Shaun Hastings

Shaun Hastings is a member of the modern day Assassin Brotherhood. Working as an analyst and researcher, he is responsible for compiling and maintaining the knowledge archives of the Animus 2.0. Additionally, he provides tactical support and intelligence to Assassin cells around the world. While the nature of Shaun's work is mostly cerebral and he spends much of his time behind a desk rather than in the field, his contribution is instrumental in the ongoing race between Assassins and Templars to secure the remaining Pieces of Eden.

As a teenager, Shaun displayed a strong interest in unexplained phenomenon and historical mysteries. He was curious, often to the point of recklessness, and his fascination with conspiracy theories made him eventually cross path with Abstergo Industries. Shaun's investigation led him to believe the company was conducting dubious activities and concealing the truth from the public. Using the pseudonym "Guy Fawkes" - after the English rebel responsible for the 1605 Gunpowder Plot - he broadcasted his suspicions across the internet, on message boards and newsgroups in a campaign to uncover facts and increase public awareness. He thus revealed a great deal of information Abstergo would have preferred kept secret, including names and leaders of various classified projects, secret corporate divisions and, perhaps most importantly, evidence that implicated the company several dangerous experiments. This, of course, drew the attention of the Assassin Brotherhood and the Templar Order.

Templar reprisal was swift. On December 10, 2010, Abstergo agents, acting under the orders of CEO Alan Rikkin, apprehended Shaun. The Assassins, however, had kept Shaun in their sights, and Rebecca Crane - a member of the Brotherhood - rescued him.

Shaun was brought into the Brotherhood following his escape. While grateful to Rebecca for her timely intervention, he justified his allegiance to the Brotherhood with pragmatism, believing that being an Assassin saved him from a life of hiding from the Templars.

Shaun's feeling toward Assassin methodology is ambivalent, however. Between the Brotherhood and the Templar Order, he believes the Assassins to be the lesser of two evils. He does not wholly support their ease with taking lives, nor does he totally accept their justifications for the necessity of murder. Despite his unconventional philosophy, Shaun remains a valued member of the Brotherhood. With his natural talent for analyzing information, his breadth of historical knowledge and experience conducting research, he provides the organization with a great deal of intelligence and tactical support for Assassins in the field. He is also trusted around the globe, being the tactical lifeline of at least one Assassin cell in San Paolo.

Shaun is part of a small group of Assassins operating in Italy. He and his colleagues - Rebecca Crane and Lucy Stillman - assisted in the training of Desmond Miles through the Animus 2.0, allowing him to unlock the abilities of his ancestor, Ezio Auditore. Shaun functioned as a historian and researcher, compiling useful database entries to support Desmond's synchronization with the memories of his ancestor. Shaun's natural talent for cryptanalysis also proved useful in investigating encoded messages scattered within the Animus software by Subject 16, Desmond's predecessor.

Shaun continued to provide historical expertise toward Desmond's efforts in the Animus during the move to the abandoned Assassin Sanctuary in the ruins of Villa Auditore, in Monteriggioni, maintaining relative calm despite the stressful situation. During this time, he was also responsible for relaying information between other Assassin cells, monitoring their progress and providing tactical support. He corresponded via e-mail with an Assassin named William M, aiding him in observing Assassins around the world, particularly those operating in San Paolo, Moscow and Tokyo. Shaun also functioned as an information filter; he was often the first to know the whereabouts and status of other Assassin teams, and would be trusted to conceal this information from his own colleagues, as necessary.

Shaun's maintenance of the Animus's historical archives also helped Desmond navigate his ancestor's memories to discover the presence of a vault beneath the Santa Maria Aracoeli, which could be accessed from the Colosseum in Rome. However, it was his gift for abstract thinking and his wealth of historical knowledge that allowed him to decipher the password guarding the vault; Shaun and his colleagues were therefore the first to lay eyes on the Apple of Eden hidden within this vault in over five centuries.

The death of Lucy Stillman at Desmond's hand was understandably traumatic for Shaun, and William Miles' return and rescue of his son was at first met with outright hostility on his part. With Lucy dead, Shaun and Rebecca nevertheless turned to William as an interim leader for their cell. However, his sole focus on Desmond and his refusal to acknowledge that he might have been a plant angered the young archivist, who still mourned his friend's death. Shaun remained behind to organize Lucy's burial before joining the others on their flight to New York, where new identities provided by William allowed them and their charge safe passage into the city.

