Jack the Ripper

Jack (c. 1860 – 1888), known as Jack the Lad during his youth and widely feared under the alias "Jack the Ripper", was a member of the British Brotherhood of Assassins, active in the Whitechapel district of London during the late 19th century.
An orphan taken in and trained by the Master Assassin Jacob Frye, Jack eventually became disillusioned with his mentor's leadership and view of the Creed and decided to seize control of the Brotherhood from him. During the 1880s, he successfully usurped control of the Rooks from Jacob and began to recruit new followers to help him enforce his own ruthless outlook of the Creed.
In 1888, Jack became infamous for a series of gruesome murders of women through Whitechapel; in reality, these women were fellow Assassins disguised as prostitutes who had been attempting to stop his spiral of madness. These murders, in conjunction with Jack's control over London's criminal enterprise, threatened the discreet reputation and very existence of the Assassins in London. His reign of terror eventually came to an end when he was killed by Jacob's sister, Evie, upon her return from India.
==Biography==
===Early life===
Jack was born and raised in the Whitechapel district of London, where he lived alongside his mother until she was murdered by Crawford Starrick's Templar lackies. Traumatized by her death, Jack was placed in Lambeth Asylum, where poor treatment and negligence only further aggravated his mental instability.Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Jack the Ripper – Family Reunion Following the death of Starrick in 1868, he was liberated from the asylum and brought into the fold of the Assassin Order by Jacob Frye to be trained among a selection of new initiates.
Around 1873, he traveled with Jacob and the other initiates to India in order to learn the fear tactics of the Indian Brotherhood, a group that Jacob's sister, Evie Frye, had joined following her marriage to Henry Green and subsequent relocation.Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Jack the Ripper – The Unfortunates Upon returning to London, Jack began to develop an extremist view of the Assassins' mission, believing that the Assassins must be feared by the citizens, killing innocents if necessary. Eventually in 1888, with the help of several dangerous criminals, Jack usurped control of the Rooks from Jacob, recruiting or killing anyone sent to deter him.Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Jack the Ripper – Database: Jack's Gang: The Rooks
Radicalizing his followers, Whitechapel–the center of Jack's operations–descended into a cesspool of crime and depravity. Through his lieutenants, Jack dominated the criminal underworld in Whitechapel and the City of London. One of Jack's allies, Olwyn Owers, was a known philantropist who acted as procurer for the high society; with the threat that Jack could kill them, the prostitutes of London chose to work under Owens' protection. Jack also established his private prison at Deptford. Taking hostages, Jack blackmailed their family in exchange to keep them alive. The Chief Warder was John Billingsworth, a sadistic man chosen by Jack to organize the executions of the prisoners.Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Jack the Ripper – Prisoners
===Autumn of Terror===
On 31 August 1888, Jack was ambushed by one of Jacob's initiates, who had been posing as the prostitute Mary Ann Nichols. Jack gruesomely killed her and staged her dead body, beginning the Autumn of Terror. He also took her Assassin ring to not compromise the brotherhood.Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Jack the Ripper – Autumn of Terror
On the 8 September, an initiate posing as Annie Chapman was also killed by Jack. He cut off her ring finger to take her Assassin ring. Jack also left a invisible message for Jacob, asking "What kind of creed cannot protect his own?".Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Jack the Ripper – The Mother of All Crimes With these murders, Jack sent letters under the pseudonym of "Jack the Ripper". This attracted media attention; Arthur Weaversbrook in particular – under duress of Jack having kidnapped his son – began to publish Jack's letters for the public to inquire.Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Jack the Ripper – Letters of Intent
On the night of 30 September, Jack killed the two Assassins posing as Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes and took their rings. Leaving a message for Jacob on the crime scene, Jack trailed his former mentor. During the track, the Ripper killed policemen to oblige Jacob to confront him. After a fight, Jack wound Jacob but the Assassin escaped from the serial killer. Later that night, Jack entered in Jacob's hideout, defeated him in combat and imprisoned him beneath Lambeth Asylum.Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Jack the Ripper – Prologue
Prior to his kidnapping, Jacob had requested by letter that Evie return to London. Evie arrived in October in London and began to investigate on her brother's disappearance. Spying her through the window of Jacob's apartment, Jack saw an opportunity to finalize his revenge. The 2nd November, he followed her to Owers Manor and was in time to witness her assassination of Owers. Sitting atop the roof, Jack watched as Evie escaped aboard a coach, following which he killed all of the occupants at the manor with the intention of framing Evie for the massacre.Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Jack the Ripper – The Lady Talks
On 9 November, while Evie was at Deptford, Jack added another victim to his list. He mutilated the prostitute Mary Kelly in the most horrific way imaginable, leaving a message on the walls of her apartment room for Evie. He would be waiting by the time she had discovered his "masterpiece," one that he felt he owed entirely to her interference. He also added a postscript to his message taunting Evie on Eddowes's murder scene.
