Helix]]
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46	* Why did Juno unleash that virus on the Helix servers? Was it really just to get that condescending Animus fragment message to the Helix researcher?
47	** I think the writers kind of forgot about that plot point by the time they got to the end and hoped everyone else would as well. It contributes to the feeling that Rogue kind got shafted on resources which instead went to Unity, which is a bit of a pity, considering after ACIV, Ubisoft seems to have stopped caring about the Juno plot that they spent a lot of time setting up in III and IV.
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51	[[folder:Cormac and Kenway]]
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53	* Since De Costa asks, why didn't Kenway mention Cormac in any of his journals?
54	** If we need an in-universe reason, I think Kenway doesn't really think all that highly of Shay. Shay is just a hired gun to him and he sends him on his way not long after taking care of business. Even if Kenway respects Shay just fine, he doesn't really dwell on the Purge all that much.
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58	[[folder:Knowledge of the pieces]]
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60	* [[spoiler:Did the assassins develop amnesia during Shay's trip to Lisbon? Achilles tells Shay to be careful because Pieces of Eden are powerful relics. I understand why Achilles and Shay could have forgotten but not Hope who was within earshot when the comment was made.]]
61	** [[spoiler:I think the comment was more of a general purpose 'be careful', rather than 'don't mess with them, period'. After all, despite the PoorCommunicationKills that resulted, neither Achilles nor Shay (or anyone, players included) knew that removing the Piece of Eden underneath Lisbon would cause it to disintegrate, much less ''cause an earthquake''. After all, in all their history, Pieces of Eden were stable artifacts with mysterious powers; numerous Assassins and Templars removed them without disturbing the area or anything nearby... they couldn't expect the Lisbon one to do what it did...]]
62	** It does feel like pretty much everything after Lisbon could have been avoided if everyone had seriously talked it over calmly for five minutes. Shay literally had months to sort out his feelings over what happened and should have been a little more nuanced in his concerns then exploding at Achilles and Achilles should have at least tried to sympathize with Shay regarding his role in the whole debacle. [[spoiler: Though if they had, ACIII and Unity would have been avoided entirely]].
63	** It's mostly Shay's fault because he doesn't discuss specifics. He doesn't mention the cave, the object, and the reactions which happen. He straight up accuses Achilles of deliberate mass murder which Achilles would naturally find ludicrous. To Achilles' ears, Shay sounds like a guy gone nuts after a traumatic incident. Then Shay decides, without discussing anything with Liam or privately with Hope to steal it. That's the other problem, if Shay wanted to prevent anyone from using the Manuscript why doesn't he burn the manuscript or break the box?
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66	[[folder:Lisbon]]
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68	* Does anyone else find it kind of puzzling that the device in Lisbon is basically in the church basement and obviously the people who built the church had to have known about it(not to mention install an Assassin Friendly security system in the rafters) and yet somehow not activated it,[[spoiler: triggering the Lisbon Earthquake centuries earlier?]] Unlike the other Precursor temples(such as the vaults in Rome, the Grand Temple in upstate New York, the Sage temple in the Yucatan, or the Observatory in Cuba), it's neither hard to get into(AKA locked behind impenetrable doors) nor deep underground, yet Shay apparently was the first one to both get in and [[spoiler: trigger a massive earthquake that killed thousands]].
69	** From a Doylist perspective, Ubisoft made it an AssPull for shock effect and didn't think deeply about World Building. From a Watsonian perspective, the Church was likely built on top of earlier structures like most European churches. The church is a real church called [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmo_Convent_(Lisbon) Carmo Convent]] which like the Hiroshima Dome became an emblem of the earthquake in real-life. That church was built in 1389 so the original construction crew might have simply missed a spot or figured it's just a hollow point that's not worth risking someone's life to investigate and simply covered over it. It still makes zero sense because that device is not near enough the the Earth's crust to actually cause an earthquake like that, and the real-life epicenter was not in Lisbon but islands off the coast of Portugal. But then like I said, AssPull.