Shaun's investigations into the First Civilization proved invaluable to the Assassin Brotherhood as he discovered that three batteries were needed in order to gain further entry into the Temple and save the world. Subsequently, he hacked into the Abstergo network to locate them.

Shaun guided Desmond to the first power source, located in the penthouse of a Manhattan skyscraper. Despite the danger involved in breaking and entering, Shaun insisted that there was no other way to obtain it, given the time constraints. Following Desmond's first successful retrieval, Shaun located another power source in Brazil.

Shortly after detecting the third and final power source, Shaun learned that the Templars had captured Desmond's father, William Miles, and taken him to Abstergo's facility in Italy, the same compound where Desmond was kept previously. Shaun joined the mission to rescue Miles and recover the artifact.

While searching for the power sources, Desmond Miles was reliving genetic memories from his ancestors to locate a Piece of Eden. During the American Revolutionary War, Desmond's ancestor Haytham Kenway and his son Connor were in possession of an extremely powerful amulet. Shaun was shocked when he discovered that Haytham Kenway was a Templar.

Shaun also learned from Subject 16 that George Washington, leader of the American Revolutionary movement, might have been in contact with an Apple of Eden after the War for Independence. His research was crucial in recovering the Pieces of Eden from that era.

Shaun took notice of various natural signals that suggested the decay of the planet Earth and was aware of the dangers involved in trying to prevent the end of the world. Moreover, the Templars actively obstructed his efforts at every turn.

Ultimately, Shaun provided Desmond with the tools and knowledge to enter the Temple of the First Civilization and decide the fate of the world.

[Source: Assassin's Creed Encyclopedia v. 2]

The historian in Desmond's Assassin cell structure, Shaun was a university lecturer whose radical views had him ejected from the ivory towers of academia. His intellectual prowess made him an ideal recruit for the Assassins, who needed somebody to reconcile accepted historical accounts with their knowledge of secret Templar influence on world events. Shaun puts his remarkable command of dates, people and cultural minutiae to work and maintains the Animus Database, offering assistance to Assassin agents with real-time research.

[Source: Assassin's Creed III Collector's Guide]


Rebecca Crane

Unlike most Assassins, Rebecca Crane was not born into the Brotherhood. Instead, she was actively recruited for her technical skills, which were supplemented by rigorous combat training upon her induction into the ranks of the Assassins. Within her team, Rebecca holds a support role alongside Shaun Hastings. Despite the dire circumstances that she and her team found themselves in, Rebecca remained a very optimistic and outgoing person. Friendly with her teammates and quick to joke, she sometimes seemed immature despite how seriously she took their mission and her work.

Before joining the Order, Rebecca was very athletic, with an affinity for extreme snowboarding. She eventually broke her leg, and in her inactivity developed an interest in computers and coding. The self-taught expertise was what led to her eventual recruitment into the Brotherhood. With her programming skills and some schematics smuggled out of Abstergo by teammate Lucy Stillman, Rebecca was able to design and construct the Animus 2.0. In addition to providing technical support to the Assassins, she was responsible for the maintenance of the device's hardware, and was often seen around the safe house fiddling with the Animus or working on the computers hooked up to the machine.

Rebecca has used the Animus herself, but claimed to have found the experience boring, having no interest in reliving the memories of a Prussian mercenary ancestor. Unlike her teammate Shaun, who was rather skeptical in his views on the Assassins' purpose and methods, Rebecca fully believed in what the Brotherhood was trying to achieve. While she would readily admit that the methods of the Assassins were not ideal, she held true to the principle that sometimes people have die for things to change.

Rebecca was directly involved in Shaun's recruitment into the Brotherhood. Shaun had been tracking Abstergo, and therefore the Templars, since he was a teenager, and attempted to spread the word about their activities. When Abstergo sent a security detail to apprehend him, Rebecca intervened, saving his life. The Assassins recognized his talents and recruited him into the Order. Since then, Rebecca and Shaun have worked very closely together.

Following Desmond Miles' escape from Abstergo Industries, Rebecca spent a lot of her time working with him as he relived Ezio Auditore's memories through the Animus. When the team encountered corrupted files or memories within the device - like the ones left behind by Subject 16 - Rebecca worked to piece them together, thus helping Desmond. Though he was a new addition to the team, Rebecca was supportive of Desmond. She often stood up for him and showed concern over his well-being after spending time in the Animus.

