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Looking through the Brahman - Chapter 2
Markuz, April 22, 2014 Translated by: Stefania, Sara, Markuz ATTENTION! The following article presents a highly SPOILERISH content for those who have not yet read the AC: Brahman Comic book. Access The Animus does not take responsibility for burned eyes, screams in despair (for the spoilers) and in happiness (for the content) and for every side effect that this article might cause. If you missed the first part, you can find it here: Looking through the Brahman - Part 1 It is time, at last! We can continue and finish our analysis of the Assassin's Creed: Brahman comic book, starting exactly from where we left off.  So the first part of the article ended with Monima giving Jot her engagement ring because she was leaving for Mumbai for an advertising campaign that wanted her to be single. When Jot and Monima arrive at the airport, they find many journalists waiting for her and this leads her to part from Jot, who looks at her sadly from the taxi. We see him on the phone, intent on discussing a certain situation about which he does not want to talk because "it just happened". Maybe the person who is talking to him is his colleague from the night before, and perhaps she is asking him if they can see each other again, because he answers with an absolute no. The taxi gets stuck in the traffic and, since Jot opened his window, several people approach the taxi asking for money. Our protagonist does not react and in response he hears "Chutiya! Kotei ki aulad.." which literally means "Idiot / Asshole! Son of a donkey!" and which the driver interprets as a "curse" against Jot, while in the background it is even possible to see a middle finger aimed at Jot. The scene ends with a close up of the ring left by Monima to Jot, indicating how our protagonist is still troubled about it. Keep this ring in mind, as it will become very important in the last part of the comic book.
The two follow several flights of stairs before reaching a cave and a big door. Raza approaches it but, like in one of the most famous internet memes, it's a trap, as a portcullis quickly drops down. Mir finds another entrance to the next room, which is full of golden coins, statues and jewels. Inside of it, he reaches a golden pedestal "guarded" by golden snakes (did I mention that everything in the room is made of gold?), which holds a box on top of it. Mir opens it and finds the diamond, or better a fake version of it. Mir keeps exploring the room convinced that there is another chamber until he "disappears". The focus shifts to Raza who finds himself alone in the room until Mir's arm comes out of a wall and pulls him against it. The wall reveals to be fake too, but this time Mir candidly reveals that "It was an illusion. Left by Those Who Came Before". This should prick your ears up. Not only do we get to know that Mir is well-informed about TWCB (that should be almost obvious after the parchment from the first part of the comic book), but we also can infer that Arbaaz knows how to recognize their illusions. And we all know which is the main way through which the characters can see through illusions in AC, namely Eagle Vision. This is not just a theory as this year's AC Encyclopedia comes to help once again by saying "It was believed that Arbaaz Mir was endowed with eagle vision. Thanks to this sixth sense, he was able to pass through the illusion created by the First Civilization (...)" The two end up in an even bigger and more open cave, so big that they look very little compared to the gigantic columns in the background. Arbaaz says that they are on the right track and he proves to be right because of the aforementioned columns and the enormous statues (again, in the background) and especially because the cave shines with the same blue light of the scroll that we saw in the first part of this article.
In the next panel we see another statue sitting with a lotus flower in its hand, with golden decoration across its chest. While doing some research we agreed that what is shown is the lower part of the statue dedicated to Ganesh, as he is often represented in that pose. Mir is sure that Maharaja Ranjit Singh knew that he had to place the Koh-i-Noor diamond back inside the cave (which now can assumed to be a temple by TWCB) and therefore he also assumes that the Maharaja knew about the cave. Also Mir gives another proof of what he knows about the First Civilization by saying that returning the diamond to the statues meant returning it to the beings that once gave it to the first men. Basing on what Mir hypothesizes about the Maharaja, we could also theorize that he may have received the information about this temple through the diamond itself and potential interactions with members of TWCB. But everything loses importance when in the next panel Raza approaches another statue. We may sound repetitive, but this is THE statue. An eight-handed statue with a third eye and a nose piercing and eight arms that the Encyclopedia confirms as being a representation of goddess Durga.
So, as said before, it's possible to hypothesize that all these objects are Pieces of Eden (considering that there sure are three between them (the Apple, the Staff and the diamond – four if you want to count the sword but it does not have the shape and color of the Sword of Eden), but we also have to take into account that the Apple and the Staff are painted in gold while the other objects are not. The theory that all those objects are Pieces of Eden is also supported by what Hamid said in the first part of the comic, namely that the Koh-i-Noor had "the power to bind the fate of all Pieces of Eden together as one". This way the statue may be a direct representation of that, with the diamond at the bottom of the statue and all the other PoE's around it. Moreover, a close up shows that the diamond is held by two hands and is half immersed in what seems to be water, in the exact same way of the "mindfuck page" shown in the first pages of the comic book. Finally, the Encyclopedia helps us in recognizing the goddess that the statue is dedicated to, stating that "Within this strange place was a statue of Durga, holding the real Koh-i-Noor". Raza gets close to the diamond and tries to reach it with his hand but suddenly a "luminescent" tiger attacks him. Raza tries to cover himself but Arbaaz takes the diamond and shows that it was not "magic", just energy that wouldn't have harmed them. The tiger then was probably just an illusion and this proves once again Mir's Eagle Vision. The memory ends with Arbaaz and Raza walking their way back through the cave and with the looming presence of General Cotton who found the entrance of the cave through the Summer Palace. We then get back to the present day, with Jot walking down one street in Bangalore. While this happens, the comic book shows us another dialogue between him (blue dialogue boxes) and Monima (red dialogue boxes). Jot tells her that he doesn't feel to be himself anymore and that he misses her, while we see him walking in front of an advertisement about Monima herself and later looking at a TV interview with her. Monima tells Jot that Ajay Rana, his boss, called her searching for him, which leads her to understand that Jot hadn't showed up at work in the last days, and this confirms the state of confusion that affects him. She recommends him to call Rana, but Jot asks instead to meet her the following day in Mumbai and while she does not believe it could be a good idea, she accepts by saying she would give his name at the front gates of the studio she is working in. Jot arrives in Mumbai but at the gate he is told not to enter by the guard, even after checking at the phone. This makes Jot even more anxious and in this very moment Monima comes out of the studio’s doors and a group of fans starts milling around Jot’s side of the gate and start calling her name. Jot tries to make himself visible among the fans, but to no avail and immediately after he feels a hand on his shoulder. Behind him lies his female colleague at MysoreTech, the one with which he spent a night in the first part of the comic and who asked him more than one questions about his ancestors. Like that night, the girl is wearing a white sweater with a hood and with a resolute glance she says that both of them really need to talk.
