Erudito

Erudito, also dubbed the Erudito Collective, is a hacking collective who at one point operated in opposition to the Templar-run Abstergo Industries.
Though it was originally unclear whether Erudito was one or many people, evidence suggested that a collection of several independent users was more likely, which was later confirmed through their correspondence to an individual who appealed to Abstergo's aims.Assassin's Creed III Despite this, the members who made up the Erudito Collective were united by their common purpose, to reveal the truths censored by Abstergo in its products.UbiWorkshop: Assassin's Creed Encyclopedia - The Making Of
Erudito makes use of a wide variety of means of communication, including emails, to spread their information. At times, members also directly contacted members of the Assassins, such as Desmond Miles, as well as participants in Abstergo's Project Legacy and Animus Project.
In 2016, the group returned to operation, after a notable slack in activity, though their renewed purpose is as of yet unknown.Assassin's Creed - Arc 3: Homecoming
==History==
===Abstergo News Wire===
According to the security division of Abstergo Industries, Erudito tried to invade this company's system sometimes before November 28, 2010, but their firewall "effectively" prevented this invasion.James Morse's email - RE: Wikileaks
In September 2012, Erudito hacked the Abstergo News Wire, writing fabricated stories into Abstergo employees' email. These stories included reports of Africa's population being almost wiped out by a virus, American immigrants attempting to illegally enter Mexico, and the closure of America's film companies due to the rise of video games and rampant piracy.Assassin's Creed: Initiates - Surveillance
===Project Legacy===
In an attempt to educate and protect the agents participating in Abstergo's DDS Program, dubbed Project Legacy, Erudito hacked into the DDS itself and began communicating with its users through e-mail or within the record of memories themselves. Through this, Erudito made several memories previously blocked by Abstergo accessible to those involved, of which most contained valuable information on the Assassins or on Pieces of Eden such as the Shroud.
At one point, Erudito commented, "Abstergo's not going to be happy I'm showing you this, which is exactly why I'm doing so. [...] They want you to stumble onto something without making any sense of it! Good thing I'll be watching too!" However, the memory involved was interrupted shortly after being accessed, as it had allegedly been "corrupted by outside intrusions."
Most of Erudito's emails to the Abstergo agents cautioned them about their carelessness, drawing attention to themselves by acting too confident, or pandering to Abstergo's wishes. In one such e-mail, Erudito dissuaded the participants from submitting their genealogies to Abstergo, which could potentially result in them having their memories farmed for the DDS Program later on.
Over time, Erudito's interference was detected by Abstergo, and an email survey (with a subject line reading "INTRUDER") was sent to all DDS participants, asking them what they knew of Erudito. Any agent who feigned ignorance received an e-mail from Erudito that simply read ":)".
Alternatively, those who offered to submit a full report on Erudito received a message from Abstergo mentioning that "If we can track his patterns, we can begin to block his access to the DDS system and continue our work without further interruptions." This message was followed closely by an e-mail from Erudito, reading "You reported me? That stings. Not that it really matters... I am miles ahead of these goons. I'm going to have to work harder to open your eyes, aren't I?"Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy
On November and December 2010, Erudito released phone conversations between the Project Manager for Project Legacy, Anson Peake, and his boss. On Monday, 4 July 2011, Erudito hacked into the DDS main page, and proceeded to change the logo into a red and inverted version of the Abstergo logo, under which read "-_-Erudito Industries-_-". Erudito also shared a link to some files containing the Divine Science memories.
Their interference eventually led to a halt in the project, due to the risk of security concerns.Assassin's Creed: Revelations
===Assassin teams===
On 22 September 2012, Erudito sent an e-mail to Desmond Miles through the Hephaestus Email Network, in order to share the email passwords of the other Assassins within his team. The message advised him to "stay in the loop" and keep himself informed of the exchanges between Lucy Stillman, Shaun Hastings, and Rebecca Crane.Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
===Animus hacking===
When Abstergo began selling the Animus technology on a public scale as an entertainment product, Erudito hacked into players' accounts to reveal to them the truth about Aveline de Grandpré, in that Abstergo had "edited" her memories and portrayed her as a traitor to the Assassin cause. As such, Erudito hacked the truth back into the product, but the player would have to earn the ability to see it by tracking down and killing special civilians dubbed "Citizen E".Assassin's Creed III: Liberation
For another of Abstergo's products, Erudito allowed players to hack into videos and biographies of characters. These hacked videos would feature red scribbles drawn over the images, in a semi-comical fashion, as Erudito explained Abstergo's true intentions. Also, the hacked biographies would reveal the truth behind the people who the Animi Avatars were based on, either by expanding on their backgrounds or dispelling myths, often including whether they were loyal to the Assassins, Templars, or neither.
Erudito also introduced a new currency into the game, called Erudito Credits, to challenge Abstergo's currency and allow players to purchase items at much lower cost. This required the exchange of real money but proved an alternative to the Abstergo Credits which were earned by partaking in their product.
