Much Remains Unclear. Probably Forever.

Feminina O'Ladybrain

Nov 2

Spoilers for some story in Assassin's Creed: Mirage

Butch:

Hey, you're right, there are a lot of contracts.

I was feeling it, too! Helped a poet, wasn't seen. Saved a concubine spy, wasn't seen. BOOM! Surgical, man! I am but a ghost!

Then I went to steal a boat and got seen about 27 times. Ah, well. Stole the boat. I'll take two bonuses out of three.

Found an enigma, couldn't make heads or tails of it. Helped a monk read gravestones.

Ali can wait.

Feminina:

Ali's not going anywhere. What's he going to do, start assassinating people himself?

I mean...uh...yes, in a realistic situation he would probably just do that rather than wait around while I took jobs for everyone else in Baghdad, but...

SHUT UP DAG YOU'RE NOT EVEN HERE.

Butch:

HA! Extreme callback to Dag!

Well, Ali is not there anymore. Freed Ali (you're right, that place is a fucking maze). Got the contract that said "Go back to the prison and do whatever" and said "Fuck that, I'm not playing Mafia 3" and didn't do it. Did another contract where some asshole beat me in a race then sent me to a part of the city I haven't been to yet, and I was mad at losing the race so fuck that guy, too. Everything else was far away, so I thought "meh, I'll just go kill Al-Ghul," so I went and killed Al-Ghul.

Then wandered aimlessly towards the next quest objective and hit save.

Have you killed Al-Ghul? For there is stuff on which to chat if you have.

Feminina:

Yes, I have. Do you wish to chat about the 'focus' and the chain assassinations? That seems potentially really great and I immediately dumped skill points into adding slots so I can assassinate more people in a single blur of motion, but I have not actually done it yet aside from that introduction. I was going to once, but there were only three within reach and a bunch more who would have come running, so it seemed like a waste.

Ha! That guy beat me in the race, too. Running sucks in this game. As I find it does in most games where you have to hold L3. It's just awkward. I prefer run to be one of the triggers instead. But L3-run is extremely common, so apparently this dislike is just me and my aged thumbs, or something.

Regardless, I went and did his quest anyway even though he beat me, and it was fine, although the guy I reported to afterwards did make a comment about how I could have been more timely. Look, dude, it's not my fault I suck at running with L3, OK? Get used to me showing up whenever the hell I feel like it.

You're just lucky I didn't go kill Al-Ghul first, like some people would have.

Butch:

Yeah, man. That guy can wait for his damn coins.

Was that what that was? Chain assassinations? I was so confused. Cutscene, then weird, fast tutorial, then me saying "huh?" a lot. What on earth is that? I would certainly love a way to wipe out groups of dudes.

Hopefully that I notice beforehand. Last night's highlight reel death was me, ever so stealthily sneaking by the main gate guards, climbing over them, flipping through a window and landing right smack in the middle of four guards. Right in the middle. I think they were playing bridge and I landed on their table. This was not stealthy.

Well, we can also talk on that cutscene. Al-Ghul there sure seemed to think/know that Basim was not your average Assassin. I was rather surprised by that. All through ACV, it seemed that Basim was the one who was one step ahead of everyone and everything. Indeed, he eventually did win the chess game, getting the staff, the animus, everything. I sort of figured he was an ordinary assassin who stumbled on something (these artifacts?) that brought something out, made him realize something. Here, it seems he already is Loki (or something) and everyone knows it but him. Right?

As for the (or something), we talked on how weird it is that a dude from Baghdad is Loki. I want to say that the djinn is just more evidence that the Isu manifest as whatever god/spirit your culture believes in (can we agree that the djinn is some Isu/Loki thing?). That said, the gods/Isu/whatever in ACV were pretty fucking Norse, right down to losing eyes and arms and whatnot.

How did you read the bananas? We can't not talk about the bananas.

Feminina:

Oh yeah, I kept meaning to mention the Djinn in his dreams! Totally with you that this must be his manifestation of Loki (or whoever that being manifests as in this culture), the way Eivor's visions of Odin were her manifestations of him. Poor Basim's nightmares are a lot more unpleasant that Odin's vague pronouncements, but perhaps this is just a difference in their characters. Loki was perceived as the spirit of mischief and deception, after all—maybe he just likes to terrorize his incarnations.