The comic book then goes back to the past, with MacNaghten (the man who was with General Cotton when Mir and Raza first infiltrated the palace of the Maharaja) calling for the guards, surely after being told by Cotton of Mir’s theft of the Koh-I-Noor. Just a moment before fighting the guards, Mir puts a hand on Raza’s forhead and turban. That proves to be very important, as Arbaaz soon gets overwhelmed by the guards and is forced to hand the diamond back. The focus of the comic shifts on Raza, who touches his turban and finds out the real Koh-i-Noor is between its folds. While MacNaghten and General Cotton discuss how returning the diamond to the Maharaja can favour them, Raza escapes the rooms and climbs the palace, reaching the apartments of the princess that Arbaaz had seduced in the first part of the comic (her name will later be revealed to be Pyara Kaur). He immediately tries to escape but she stops him and asks him if it's true that Arbaaz was just a thief, beginning to cry. This moves Raza and pushes him to give the princess the original diamond. We then get back to the present day, and this time we are in the same place and timeframe shown at the beginning of the comic book. Jot has been kidnapped by the Assassin girl and her male colleague and tied to a chair. The two Assassins reveal that their intention is to gather more information on the diamond thanks to Jot's ancestor who was "heir to the Punjabi throne".
The Assassins go on explaining Jot that the whole purpose for the Brahman and its creation by Abstergo and the Templars (who they describe as "really bad people") is the diamond itself, and that is why Abstergo is "combing" India for anyone connected to the Koh-i-Noor. This shocks Jot as he realizes what he really did stating that he was an Assassin: he was abducted for being considered the Pyara's heir, while the real descendant of the princess is Monima, who now is even more in danger than him. The male Assassin also adds a little detail about the Koh-i-Noor: if the diamond fell in Templar hands, it would "be bad for life as we know it". Of course this is a sentence that can mean anything, but it does at least confirm that the Assassins know about what the diamond can do and also that the diamond has "world-changing" potential, and that is in line with Hamid's words about the diamond being able to bind the fate of all Pieces of Eden together. Jot is not able to answer the Assassins' questions about the diamond, and for that reason, to get their answers, they force him to use the Brahman again... ... And so we are back in the past again, with the princess reaching Arbaaz in the prison where he is locked. She is very angry at him for seducing her just to get to the diamond and so she asks him what he wanted to do with it. Of course Arbaaz does not tell her about his true intentions, but he makes a reference to the fact that the Maharaja is going to die soon if she does not free him. He stresses that the British had their interests in visiting the Maharaja and that would be annexing the Punjab and all of India. To support his idea, Mir adds that all of Pyara's uncles are away from India now and alludes to the fact that they are abroad because the English asked them. This way the English would be free to deal with the Maharaja and that is why Arbaaz asks the princess to free him, that is to save the Maharaja before it's too late. The princess falls for this and frees Arbaaz, who immediately after kissing her, changes his mind and tells her that Ranjit Singh, the Maharaja, can defend himself (if you remember from the first part of this article, Mir hates Singh because he was the cause of death of his family). So this was only an act to get free, and Arbaaz also states that his objective is to take the diamond as far from the palace as possible, but sadly for him now the diamond is in possession of the princess, so after a scolding but not that serious glance towards Raza, Arbaaz gets his equipment back and the two take their leave from the princess, forced to save to Maharaja.
Anyway, the Assassin girl looks at Jot's data in the Brahman and realizes that Jot is not who they thought he was, as in his blood there is not a single indication of Arbaaz or Pyara's bloodline (this also allows to think that the Assassins may have studied Monima's data after they stole the Brahman). This is also the moment in which the plan of the Assassins starts to fall apart (again because of that night in which Jot said that he had Assassin ancestors). They find out that Jot is potentially useless, they have no idea as to who is the original descendant of Pyara Kaur and, to top it all, it seems that their position was found out by the Abstergo agents, as an alarm starts beeping on the male Assassin's vambrace and he says that they are on the stairs of their building.
