Desmond Miles

Biography

• Born: 13 March 1987
• Time Period: Modern Times
• Affiliation:  Assassins
• Appearances: Assassin's Creed; Assassin's Creed II; Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood; Assassin's Creed: Revelations

Desmond Miles (13 Mar 1987 - ) was a traveling hermit, and is a descendant to a long line of ancestors who had sworn their allegiance to the Assassin Order.  Raised on "The Farm" with numerous other families of the order by his parents, he was specifically trained to defend himself and become an Assassin.  As a teenager, he ran away from home, honing his learned skills to do so--even as his mother insisted he didn't.  He eventually found his way to New York City where he became a bartender.  He steadily assimilated into city life, even attending clubs on a regular basis.  Whenever asked, he told people he was raised by "hippies" or "conspiracy theorists," as he truly believed this was factual.  In September 2012, he was kidnapped and incarcerated at Abstergo Industries, a Templar organization, and forced into a machine called the Animus to relive the memories of his ancestor, Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad, in order to learn the location of "the Apple," one of the Pieces of Eden. Eventually escaping with the aid of Lucy Stillman, Desmond once again used an Animus to explore the memories of another ancestor of his, Ezio Auditore da Firenze, so as to learn to use the skills and ideologies of the Assassins through a process known as the Bleeding Effect.  Stillman eventually revealed, however, that Ezio had also been known to discover the Piece of Eden in his lifetime.  Before the end of September, they found that Ezio had hidden the Apple beneath the Colliseum, behind the Catacombe di Roma Lair of Romulus.  Upon retrieving the Apple, Desmond unwillingly stabbed Stillman and fell into a coma.  Another Assassin, Bill, realized Desmond's mind was, in essence, falling apart from prolonged exposure to the Animus and the Piece of Eden, so Desmond was placed in the Animus until he could re-stabilize his mind.  Within the Animus software, Desmond awoke and found himself in "The Black Room," a safe mode found in the Animus 2.0 where he met the avatar representing the conscious mind of Subject 16, whose memories still exist within the Animus.  Subject 16 informed Desmond that the only way to eventually regain consciousness is to finish what he started--he must continue to relive the memories of Ezio Auditore.  (I'll stop here so as to not spoil the new game too much.)