Assassin's Creed: Nothing is True?

Welcome to Pixellated Culture. Today we'll discuss Assassin's Creed and what it has to say about the study of history.

The emblem of the Assassins. Picture from the Assassin's Creed Wiki.

The title of the game refers to an actual creed spoken by the Assassins. Part of this creed is "Nothing is true, everything is permitted." As with most things like this, there are multiple meanings. In terms of gameplay, it's a reference to the sandbox style where the player can do anything within the confines of the game. You can scale buildings, search for flags, even kill people (with various outcomes depending on who you killed). It's also a nice little reminder that what you're playing is a fictional game with a historical backdrop.Yes, there really were two groups called the Templars and the Hashishin, but liberties were taken for the sake of the game.

Yet that part of the creed also can apply to real life. Desmond at one point asks his captor why what he's saying doesn't match with what he knows. Vidic, his captor, tells mentions the creed, saying it was possible for enough powerful people to write down history different from how it actually happened. Which brings up the questions of real life, how do we really know that the history we have is what actually happened? In the game, we are forced to accept the reality of Templars and Assassins fighting until the modern day, as we experience it first hand. You discover their magic artifact of the day and are forced to say, "This is real in this game." But for reality, there are all sorts of other problems.

Well, unfortunately, we can never know 100%, even for modern history, as who has access to every little document that's relevant or can read the minds of those around them. We have discovered many forged documents over the years relating to historical eras. Now these can be relatively unimportant, such as people faking false Western photographs of outlaws for tourists, to major, such as the fake Hitler diaries (which were thankfully quickly pointed out as fakes shortly after their publication). With the ability to fake such documents, how can we ever be sure?

Tests! Yes, tests can help with documentation. Ink from certain time periods will react a certain way under certain lights (most common being ultraviolet and infrared). Paper composition varies by time and place (modern paper vs. 18th century paper vs vellum). These things are harder to fake and thus provide some authenticity in the field. 

But what about when tests fail? How do we know when everything is 100% accurate? Well, we can never know, but there are context clues. For ancient history we have to extrapolate from written records, but with any luck we can have records from other places to support them. If a letter proves authentic, it is extremely valuable as letters are more personal, especially before the Long 18th Century (when some would write with publication in mind). We don't have records of everything, but we can make good assumptions due to documents and other physical evidence.

Assassin's Creed brings up the interesting questions of what truth is and who writes truth. Which is good, as skepticism is necessary when discussing any type of truth, not just historical. But sometimes you just have to admit we have to accept some things with just cursory evidence, as we just don't have all the evidence. Unfortunately, there is no DNA memory, no Animus for us to figure it out. Happily there is no Abstergo ruling the world.