What we see in this particular situation, though, is a parallel of what is happening in the present day and in the past sides of the story. While Arbaaz keeps trying to get closer to the Maharaja killing all the guards that stand in his way, we can also see Jot suffering while using the Brahman, with screams and shot noises all around him. Arbaaz lands in the room where the Maharaja is taking tea with MacNaghten and his general, he hits the latter and throws his chakram towards Cotton, who defends himself with his sword. Arbaaz rushes to throw away Singh's cup of tea screaming that the British want to kill him, but it's too late, as Cotton says. The Maharaja, even if nothing can be done, gets on his feet and calls Cotton a deceiver, a coward and more than anything, a Templar. This opens up to a particular scenario in which Maharaja Ranjit Singh not only knew about the real Koh-i-Noor and about the First Civilization, but he also knew about the Templars and then, potentially, about the Assassins too. Cotton points his sword at the Maharaja, mocking him and saying ironically that it will be a shame to see the death of such a benevolent man who unified all castes and all creeds under one roof and didn't even have the temper of ordering the death of a lowly thief. This shocks Arbaaz, and that is probably because he realized that who he believed to be the killer of his family did not order his death after stealing the diamond. This probably makes him even more determined in the fight with the general, but Cotton uses the classic Templar strategy, that is screaming "ASSASSIN!".
The upgrade in technology by the Assassins is, however, countered by a parallel upgrade on the Templars side. The Templar agents are wearing, along with their usual elegant suits, a technological advanced helmet. The helmet has three red parts (one bigger than the others), which may act as different kind of viewers, in what seems to be a response to the invisibility of the Assassin's suit. In addition the helmet contains an antenna on its top, whose purpose we'll see in some moments. The male Assassin fights and kills all the Abstergo operatives both with melee techniques and with weapons. Jot rushes to hide the Brahman in a bag and then is confronted by the Assassin, who looks at him but immediately later cuts the finger of the dead female Assassin and then takes Jot with him, running upstairs. They get to the roof of the building, while the Assassin asks Jot how the Templars tracked them, leading them to believe that the device "calls home", meaning that its position is known by Abstergo in every moment, when it's switched on. The Assassin offers Jot a way to escape, seeing that more agents are coming for them, but Jot tells him to wait and asks for explanation. The Assassin does not want to waste any more time, so he tells Jot that he got into this in the exact moment in which he lied to his sister Siobhan about having Assassin ancestors. In a moment Jot (and the reader) get to know the name of the female Assassin who was killed before, and also feels the guilt of being the reason for being the cause of her death. Facing this, in a fraction of a second Jot decides to follow Siobhan's brother while they climb down the building from outside. The Assassin reveals his plan as they climb down, by pushing a button on his vambrace which activates Siobhan's vambrace and makes it explode. The explosion also causes Jot to lose grip on Siobhan's brother's back, and so the two get separated as Jot falls in one of the houses of the slums below. Bruised and in a very bad condition, Jot walks with his bag to Monima's studios and it seems that this time the guard let him pass and also helped him to get inside. What Jot finds is what shocked all of us in ATA, that is Monima wearing a goddess-like outfit, which months ago we thought could be the representation of a member of TWCB, specifically Durga. This means that we in the team were all trolled by the preview artwork published on Instagram by Cameron Stewart, but at least we were not totally wrong, as we already saw that the comic book features Durga in more than one situation. Also, it is possible that Monima is acting as Durga for some sort of movie or commercial when Jot enters the studios.
The two move to an hospital in Mumbai, and we see Jot who feels very sorry for everything that he did as he realized that what he did made people die (like Siobhan). Jot explains to Monima that he is chased by a lot of "guys" believing he's the heir of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and because of this, not only he is in danger, but also Monima, who is the real heir. Jot seems to be sorry for real as he said he should have never brought the Brahman home. Jot then admits his mistakes and this shows how this moment in his life could come to some sort of turning point, at least with Monima, but as we soon will see, it's already too late. Jot goes as far as telling Monima everything, about the real Koh-i-Noor and also about the fact that her ancestors hid the diamond that "they" (the Templars) are searching for right now through the DNA. Jot also states that he tried to call his boss Ajay Rana (the one who in the first part of the comic told him not to meddle in affairs that did not concern him) but he was not answering. This also appears to be a contextual sentence, but in some pages will prove to be important for the story. Jot and Monima get out of the hospital and they see a black truck getting closer. Monima says that something's not right, looking at the driver, but in the next panel Jot and Monima appear inside the truck, while it is chased by Abstergo agents on motorcycles. This appears to be very strange as there is no clear explanation about why Jot and Monima go inside the truck, but in the next panel they do not seem to be too scared or anxious, so it's safe to assume that the people convinced them to get inside the truck, even if Monima did not fully trust them. Maybe they told our protagonists to be part of the studios crew or maybe even of MysoreTech. Anyway, we see Jot and Monima aboard the truck and while this goes on a highway around Mumbai, it gets immediately surrounded by Abstergo agents on motorcycles, with their futuristic helmet. The agents do not attack the truck, though, as if they are expecting something. They don't have to wait too much though, as a figure can be seen from a street overlapping the highway. The figure jumps (off-screen) on the top of the truck and the man sitting next to Monima and Jot starts giving orders through his earpiece to "Unit 3". He orders to "track topside" (on the top of the truck), to "calibrate for ghosts and synch" and to "head point-eight and accelerate". Apparently strange words, which will be clearer in a moment. The following panel shows what one of the agents sees through his helmet after activating it (the difference between activated and not activated can be seen in the color of the dialogue bubbles). The agent looks at the figure on the top of the truck and he synchs his helmet, resolving the "ghost signals" (meaning, probably, searching for signals reading through the camouflage of the figure) like the man in the truck said and thanks to this he is finally able to see a red outline of the man who jumped on the truck. What we also see from the