Or, interestingly, maybe he's actually more honest (or less good at hiding things) than Odin...Basim said the Djinn in his nightmares wanted to "eat his flesh" or whatever, which could be a metaphor for taking possession of his body, which pretty much sums up what the gods/Isu want to do with their reborn selves, right? And this is a pretty direct way to state that, whereas Odin was very circumspect about it for a long time, just kind of hanging out offering vague advice and commentary through all kinds of adventures before he finally tried to possess Eivor in the simulation.

Maybe Loki's approach has been "just try to consume them" while Odin plays a long game of acting like a sage companion.

Or there's something else entirely going on. We shall see...maybe. Sort of.

And I don't know that "everyone already knows this except Basim." I'm not sure it's clear that the other Hidden Ones know. The Order certainly seems to have some kind of clue, but they seem more interested in these 'artifacts' (presumably Isu items like the ones they are after in AC: Valhalla), so maybe this is a point where they know something the Hidden Ones don't yet.

Or maybe they know but they haven't mentioned it to Basim—that's also entirely possible. Though William Miles' comments about how "he was only a street thief when he came to us" suggest that maybe they don't know.

We shall see! Maybe.

Butch:

Hmm. True. Miles did say that, didn't he? That would imply there wasn't anything too special about Basim originally. He certainly becomes special, though.

Of course, another interpretation is that these little conversations with Order dudes we kill aren't really conversations with Order dudes at all, but are thoughts/dreams from the assassin and/or the...whatever, spirit, God, that wants them. This could just be some djinn hallucination and the order dude isn't speaking at all.

Feminina:

True. This has always been a weird little question in these games...what IS that sort of liminal space where we pause and have these thoughtful conversations with people to whom we've just dealt a mortal blow? It clearly takes no real time, if only because when we come out of it we haven't been hacked to pieces by the guards who are often standing nearby and would have had a chance to reach us during an actual exchange, so it's not 'real' in a physical sense, but it's such a constant.

It's been a feature of the series since the first game, where key Templars would challenge Al-Tair about whether or not they were the true villains, so it would be very interesting if at some point they actually explained it as "this is the result of high level Order people having been exposed to Isu technology that [on purpose/incidentally] lets them instantaneously project their dying thoughts in a vision to the Isu soul inside key Hidden Ones" or something.

As you say, it could also be a Djinn/Isu trick, in which case the fact that they so regularly challenge the Hidden Ones' agenda of freedom for humanity is very interesting. There have been a lot of hints that there was a conflict between the Isu that was at least partly about humans and whether they deserved freedom, so it wouldn't be surprising if some of the beings still around would try to undermine the Hidden Ones if they found themselves in the bodies of someone working for that cause, but it is a little odd that ALL of them would.

I mean, there's no reason to assume most super-advanced alien/highly developed native beings would generally prioritize freedom for humanity, which they might tend to regard as an inferior species, and maybe all the ones who managed to put their DNA into the World Tree Animus are anti-human, and just keep doing their best to steer the Assassins they keep being born into onto the other side. We don't know the politics of the 'Norse Gods' we saw going into the machine near the end of Valhalla. Odin, at least, seemed perfectly happy to support the Assassin side (though he did throw in little comments from time to time to make us think about it), but that could have been a trick.

And Loki/Basim was an apparently enthusiastic Assassin, but again, this could have been a trick, or just an opportunistic "OK, I'll go with this side for now because I have a grand plan". Loki is looking out for Loki (and the woman in the memories who seemed to be working with him). We don't know real-world present-day Basim at all. He could say "yeah, I'm actually going with the Order now" the next time we see him for all we know!

There's a lot here. A lot of bananas.

Butch:

So many bananas. Have you noticed that in the requisite load screen run to nowhere there seem to be humanoid figures in the wisps of smoke? I don't remember that being a thing in other games.