Jack went to Deptford where he saw Evie's departure after dismantling the prison, killing Billingsworth and informed the police about the abducted hostages. Consequently, Jack resolved to eliminate any witnesses at Deptford that knew of his actions as well as any evidence linking him to the Assassins, in an effort to protect the Brotherhood and his own distorted version of the Creed.Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Jack the Ripper – Loose Ends
===Death===
Jack staged a reunion between the Frye twins at Lambeth Asylum, with the intention of either having Evie join him or killing her. He lured Evie to the site of his mother's murder, threw a bomb in her direction and left her with clues and cues indicating his true hideout. In preparation for her arrival, he killed prominent asylum staff who knew of his childhood confinement there, namely, nurse Whitney and Doctor Archer, both of whom had abused him, and Bradford, the asylum's director during his stay who held records of his stay.
In addition, to slow Evie's approach, Jack released all of the asylum's inmates. While he held an advantage over Evie with his superior strength and aid from the inmates, Evie was able to catch Jack off-guard, and fatally wounded him with his own trademark dagger. Jack told Evie that she was no different than him before succumbing to his wounds, ending his reign of terror.Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Jack the Ripper – Live by the Creed, Die by the Creed
===Legacy===
Following his defeat in late 1888, Jack's true identity, or even the fact that he had been killed, was never revealed by Inspector Frederick Abberline of the Metropolitan Police Service. This was done at the behest of Evie Frye in order to protect the Assassins from discovery and public backlash, due to Jack having been an Assassin himself. In a way, Jack obtained what he wanted; though he died without achieving his goal or truly establishing his own creed, his name continues to strike fear after his death.Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Jack the Ripper – Database: Jack the Ripper
By 2015, Jack's DNA had somehow been recovered by the Assassins, who tasked an Initiate to review his memories during the Autumn of Terror.Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Jack the Ripper – Database: Assassin Intel 1 After reviewing the data however, the Assassins issued a Rooftop Garden Protocol, and contact with the Initiate was cut for their own safety.Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Jack the Ripper – Database: Assassin Intel 6
In October 2016,Assassin's Creed: Heresy – Chapter 2 while attempting to discuss the ironies of the Assassin Brotherhood, Sebastian Monroe brought up the subject of Jack being an Assassin to Griffin, which infuriated the latter. Following additional comments from the teenager Natalya Aliyev, Griffin furiously claimed that Jack was not a true Assassin and that it was the Brotherhood that had stopped him before storming off.Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants – Fate of the Gods – Chapter 23
==Personality and traits==
While not pure evil and desiring his own warped sense of good, the trauma of losing his mother and his subsequent incarceration at Lambeth Asylum had a lasting effect on Jack's mental stability. Jack's views on the Assassin Order quickly developed; he came to the conclusion that Jacob was responsible, however indirectly, for the death of his mother and the abuse he faced at Lambeth Asylum. He also began to develop a strong disdain for the Creed, considering a creed that could not protect its own to be a dead one.
He brutally murdered all opposition sent against him – Assassins commonly under the guise of local prostitutes – in order to send a message to the Frye twins. He was also meticulous in his plan to destroy all evidence of his existence and prior life, going so far as to do away with a number of Lambeth Asylum staff who might have had any living memory of him as well as documents pertaining to his incarceration at the asylum.