following panel is our agent, standing on the motorbike and pointing the antenna on his helmet towards the figure. This is potentially what the man inside the truck meant with "head point and accelerate". Our agent confirms the identity of the figure as Jasdip Dhami, calling him "Code A00863" and from what we can see from the following page, it's our Assassin, Siobhan's brother. This gives us an interesting piece of information and also the occasion to examine it in-depth thanks to the Encyclopedia 3.0. First, we have a name for the Assassins who abducted Jot, at last, that is Jasdip and Siobhan Dhami and, as the Encyclopedia explains, they were part of a family who had been part of the Assassins for many generations. The Encyclopedia also mentions as additional information, that Siobhan was more a "technological" Assassin than an operative one, while Jasdip - also called "Jazz" - was more action oriented than his sister and a consummate biker (we keep seeing that in the comic) and that he secretly dreamed to become a superstar. Going back to the chase, considering Jasdip's attack, it is also possible to better understand what just happened and what is going to happen. Monima was right when she felt there was something wrong with the truck and the men inside it. Knowing that they are all Abstergo agents, it's even more strange that it's not explained how Jot and Monima were convinced to jump in (were they forcefully abducted?). Anyway, the most important thing is that in our opinion all the orders by the man have as objective the detection of Jasdip, and this confirms how powerful in terms of camouflage is his suit, but at the same time how the Templars found the technology to detect it (the ghost signals, maybe through the antenna) and also to detect its user from a database ("Code A00863"). Going back to the action, Jasdip is identified by the Abstergo agents (it's still unknown how they know his name), but that doesn't nearly mean that he is any less dangerous for them. He in fact is able to dispose of all of the Abstergo agents while they are speeding through the highway and also to steal one of their bikes. This also pushes the agents inside the truck to fight with Jasdip, but the Assassin shoots the tires of the truck, causing it to change its direction and to steer abruptly towards the guard rail, making it fall for several meters into the water of what is confirmed by the Encyclopedia to be the Mithi River, which flows in the bay of Mumbai.
Jot then is taken out of the truck while he still is in shock at the realization that while he is being saved, he's leaving Monima there to die (again, he probably feels very guilty because of that night in which he said he had Assassin ancestors). As soon as they resurface, Jot is consumed by pain and anger at Jasdip because he did not save Monima. Of course Jasdip can't do anything for Jot, who keeps thinking of Monima, but after what happened Jasdip decides they have to immediately flee from that place and so in the last panel of the page we see the two riding Jasdip's "new" motorbike.
Jasdip tells Dinesh they are empty-handed and Jot isn't the heir. It was all for nothing. Despite this brief "report", Jasdip put his sister's finger on the counter and reports that he cleaned the scene and didn't leave traces, specifically DNA, from which Abstergo could find them. A mandatory work, otherwise, as pointed out by Dinesh, they would have to dismiss him from his operative status. Pausing for a moment on the scene of the severed finger, we tried to understand that event, clearly highlighted by the creators of the comic. Why did he cut off his sister's finger before making her explode to clean, moreover, the scene of her death? If we assume that the Brotherhood is by now the equivalent of a secret paramilitary organization, we can find particular analogies with cults and similar governmental organizations. The reasons why Jasdip cleaned the scene are explained in a very clarifying way by himself. Since he and his sister share the same genome, leaving even the smallest trace to the Templars would have meant leaving them a group of memories (of operative Assassins) that would have damaged the memories' owner and the Brotherhood itself. Abstergo would have obtained several useful information for its secret war as well as all the personal details about the memories' owner. So, as it happens also in the governmental organizations (or also in the civil ones like the police), if an agent is personally involved or compromised, the rule is to dismiss him or her from the assignment to minimize future damages. The Encyclopedia 3.0, as we mentioned before, confirms that the Dhamis have been Assassins for generations, so it's easy to imagine the ramifications of their genetic memories. While what we said until now has a purely practical nature, the cutting of the finger can have more than one potential meaning. The Encyclopedia helps us with this interpretation, saying that Jasdip cut off Siobhan's finger, "following the Brotherhood's procedure about the saving DNA". In support of this, Dinesh mentions a certain "library" (is it a facility similar to the Library of Ivan the Terrible in The Chain, or simply an online database?) where he'll have Siobhan's remains delivered. In the face of this explanation of the Encyclopedia we wondered, however, why Jasdip had to take exactly a whole finger, considering that he could take a blood sample or a lock of hair to archive his sister's DNA. We have a couple of hypotheses. The finger may, for example, represent a commemorative legacy to the fallen, just as the name of a soldier is carved on the walls dedicated to the fallen. As an alternative, the severed finger may, in its own small way, also be a simple proof of his sister's death. Many Assassins betrayed the Brotherhood for the Templar cause, like Daniel and Lucy, and a certain paranoia is more than justifiable. A paranoia that can be easily satisfied with a physical proof of the death of the assassin in question. These are only hypotheses, but surely the action of cutting the finger must have an explanation that we hope, sooner or later, will be clarified. Going back to the story, after mentioning the Library, Dinesh adds, with regret, that it (the mission) shouldn't have happened that way, also because Jasdip wears a suit intended to give him some advantages. Advantages that we saw and dealt with before. But Jadsip confirms us that these suits are already obsolete, since now Abstergo implemented these new advanced viewers seen in action during the chase on the highway. While the two Assassins talk, Jot sneaks in the back of the shop where he finds a PC station connected to the Abstergo Cloud. The interesting and shocking fact (and also hard to notice) is that the Assassins apparently logged onto Abtsergo servers through an agent's ID, Rana A. : Abstergo CLOUD Service Online USER: Rana A. CLEARANCE LEVEL: Agent Ready: _
After logging in without even asking, Jot can finally access Monima's genetic sequences, and he does it to watch a collection of recent memories in which we see the couple in what seems to be a previous vacation labeled as memory block 2.95. The two Assassins, noticing the absence of the guy, rush in the other room of the hideout and find him tormented by pain in front of the screen.