At the end of ACV, I certainly got the notion that Basim was out for Basim. He certainly had a frosty conversation in Ravensthorpe with Miles after hijacking the animus. That was not a "Hey! Old friend, old colleague, welcome back to the fold!" On the other hand, not sure he's order, either. After all, in that little Isu movie we got from getting all those fragments, we see Basim/Loki getting screwed over by, well, everyone. He does not strike me as someone who thinks anyone deserves loyalty after that. Can't really blame him.

I think Basim was the one who tipped the Assassins off to where Eivor was in the first place, right? Yet, at the end, Miles wasn't all "You betrayed us! You sicced the order on us!" or anything. Basim did what Basim did for reasons only Basim knows. Maybe we'll find out in this game. Or not.

As for not being torn to pieces, I found it kind of hilarious that, after Roshad telling him to be subtle, and all that sneaking and hiding and trickery (I went with stealing the supplies and getting the merchant to leave), Basim's plan was hang him by jumping off a damn balcony then strike a pose all "Who's the man? Basim, that's who."

I can see Roshad all "Well...I give that about a 92 for stealth...."

Feminina:

Ha! Yes. So extremely subtle, that was. "No one shall ever know who killed him or how! He shall meet a mysterious end that -- OK, yeah, everyone in the caravanserai saw that."

I also stole the supplies and 'sneaked in' with the merchant (even though I had already been sneaking around earlier killing everyone in sight and stealing supplies). I also talked to someone else who had a different way to sneak, but I found the merchant's supplies first. Nothing personal, other guy.

The other guy's plan probably would have been way more subtle.

And oh yeah, it was Basim's mysterious transmission that led them to Eivor's bones, wasn't it? All part of the master plan!

Which, unlike the master plans of either the Order or the Hidden Ones, neither of whom has successfully conquered the other despite millennia of trying, actually worked out! At least to this point. My impression is that he also wants to revive his wife (?), and he hasn't done that yet as far as we know, but getting out of the Animus alive after 1,000+ years is a pretty big step.

Basim IS the man.

The load screen looks a little different from game to game, but yeah, I don't recall smokey humanoid figures in the past.

Butch:

His plan did work! At least, it seems to be working. Or, really, whoever's plan worked. Is Basim in ACV the same dude as this game? Or will the djinn win or something? We shall see. Or not.

It is kinda funny that no one in the Templars or the Assassin's, after several millenia. is thinking "You know, shit doesn't seem to be working. Maybe we should try something else?"

Unless the Isu are encouraging just that. War for the sake of war. Humans killing each other in perpetuity.

Feminina:

It's true, we don't know if this Basim is the same as the ACV Basim. Once he's...integrated?...with Loki, is he still Basim, or does Loki take over?

Basim told Eivor the story about losing his son, which doesn't seem to be anything this Basim would be concerned about, although he could of course learn about or father a son at some point during this game and then lose him tragically.

And this Basim doesn't seem to have a strong connection to a woman like the one suggested by the memory conversations, unless Nehal turns out to be Angrboda (or whoever was the woman in those memories). So it's possible that the Basim we're playing is a totally different character from the one in Valhalla, though presumably still with access to the current Basim's memories since he maintains a relationship with the Hidden Ones who apparently sent him to explore the frozen north. Keeping track of a few recent memories from among potentially thousands of years' worth would not be a problem for this sort of being, I imagine, though we also don't know how many times—if at all--he managed to come to full consciousness during the period between entering the Animus and getting to Basim.

Much is unexplained.

Which is delightful! These are exactly the bananas I'm looking for.

Butch:

Oh, how I have missed Bananas!

Well, we're off to find Nehal. Or I am. Maybe you already have. I'm off. There's more there, for sure. And Basim did say, when the bald dude (I'm so bad at names) was telling the story about his imprisoned father and the kite he would fly, hoping his father saw it, "I know your pain," so that's at least a nod to that.

It sure seems like the gods/Isu take over. Odin seemed to be trying to take over Eivor, and yet, at the end, where they're both all Obiwan one with the force ghostly in robes, they seemed to be peacefully coexisting. Maybe that's after the human is dead?

Feminina:

Hm. Maybe. It's true they did seem to have come to some sort of agreement. Maybe Basim and Loki did the same!

Perhaps we shall see.