70	*** Was there however ever stated that the epicenter was in the church? If thats some geological infrastructure "holding the Earth together", the artifact shay disturbed could be simply interface and the vault a control room. When disturbed, it could have triggered some reaction in enormous underground facilities that were in the epicenter area and 18th century people had no possible clue of.
71	* On a related note, what is the purpose of having temples with Pieces of Eden inside which[[spoiler: are so incredibly unstable that they cause massive earthquakes if disturbed]]? My only guess is that they were meant to somehow stabilize the Earth against the 2012 disaster that Desmond averted but it's annoying that this is the first(and perhaps only) mention of them in the series so far.
72	** Maybe the First Civ while building some of their fancy technology and architecture were creating seismic disturbances (since many of their templers have {{Bizarrchitecture}} and are usually underground and these pivots are some kind of anchors connected to the main temple. The Box might have been a device used for construction, a blueprint on where to put all the pivot points to make their structures and regulate seismic activities to normal. My main issue with the earthquake box is...if Shay caused one by messing with the Box, what about other earthquakes that followed in the 19th and 20th Century...were they done by Abstergo. Is there such a thing as natural earthquakes in this universe. Anyway, AssPull is the only explanation that works well for me.
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75	[[folder:Connection to Unity]]
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77	* So, in the final mission, [[spoiler:Shay kills Arno's dad, who's dying words are "Connor and the American revolution have undone your work", prompting Shay to respond that the Templars will start their own revolution(in France).]] I can see doing it as a lead in to Unity, but the scene takes place in late 1776. The American Revolution was just kicking off and the Colonial Army hadn't exactly been doing great that year(with Trenton probably not even happening yet), while Connor was probably just starting his revenge spree through the Colonial Templar ranks(IIRC, he might have killed one of Haytham's buddies by that point). Isn't Charles being a bit premature in saying the Templars are finished in North America?
78	** What Charles Dorian is saying is that "Connor has undone your work" by rebuilding the Brotherhood. Now the Declaration was signed on July 4, 1776 and we see that declaration cutscene after Thomas Hickey's assassination. So by the time Charles Dorian said this, America is declaring independence, Haytham's plans for a StagedPopulistUprising have gone for a toss, Connor has recruited three new assassins, started rebuilding the homestead and via Naval destroyed several British ships. So Connor has, in Pierre Bellec's words, rebuilt the Brotherhood from "nothing to power", negating all of Shay's achievements in Rogue.
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81	[[folder: Shay in [=AC3=] and Unity]]
82	* Do we ever get an in-universe reason why Shay is never seen or mentioned outside of Rogue? Obviously he doesn't show up in VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII because Rogue wasn't planned when 3 was in development but Unity was in development at the same time and there's even a complimentary scene at the end of Rogue that matches up to the beginning of Unity showing that[[spoiler:Shay was the one who killed Charles Dorian at Versailles]]. Shay was in Paris in 1776 so we can write him out of [=AC3=] for at least a few months considering travel times and all that, but Connor was active for years and Shay presumably didn't care that he was killing off Shay's Templar brothers in the Colonies. And for all of Arno's angst about his father being killed while he was in the next room as a child, Arno apparently never learns that Shay killed his father, nor does he care to keep looking after a certain point in Unity.
83	** So far as [=AC3=] goes, Shay is tasked by Haytham after the events in the arctic as a seeker of First Civ artifacts for the Templars, particularly the Precursor Box. The only Pieces of Eden we see Connor interacting with are the one held by his tribe that no outsiders know about, the Apple that George Washington tasks him with dropping into the ocean after the end of the Revolution, and the key to the temple that spent most of the game in Haytham's possession until Connor obtained and buried it. So, all things considered, there's no reason for Connor to have had an encounter with Shay during the run of that game, as he never interacts with what Shay is looking for. Can't explain Unity's dropping the ball of Shay having killed Arno's father, but Connor had no particular reason to have his path intersect with Shay during the course of that game.

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