Dinesh promptly suggests to upload this data to a portable device and delete them immediately from the Abstergo Cloud. We don't know if it's already too late, considering that the data was already on the portal for a week, but we also have to consider that the Templars didn't try to kidnap Monima until she was “by chance" with Jot in Mumbai. Also, Dinesh adds an important piece of information, in other words that if Templar had been able to find the diamond and bring it near another Piece of Eden, the Assassins (and maybe the rest of the world) would have been "fucked". This means that the Koh-i-Noor can show a part or maybe all of its potential thanks to a single Piece of Eden, and in the case of Templars this action shouldn't be too hard to accomplish. Dinesh also asks if it's possible to have access to the woman and that it would be convenient to collect her before Abstergo, but Jasdip's and Jot's silence clarifies the impossibility of his request. Time is running out and the Abstergo agents are already nearby. The two Assassins, hypothesizing a short margin of time, hurry to prepare their equipment and upload Monima's genetic data to a smartphone. Meanwhile Dinesh apologizes to Jot and, besides offering his condolences for his loss, explains that probably thanks to him, and Monima's genetic sequence, the Brotherhood and the whole world are saved. Interrupted by Jadsip's brutality in highlighting that “We've all lost people today ", Dinesh goes back to the console to delete the data on the Abstergo Cloud and, going backwards in Monima's memories, finds a safe point from which to start deleting the whole genetic sequence. A panel of the page shows us a very interesting detail. An Assassin woman. An Assassin woman who, as we know, already appeared in The Fall, when Daniel Cross visits all the Assassin hideouts between 1998 and 2000. In Ubisoft productions a detail like that is never left to chance. So a question arises... Who is she?
What we can do is examine that picture and the corresponding one in The Fall. The first obvious thing is the direct lineage of Monima. If we consider that the period in which we see the woman occurred 13/15 years before the events of the present day of Brahman, we can quickly assume that the woman may be Monima's mother. If we observe the details characterizing the desert location, like the camel, roman villa of El-Djem in Tunisia).
Once again the Encyclopedia supports this theory saying, about Monima's origins, that: She was born into a well-off family, and both her parents were university professors who accepted positions all over the world as Monima was growing up. Monima spent her childhood being shunted around different parts of the world, because of her parents' commitments, before placed in a large boarding school in Mumbai. This excerpt supports, as we said, the theory that Monima's mother may be the Assassin woman in The Fall, as the career of the university professor traveling to obtain positions around the world would have been an excellent cover for the activity of an Assassin. We have, moreover, to consider that soon after the appearance of this Assassin woman in The Fall, Daniel Cross kills the Mentor in 2000, marking the beginning of the
Such a kinship by Monima involves several questions without answers. Is it possible that the Assassins, so involved in the search for the gem, didn't know about the lineage of this Assassin woman? And is it possible that Monima didn't know anything about her mother's (and eventually her father's) connections with the Assassins? Are there connections between Arbaaz and Pyara and this possible mother of Monima (we mean the handing down of documents or objects – among which maybe the diamond – not genetic connections)? Dinesh eventually chooses the point from which deleting the data by returning to the original point of the memories stored on the Cloud , which is the moment in 1839 when Arbaaz knows Pyara. From here, we jump back into the past again (this time not through the Brahman but, as we’ll see, while deleting Monima’s memories) , and we find Arbaaz in a fight against the Maharaja’s guards which are completely unaware of who the real enemy is, that is Cotton. Pyara reaches her grandfather, Ranjit Singh, and she realizes that he's succumbing to the effects of the poison. The Maharaja , now in the last moments of his life, regrets having trusted the British who did not deserve it and for this reason he feels to have failed in his Marahaja duty. He is convinced that this mistake cost him his life and that, together with him, the rest of India would have to pay the price for it. The granddaughter replies that she can save his life and shows him the Koh-i -Noor , but Singh, looking at the gem, asks the girl to run away with the jewel because she will certainly be pursued and sought after by the British (and by the Templars) and his uncles have not the strength to hold their empire , especially in front of such a strong enemy. In the Maharaja’s opinion, Pyara’s escape with the diamond, on the contrary, would have protected India, albeit at the cost of making the Punjab fall, and so his last words are "Go and never return". Meanwhile, Arbaaz continues to fight the guards, although being superior to them in combat. And in the meantime, we see the useless escape attempt by the princess, who is immediately blocked by Cotton who mocks her. Cotton is ready to stab her when young Raza takes action to stop him, he slashes his face with his hands and draws his attention. Cotton gets easily rid of Raza too and he decides for him to be his first victim, but just as he is about to do it, Pyara screams "No!" and holds the Koh-i-Noor, activating it. A beam of light is emitted from the gemstone, wrapping Pyara and transforming her in what seems to be a member of TWCB. The "deity", suspended in the air, talks immediately and speaks in front of all those present in disbelief: "We are one of many, but essential to the unity of all. Splintered though we may appear within the limited notion of the moment, we exist as one, as we always have and always will. You have been fragmented, children, but know that you are also whole. Do not allow your concept of time to act as a paralyzing veil when the fate of all you hold dear rests in your hands. We speak through this vessel to you, this time and medium an anchor that we might commune. We must exist freely at all points for your race, our children, to exist and remain free. Shroud this intelligent lens until you become united and can realize this heart, our heart, to be the one that endowed you precious breath. And never doubt the lengths to which we will go to protect what is precious to us." In the throes of a mixture of wonder and fear, Cotton, in a first moment, shoots several times toward the TWCB member, obviously without effect. Right after, always more and more frightened, he aims towards the Koh-i-Noor and this time he succeeds and shatters the gem into pieces. In front of the eyes of Arbaaz, the deity, while screaming, releases a massive wave of light and energy as it came out straight from her body and that wave then takes the shape of a tiger, as previously seen. A tiger which attacks Cotton, marking relentlessly his fate. At this point, the scene starts breaking down into pixels with the Animus in the background, allowing us to see some glimpses of the past. We see Arbaaz and Raza who survived by jumping into the nearby fountain, the princess on her knees and unconscious, all the others dead by electrocution and the Koh-I-Noor shattered. The last available picture depicts Arbaaz close to the princess. Now, before moving on, let's analyze what we saw in these few pages full of information and questions, especially about the member of TWCB. Let’s begin with the shape that Pyara took after the activation of the diamond. As previously said, in the article "The Indian matter" written by our Hephaestus during the past summer, we interpreted the artwork of Monima dressed up as goddess as a representation of Durga in a TWCB version. Seeing the representation of the true member of TWCB of Brahman, however , it seems that we were not so far from reality. Pyara’s shape as a deity resembles a lot the goddess at issue, and the similarities we described, erroneously related to the dressed-up Monima in our previous article, can also be applied in this case, especially with regard to the headgears comparison. Moreover in this case there is an additional detail hidden in the aesthetics of our member of TWCB which supports the idea of Durga. At the center of the chest there is an oval shaped plate that seems to be inspired by the gem that Durga shows in many existing pieces of iconography.
