Assassin's Creed III

I got confused about the motives of the Colonial Era Templars in this game, especially since they had agents in both armies.

Did they want the rebels to win the war or the loyalists?
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At first, they supposedly wanted to prevent a war altogether. Once it was deemed inevitable, they eventually sided with the colonies. Colonial victory would create a new nation that the Templars could control right from its birth.
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Ok. Somehow I missed the part where they explained that. Thank you.
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"We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action."

Yeah, they essentially just want the Americas as a new power base that they can control without clashing with any of the old world institutions or the Assassins. Thats why they made a real, concerted effort to wipe out the assassins in the colonies the first chance they got.
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GaMiNg eLiTe posted...

At first, they supposedly wanted to prevent a war altogether. Once it was deemed inevitable, they eventually sided with the colonies. Colonial victory would create a new nation that the Templars could control right from its birth.

This. Though now that I think about it I'm confused as to why they say they wanted prevent the war in the beginning if they're the ones who started it... Charles Lee was the one that fired the first shot at the Boston Massacre...
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They fired the first shot because they knew war was unavoidable so
They wanted to control it from the beginning including how and where it started

Like always, they were playing both sides of the war - no matter who wins or loses, the Templar come out ahead and in control.

At first, they wanted to prevent an actual war - they just wanted to incite the people to want to get out from under the "tyranny" of the King. But then Connor's actions mucked that all up.
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GaMiNg eLiTe posted...

At first, they supposedly wanted to prevent a war altogether. Once it was deemed inevitable, they eventually sided with the colonies. Colonial victory would create a new nation that the Templars could control right from its birth.

That's what I don't understand though. They wanted a nation they could control, but the United States in its formative stages was meant to be a republic with extremely decentralized power. The Templars we see didn't survive to influence the Constitution, but the Articles of Confederation that were written during this time period had such a weak national government that it couldn't possibly have survived, let alone come to be dominated by Templars.

They're all about authoritarian control, at least in the previous games where they tried to seize a kingdom and installed a pope. If they were trying to influence how the US was being formed, they were doing a poor job of it.
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Well, seizing a kingdom and installing a Pope didn't work out too well for them in the end, did it? It attracted assassin attention and their goals failed.

A weak national government might be something of benefit to the Templars. We didn't get to explore it this game, but it would allow the Templars to exert some control without necessarily being in charge. A President could be a figurehead distracting people from the true insidious intentions. Using a recent real-world example, what if Dick Cheney was a Templar? Most of the hatred falls on President Bush, while Cheney pulls the strings behind the scenes and shotguns people in the face when they get too close to learning the truth. That's not even counting the actual game examples we have, where the Templars are able to found a corporation that flourishes under the lax American government.

There's certainly opportunities for Templars in a country like the United States. Maybe the upcoming Washington DLC will shed more light on their immediate intentions.
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