Rebecca remained with Desmond after Lucy's death, missing her friend's funeral in order to ensure that Desmond's mind would not fracture further while he was placed in the Animus. She traveled with William Miles without protest - her emotional stability during this time a clear display of her ability to integrate into the Assassin lifestyle.

Rebecca continues to be an important member of the Assassin Brotherhood, updating the Animus software so that when Desmond re-entered the machine to experience the genetic memories of Connor, it was easier to navigate.

Her participation was vital in supporting Desmond's missions. She created a small camera drone that followed Desmond during his missions to find power sources. Moreover, she helped Desmond enter the Manhattan skyscraper without tripping any Templar security systems so that they could acquire the first power source.

Rebecca and Shaun then found another battery in Brazil, establishing that a spectator in a Brazilian stadium was wearing the artifact as a bracelet. Rebecca's work was important in locating the device quickly and moving on to other missions.

Rebecca directly contributed to the success of many Assassin missions Not only by supporting Desmond by creating distractions to help him infiltrate high-risk locations, but also by gathering intelligence that led Desmond to his encounters with Juno and Minerva, members of the First Civilization.

[Source: Assassin's Creed Encyclopedia v. 2]

Rebecca is the technician in Desmond's Assassin cell structure. Her parallel development of the Animus technology has enabled the Assassins to stay abreast of advances made by the Templars. She must often work with stolen and salvaged components to keep her team's equipment functioning - testament to her remarkable resourcefulness. A geek and a technophile, Rebecca's interest in hacking, and her mastery of counter-surveillance techniques, enable the Assassins to remain hidden from Templar observation.

[Source: Assassin's Creed III Collector's Guide]


Daniel Cross

Daniel Cross (born 1974) was a late 20th century descendant of the Russian Assassin Nikolai Orelov. Plagued by hallucinations of his ancestor's memories, he became a criminal, as well as a drug addict and alcoholic. Daniel was instrumental in the assassination of the Mentor, the leading member of the modern-day Assassins, and the near-destruction of the Brotherhood in 2000.

Abstergo Industries kidnapped Daniel at an early age. Under the designation Subject 4, his genetic memory was explored and his mind experimented upon by Warren Vidic. The latter implanted Daniel with a false identity and, most importantly, a single impulse: to locate the Mentor and kill him.

The initial phase complete, Daniel was thrown out of the laboratory. A couple driving past found him, but the child could only answer in Russian. Haunted by visions of unknown people speaking in Russian - actually the genetic memories of his ancestor, Nikolai Orelov - Daniel eventually turned to drugs and alcohol. He grew violent and unstable, leading to at least one criminal conviction. After his release, he was ordered by the court to seek treatment, but grew to despise the mind-numbing effects of his medication. After an unpleasant confrontation with his psychiatrist in 1998, he threw the drugs away, embarking on a drinking binge in a bar. Without the medicine, Daniel's hallucinations grew unbearable - he witnessed his ancestor's attempt on the life of Tsar Alexander III, in 1888. Confused, he stumbled out into the street. When a bystander attempted to offer assistance, Daniel accused him of being a Templar and almost stabbed him. Hannah Mueller, a member of the Assassin Brotherhood, intervened, pulling him into a car and driving off.

Hannah believed Daniel to be an Assassin, like her, and was shocked to find out he had no real understanding of the Brotherhood or its enemies, despite having named them in the confrontation on the street. Daniel soon passed out, and when he awoke, he found himself in an Assassin training camp. Hannah took Daniel to the camp's director, Paul Bellamy, and they sought to understand who he was. They found no record of Daniel anywhere in the Assassin's personnel files, yet he had their symbol tattooed upon his wrist and clearly had hallucinations which concerned the Brotherhood. When Daniel had another vision and began to speak the words of his ancestor - including the name "Tunguska" -Paul pressed him for more information. Daniel reacted badly and turned to flee, but was held back by two Assassins. Within moments, Daniel had incapacitated both, forcing Bellamy to threaten him with his hidden blade in order to prevent a deadly altercation. Daniel was then taken back to his room while further investigations were carried out.

That same night, Daniel asked Hannah to let him go back to his apartment to recover his medication; she took him there, but discovered that he had already thrown away the last of his pills. As Daniel broke down, Hannah attempted to console him. They were interrupted by the sudden arrival of Paul, who had discovered from his superior, Bill Miles, that a team of Assassins had been sent to Tunguska in 1908, and that there had been a single survivor - Daniel's great grandfather, Nikolai Orelov. Upon mention of his ancestor's name, Daniel experienced another hallucination. When Paul tried to ascertain the content of the vision, Daniel knocked him down and fled, taking to the rooftops.