===Arrests and lull in activities===
At some point in time, Erudito came into contact with Philipa Tran, security personnel working at Abstergo Entertainment. In 2013, Juno manifested herself in one of Abstergo's videos, prompting Tran to contact Erudito to attempt to figure out if they were responsible. Erudito members "anonymish_82" and "defact0r" discussed this and some ongoing problems with their Erudito Credits. defact0r informed Abstergo, through Tran, that Erudito was not behind the manifestation. Later, Laetitia England, high ranking Templar, spoke with her superior about these events and considered recruiting their "source" inside Erudito.Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag - Abstergo Data
Sometime later, fifteen alleged members of Erudito were arrested by the FBI and with the help of Abstergo and Laetitia England, and accused of having deleted over $10 million from multiple bank accounts. By 2015, Shaun Hastings, Asssassin hacker, had noticed a diminishing of activities from Erudito.Assassin's Creed: Syndicate - Database: Bishop
===Meeting with Charlotte===
In 2016, the newly minted Assassin, Charlotte de la Cruz attempted to meet with Erudito under the instructions of Consus. Trying to reach Erudito through the internet, Charlotte discovered a meeting location hidden behind a password related to her Inca ancestor, Quila. After reliving the genetic memories of the ancestor through the Animus, Charlotte obtained the location of the Erudito meeting and discovered her grandmother, Florencia, had arranged the meeting.Assassin's Creed - Arc 2: Setting Sun
A meeting of the leaders of Erudito was called. It was quite clear the entity was of special reverence to the hacker collective, and the fact that Charlotte heard his voice was of great interest to them. Charlotte discovered the story behind Juno and the Phoenix Project, and that Erudito believed only Giovanni Borgia had been contacted by Consus - thus their interest. The Collective was convinced that Giovanni had a second encounter with Consus, that had been hidden from Abstergo and the Templars. Fortunately for Charlotte, her ancestor Hiram Stoddard was in contact with Giovanni in 1516.
Erudito called for a vote amongst its members, with Charlotte's grandmother calling for the creation of hive bases across the globe, and cross-training their own agents. Counter-arguments were made for Erudito to stay out of events, and with the votes on a knife edge, Charlotte elected to stand in offering that the Brotherhood and Erudtio merge. In exchange for Galina training and assisting their agents, the first step working together would be Erudito agreeing to help Galina track down the rogue Assassin Joseph Laurier. Charlotte would also seek Consus and answers within an Animus. Swayed by Charlotte's speech, the Collective voted in favor of the alliance.
The test was a success, with Charlotte discovering a new message from Consus and Galina tracking down Laurier with Erudito agents. However, the Templar's led by Sanchez tracked Charlotte to Erudito base. The base was destroyed but the survivors escaped with the help of the Assassins.
=== Working with the Assassins ===
By 2017 Erudito agents seemed to be working with the Assassins like Guernica Moneo, an Erudito agent that assisted Charlotte de la Cruz and other Assassins during a mission in Hong Kong.
==Behind the scenes==
Erudito is Italian for "scholar, learned one," which is appropriate given how much information Erudito has gathered on Abstergo. It may also imply that Erudito are an organization of , given how much they seem to want humanity to learn. In addition, Erudito's online avatar, the , is a symbol of the fire given to humanity by , who in turn symbolized humanity's encompassing capability to learn.
When rearranged, the letters ERUDITO create an anagram and spell out UDITORE, which is one letter short of "AUDITORE"; by extension, uditore is an Italian variant of the Latin auditor, meaning "listener."
When was "liked" on Facebook, an item called Erudito's Network for Assassin's Creed: Project Legacy could be received, which gave an Abstergo agent the higher probability to receive XP, florins or chance items. However, on May 13, 2013 when Project Legacy was removed from Facebook this feature became obsolete.
On 13 January 2011, players who ordered an Abstergo staff sweater through Ubiworkshop received an email from Erudito, which explained the sweater's binary code. The message read "It's amazing how a few clicks can mar a whole production line. [...] Puzzle time, People. Let's get hackin' __-_-__". The message was followed by the instruction to combine the binary code (01001100 01001111 01000111 01001001 01001110, or "LOGIN") with "www.AbstergoIndustries.com", and use the password (PFRDVJ5aLLg) to access the site.
Erudito would occasionally hack into the @datadumpscanner account on Twitter, in order to interact with the users. Such times included 15 October 2010, 29 October 2010, 12 November 2010, 3 December 2010, 17 December 2010, and 21 June 2011.
On 8 August 2012, Erudito posted a series of messages on the Assassin's Creed Twitter page that mourned for Clay Kaczmarek's passing, blamed Abstergo for it, and announced that the company was now looking for Desmond Miles. However, it was later dismissed as being nothing more than a glitch and the original tweets were deleted.
In Assassin's Creed: Identity, the economy icon is similar the Erudito icon, an inverted version of the Abstergo logo, not red but silver.
==References==
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