Up to now all the TWCB we saw and their religious representations had a purely human aspect and that was rather legitimate, being that, in the AC plot, men have been " engineered " (or forcedly evolved) in their likeness and with - almost - their same senses. With the Indian setting and the ancient cave discovered by Arbaaz below the Summer Palace, this time we are facing more "picturesque" representations of the Precursors. It 's the first time we see a TWCB member with a higher number of arms and with an animalistic aspect. It is possible that these changes in appearance were meant to inspire more respect or fear towards the human beings around them and that these peculiarities have been handed down in myths and legends, as often happens in the AC franchise. On this basis, our hypothesis is that Durga, using Pyara as a vessel, showed herself with appropriate features in order to exert a greater effect on those around her, and therefore she may have adapted her image to the social-religious context for the historical period. The alternative would provide us the confirmation that the TWCB members could have physical forms different from those we previously saw and that would raise additional questions without answers. What also needs to be considered is that TWCB always passed on their cryptic messages using an "altered" form compared with their more "human" aspect. In fact, the ones who inspired the Etruscan / Greek / Roman Pantheon (Jupiter / Minerva / Juno) always showed themselves as Giants, when actually we see in AC3 that they were not much taller than humans. In Brahman, therefore, the four arms of the member of TWCB could be the equivalent of the "giant form", with the intention of generating astonishment and the intention of listening in the recipients of the message. The confirmation of what happens , also, comes once again from the Encyclopedia 3.0 which states: "A goddess-like being from the First Civilization spoke through her (the princess), delivering a message imploring humans to come together and stay in communication with the Precursors."
"We are one of many, but essential to the unity of all. Splintered though we may appear within the limited notion of the moment, we exist as one, as we always have and always will." The beginning of the monologue seems to refer to a specific group, that is the First Civilization if we consider who is talking. There is also the possibility, however, that sharing the same body, the words are spoken simultaneously by both the "goddess" and the princess. The member of TWCB seems to suggest the idea that each individual, although being separate from the others, was essential to the balance of the group / society of the First Civilization, an hypothesis that can be applied both to TWCB and human beings. As an alternative, this idea could be attributed to the Pieces of Eden too, or, even better, to the connection between the Koh- I-Noor and the other PoEs. This thought, already mentioned by Hamid while showing Arbaaz the parchment, referred to the way in which the PoEs are all connected to each other (an idea already seen in the AC games too - we remind you Clay's sentence in the glyphs "The Pieces were once part of a whole") as a part of a whole. In both cases, therefore, the message indicates that, although they appear as individuals / Pieces of Eden they were "born" as a whole, a single entity / group / society, and that it will always be so. (In favour of easy speculations, you can sense how the speech is focusing on the idea of unity. Unity. Could this be a little hint to the next game and so a connection with the next AC game plot and subtitle?) "You have been fragmented, children, but know that you are also whole. Do not allow your concept of time to act as a paralyzing veil when the fate of all you hold dear rests in your hands." Here Durga (for simplicity we will refer to the member of TWCB with this name, although there is not a definitive confirmation) refers explicitly to humans, comparing them with TWCB. She clearly explains that men are now fragmented, separated from each other, in endless contrast as if they had no choice. The never-ending wars between humans are the clearest demonstration of the truthfulness of the "goddess"' words. Durga begs the humans to stop being paralyzed by the limited conception/ duration of their time, especially considering that their fate lies in their hands. Here the goddess is ambiguous, she seems to recommend humans not to give up and not to become slaves of their limits because they / their hands hold the power to control their destiny. A philosophical construct that could also be another reference to the Pieces of Eden, such powerful objects that could change their fate (and in fact, in the AC plot, the PoEs have already influenced the outcomes of several important moments in the history of mankind).