Paul and Hannah pursued, as Daniel continued to witness the events of the 1908 mission and their aftermath. Eventually, the images overwhelmed him and he collapsed. But out of the chaos, Daniel suddenly found purpose. As Hannah caught up to him, Daniel revealed that he now knew what he must do: seek the Mentor.

For two years, Daniel traveled across the planet in search of the elusive Mentor. He visited every Assassin facilityhe could find and sought help from every corner. Eventually his search drew attention and, in November 2000, two men broke into his apartment and sedated him. The next morning, Daniel woke up to find himself in Dubai, in the presence of the one he had been looking for.

The Mentor told Daniel that his visions made him a subject of interest for quite some time. He hoped to formally induct Daniel into the Order, and even, perhaps to eventually succeed him as Mentor. He presented Daniel with his own hidden blade, stating that though mainly ceremonial, such weapons were still effective. Daniel put it on, triggering his implanted impulse. Daniel plunged his blade into the Mentor's throat, killing him. He was immediately overwhelmed by guilt and confusion. Hearing voices outside the room, Daniel dived out the window into the sea.

Lost and alone, Daniel eventually made his way back to Abstergo, where he divulged detailed information on the locations of the Assassins' hideouts. Daniel asked only to be allowed to return to the Animus. Exploring the memories of his ancestors, he was finally able to find solace by fleeing reality and the consequences of his actions. With the information Daniel had provided, Abstergo initiated what they dubbed the Great Purge, driving the Assassins to the point of near extinction.

After fourteen months inside the Animus, Dr. Sung monitored uncontrollable brain activity and ordered the machine to be shut down. Daniel woke up, and despite the prolonged exposure in the Animus, did not suffer any neurological damage. Thanks to information he took from the Mentor, the Great Purge was a huge success. His achievements were thoroughly noticed by Abstergo employees.

His precarious condition made it difficult to adapt to his post-Animus life. Daniel developed intense visions where he experienced the memories of his grandfather, Innokenti Orelov - also known as Kenya, reliving the attempts to arrest his ancestor's family during the Parlmer Raids in the 1920s. Soon afterwards, Cross witnessed Kenya's escape with his father Nikolai, and their subsequent life in the remote wilderness of the United States, hidden from the Assassin Brotherhood.

A couple of weeks after being removed from the Animus, Daniel's health drastically improved. He took his medication and was better able to cope with the Bleeding Effect, a consequence of his long-term exposure to the machine. Daniel became a model Templar, instructing new recruits to prepare for future confrontations with the Assassin Brotherhood. He grew comfortable in his new position and enjoyed his work.

However, the Templar Order had other plans for him. Daniel was assigned a mission based on the wealth of information they had acquired over the past two years. He needed to infiltrate the library built by Ivan the Terrible under Moscow's Bolshoi Theater. The Templars believed that the library was used by generations of Assassin leaders as a special repository of artifacts and secret information.

Daniel accessed the library through a series of tunnels underneath the theater. The Assassin guard inside mistook Daniel for his replacement, which granted him access to the Assassin's archive without attracting any suspicion. He also found Ezio Auditore's journals that chronicled his many travels. However, the most precious information brought back to the Templars concerned information about a certain Desmond. These clues represented a major breakthrough for the Templars.

Daniel's next mission was to stop Desmond who was considered detrimental to the Order. Abstergo Industries tracked Desmond's movements while Dr. Warren Vidic established that Desmond was searching for some kind of power source. The Templars sent Daniel to Manhattan not only to prevent Desmond from finding these sources, but also to take the Apple of Eden from him. He tracked Desmond to a penthouse that contained a power source, but Desmond escaped with the device. Daniel was immediately sent to Brazil to prevent Desmond from collecting a second battery.

Daniel's efforts were in vain, as Desmond left Brazil in possession of another power source. Soon afterwards, his mental condition worsened and he returned to Abstergo facilities, as only the Animus could temper the pain.

Desmond arrived at the Abstergo compound in Italy to rescue his father who had been taken by Dr. Vidic. Cross attacked Desmond near the building's elevators and they battled through the rooms and the corridors. During the fight, Daniel experienced intolerable pain, clutching his head and stumbling. Desmond seized the opportunity and killed Daniel with his hidden blade, ending his misery.

[Source: Assassin's Creed Encyclopedia v. 2]