“I had hoped you might find this place - and finish our work. But it is too late. You and the Templars have squabbled over our refuse. You have wasted centuries. And so you have lost your chance. You cannot hope to stop the end now, Desmond. Only to survive it.” In this speech Minerva accused the humans of getting distracted in the wars between them when, if they had been all united and with the legacy of TWCB (the Pieces of Eden), they would have been able to control their fate and survive the incoming cataclysm. Indeed there is also the possibility that Durga refers to the catastrophe of 2012. "We speak through this vessel to you, this time and medium an anchor that we might commune.” Durga talks using Pyara as a container / vessel and she says that this historical period and this vessel, which is the medium through which she speaks (being it Pyara or even the diamond) function as an anchor that allows her to communicate with the humans. The goddess uses the verb “to commune” and not "to talk" or “to communicate” because it indicates not only the action itself but also the establishment of a deeper spiritual contact. The importance of this word comes from the fact that this is not the first time we find it in the AC franchise. The verb "to commune" is, in fact, used both by Minerva and Juno in the previous AC installments. Minerva used it in Assassin's Creed 2: You've played your part. You anchor him, but please be silent! That we may commune.
Juno, on the other hand, used the verb "commune" in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood: Your DNA communes with the Apple. You have activated it. Juno in this case used the term "commune" to explain to Desmond his connection with the Apple when his genetic fingerprint activated it, establishing a deeper contact with it. “We must exist freely at all points for your race, our children, to exist and remain free." In this case too, Durga’s speech could hide a double meaning. If we relate the sentence to the PoEs, the goddess is, then, saying that they must exist in any place and time so that men could remain free, but at this point, we would have to try and understand how the PoEs, just by existing, could ensure freedom for men. If the member of TWCB, on the other hand, is referring to herself and to the others of her species, then she is saying that TWCB must continue to live freely (and therefore in whichever form?) so that men could remain free. Is it possible, then, that what she’s trying to explain is that TWCB are responsible for the freedom of men? Could it be that somehow some other survived TWCBs are fighting Juno’s plans?
"Shroud this intelligent lens until you become united and can realize this heart, our heart, to be the one that endowed you precious breath. And never doubt the lenghts to which we will go to protect what is precious to us." Terms such as "shroud" and "lens" are very peculiar, and depending on the context, they may take on different meanings. “Shroud” could mean to veil, conceal, cover. Where the structure of the sentence permits it, it could also be used to mean “to surround”. Always considering the context, “Lens” could indicate an observation lens/glass as much as a more figurative perspective. In our own small way, therefore, we tried to find the more appropriate meaning in this particular sentence. Trying to simplify, it seems that Durga is suggesting to protect the Koh-i-Noor, until men will be united and will understand that this instrument, or by extension the other PoEs, were the sources that gave them life. Durga also adds that men should have no doubts about how far TWCB could push themselves in order to protect what is dear to them, that is men, who she previously called "children". Durga’s speech, though, is probably not revolving around the gem but around freedom, as we explained in the latest interpretation of the previous excerpt. And starting from this point here, our minds began to blow. We tried to get the characterization of TWCB in order to offer you another key to understand this portion of the monologue which could take on deep and philosophical meanings while gathering much of the First Civilization’s ideology that we already saw in the previous chapters. Starting from the "threefold" idea of freedom (referring to TWCB, Pieces of Eden and humans) shown in the previous part of the monologue, Durga's words could be reinterpreted in the following way. Humans should guard (shroud) this perspective (lens) of the aforementioned absolute freedom until their peoples become united, without differences and separations. Only in that case they will be able to see that this "heart", the vision of total freedom, it is also the "heart", the feeling, of TWCB. This perspective, then, would be the reason why men are living (what made them breathe), a legacy by TWCB who, Durga says, would do anything in order to protect the humankind. Now , we do not have the arrogance to say that this is the real meaning that has to be attributed to Durga's speech, but we think that the philosophy of TWCB (or at least some of them ), their way of thinking and understanding reality is extremely deep. This same argument could be so deep as to touch and converge in this one parallelism between freedom, survival , hope for life and artifacts of Eden that can allow, help and shape this freedom that we are talking about. This would then be a monologue about life and hope in life, which would give a high importance to everything that TWCB (those which are on the humans' side) have made for men, and to all the speeches by Tinia and co. and to their attempts to preserve the existence of man in spite of a cataclysm far millennia from them. Not surprisingly, therefore , the humans in the AC saga continue to be the protagonists of the attempts by TWCB to protect them, appearances and interactions of the Precursors which arise in an apparently random way but which always show to be decisive in those particular moments. After this huge philosophical explanation it is perhaps better to get back down to earth and continue with the analysis of events in the present day. We therefore witness the deletion of Monima's memories and the raid into the safehouse by the Abstergo agents. Jadsip is worried because he ignores the number of agents that he must fight with, but Dinesh reassures him by claiming to be able to download the memories on a smartphone, and that on the Abstergo Cloud everything will look like a dead end. Jasdip answers by telling Dinesh to bring the phone to the safehouse of Badlapur (a town about 50 km from Mumbai), possibly taking into account that now the hideout in Mumbai is compromised. The two Assassins are ready to run away with the memories, despite Jot's complaints, but just at that moment a laser beam passes through Dinesh's skull while Jadsip narrowly dodges another one, which is used to create an opening on the armored door.
Getting out from the other end of the tunnel, inside another store, Jot wraps a turban around his face and gets lost in the Indian crowd, under the unsuspecting eyes of the Templar agents that keep on assaulting the hideout, which we see immediately after, with the shooting which by now has ended.
The leader of the raid team is analyzing the memories saved in the cloud, and falling into Dinesh's deception, believes that the memories are useless, given that they end with the explosion of the Koh-I-Noor. At that point, the man contacts a colleague of his named Kohler to inform him, presenting himself as Berg. Otso Berg. At last the comic book reveals the guest star that we talked about at the end of the first part of this article. It is a character that that anyone who played AC4 will already be familiar with, and who is well known by all the users of AC: Initiates. Otherwise, for those who do now know him, Juhani Otso Berg is one of the most important members of the present day Templar Order, so much as to be member of the Inner Sanctum.
Born in Mikkeli, Finland on June 17, 1985, before joining the Templars he was part of the Utti Jaeger Regiment, Finland's special forces. We know from AC: Initiates that he was part of the second stage of the Animi Training program, which means that he took part in the first stage too, and that took place between the second part of September and the second part of October 2012 (so that may possibly be the moment in which he joined the Abstergo ranks). He completed the second stage on December 6th, 2012, but in this period he didn't just participate in the program.
In the end of November 2012 the Florentine Assassin Harlan T. Cunningham infiltrated the Italian Abstergo campus, killing four hackers and some guards, and destroying the servers so that the Templars could not locate the position of William's team in Turin. Berg went on tailing Cunningham and had the audacity to contradict the orders by his bosses so that he could follow Cunningham to his base instead of killing him directly. Berg's bosses accepted his suggestion, and gave him the leadership of an entire team, Team Sigma. Team Sigma attacked the Assassin base in Florence and killed almost all of the Assassins until the moment in which their leader, Adriano Maestranzi made the entire place blow up with himself. This action killed in turn all of Team Sigma except Berg, who got part of the left side of his face permanently burnt, but in the end accomplished his mission.
An ever-ascending career, then, which led Berg to be the top Abstergo operative (way more "stable" than Daniel Cross) and also a member of the Inner Sanctum, but this did not stop him from working on the field and his mission in India is more than enough to prove it. We can also safely hypothesize that, considering his position, Berg was the leader of the entire operation concerning the retrieval of the Brahman VR and "technically" he was successful even this time. In fact he killed the Assassins (we are not sure about Jasdip), storming their hideout and making sure that the Brotherhood didn't have any solid information about the Koh-i-Noor location - or at least that is what he believes. The attack on the Assassin hideout, then, ends with Berg communicating to this "Kohler", probably his contact at the Abstergo base, that the data that the Assassins possessed lead to a dead end (thanks to Dinesh) and that "the unit is cooked". This last sentence is a possible reference to what is later shown, that is the Brahman VR, which got destroyed in the attack. The action is over for the comic book, but there is still room for a proper finale for Jot. Our protagonist, in fact, on the following day, goes back to the place where Monima died while the black truck is being lifted from the depths of the Mithi river. The comic book shows us not only that now Jot is wearing Monima's engagement ring as a pendant (remember? Monima gave him the ring before flying to Mumbai), but also that the diamond on the ring is *very shiny*. It is the same exact light blue shimmer that the original Koh-i-Noor had, and it is shown intentionally in the very last pages, obviously driving the reader to think that now Jot owns a tiny bit of the original Piece of Eden (the diamond on top of the ring is way smaller than the original diamond). Jot looks at the truck, crying, and then uses his smartphone, where all of Monima's memories were updated. He chooses to see Monima's own memories of when he gave her the engagement ring, probably because after what happened, that is one of the fondest memories that he has of her. Through the smartphone we see then Jot and Monima, getting drinks on a sunny sea shore. Jot suggests her to never leave that place and from those words he starts making his wedding proposal and even here, when Jot opens the box containing the ring, the diamond on its top shines of a light blue light, while behind the panels there is an enormous picture of the Koh-i-Noor diamond. The last page of the comic brings us back to the past, exactly after Cotton shattered the original Koh-i-Noor. In the following moments we see that all the little fragments of the diamond get attracted to each other up to the point in which the diamond gets restored (this is also confirmed by the Encyclopedia), Terminator 2 style. These last pages bring with them a whole lot of new confirmations and questions. For sure now we get the confirmation that even if the diamond was shattered, Arbaaz and Pyara were able to hide it somewhere, following the advice of the dying Maharaja. This also means that when Jasdip said that they hid it from the Assassins, he was telling the truth, so it is very likely that they hid it in a place only known by them (Pyara, Arbaaz and maybe Raza) and their descendants. So our next question is: how did the diamond change shape and how did Jot receive it? What we know for certain is that the diamond was made whole again but, to have the shape that it has in Jot's ring, it either changed shape or it is a fragment of the original one. About how Jot received it, the most likely hypothesis is that he got it through his ancestor Raza. Considering that Arbaaz, Pyara and probably Raza hid the diamond, we can hypothesize that Arbaaz would have been hunted down by his Brotherhood exactly like Nikolai Orelov, while Pyara was the daughter of the dead Maharaja, so she would have been a living target too. Raza would then have been the best candidate to hide and protect the diamond and that's how it could have gotten to Jot, two hundred years later.
Also, what is going to happen to the Brahman Project? We know for sure thanks to AC: Initiates that as of December 20th, 2013 the Osaka Assassins were in possession of a Brahman VR unit, as mentioned in the "A New Kind of War" memory, because they stole it from a nearby Abstergo facility. From the memory we get to know that the Mentor of the Osaka Assassins, Osoroshii Baba, gave Gavin the Brahman VR Unit, which as of now should still be in his hands, aboard the Altair II. Considering that it was said more than once that Brahman would have provided us with hints towards the future of the AC franchise, hopefully we will find the answers to all of those questions. Until then, stay with us!
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 Looking through the Brahman - Part 1  The Indian matter |