In spite of his actions against the London Assassins, Jack was careful not to compromise the Brotherhood; despite his lack of respect for the contemporary Creed, he did come to believe in his own idealized version of the philosophy and still saw the Order as a means to an end. While most of his victims managed to hide their Assassin rings before death, at least one had their finger forcibly removed postmortem in order to hide their connection to the Order. He also destroyed any evidence of his connection to the Assassins at Deptford after his plans there were foiled by Evie Frye.
Jack was also highly vindictive and held deep, bitter grudges against those who he believed had wronged him. This was displayed when he brutally massacred the Lambeth Asylum staff as revenge for the torment he underwent there in his youth, as well as those in attendance at Owens Manor as a reprisal towards Evie's investigations. Accompanying this, Jack had developed a habit of killing those who wronged him and those who had not, merely because they served as an obstacle to his objective, presenting an apathetic, impulsive side in him.
===Skills and equipment===
Dressed in a menacing greatcoat with a double cape, Jack was a highly skilled Assassin, having been well trained by his mentor, Jacob Frye, while still in his formative years. He possessed a vast skill-set, including armed and unarmed combat, stealth, public assassination techniques, proficiency in firearms and freerunning. By the time of the Whitechapel murders, he was capable of holding his own against and even overpowering the Frye twins, being well-nigh impervious to frontal attacks in the heat of battle. He also possessed an indomitable will, never giving up on the task at hand and approaching situations with utmost focus and care.
His repertoire also consisted of equipment and skills typically exclusive to the Assassins, such as the Hidden Blade, throwing knives, hallucinogenic darts, smoke bombs and the Victorian era rope launcher. He also possessed the rare ability of Eagle Vision which allowed him to track down recently lost individuals or identify key targets.
Most notable of Jack's skills was his extremist use of the Indian Brotherhood's fear tactics. Rather than discretely dealing with targets, he would use excess brutality in public assassinations to instill fear in the hearts of London's populace. In combat, he would use fear bombs, spikes and jarring, psychotic screams to frighten and disrupt the composure of his opponents.
As an extension of his prowess for fear and intimidation, Jack also had a penchant for manipulation. Due to his collusion with Olwyn Owers, Jack's eyes and ears within London, his machinations and influence spread rapidly across the city. His operations gradually began to reach well beyond the scope of prostitution, to kidnapping, extortion, and murder of the London elite.
==Behind the scenes==
Jack the Ripper is the eponymous antagonist of Jack the Ripper, a downloadable expansion to the 2015 video game Assassin's Creed: Syndicate. He is playable in several story segments and is voiced by the Scottish actor Alec Newman. The burlap sack that Jack wears symbolizes his real-life anonymity; although his face is never revealed, even when Evie Frye kills him in the final memory "Live by the Creed, Die by the Creed", his character model reused Philip Twopenny's face.
In-game files contain an unused database entry that gives Jack's backstory:
A MOTHER'S MURDER18 August 1870. At 3:40 AM an unidentified woman whom Jacob Frye sometimes visited to procure information about local gangs, was brutally murdered in her Whitechapel lodgings.Her young son Jack was awakened by his mother's screams as three men burst into their shared room and proceeded to stab her to death before the eyes of her ten year old son.After the murderers unceremoniously dumped the woman's body in the Thames River, they dragged Jack, covered in his mother's blood and babbling incoherently about 'pigs' and 'templars', to Lambeth Asylum, where he was interned in the wing for the violent criminals. Doctor Archer and Nurse Whitney signed the admission papers.Jack is said to have cried inconsolably and screamed aloud for a certain 'Jacob' over and over for days, until he was gagged and silenced.Nearly a year later, Jack appears to have escaped from the asylum with outside assistance and vanished from official records.
The knife Jack wields appears to be modeled after an blade called a .
==Gallery==
ACS Jack the Ripper Mask - Concept Art.jpg|Concept art of Jack the Ripper's mask
ACS Jack the Ripper - Concept Art.jpg|Concept art
ACS Jack the Ripper Promo.jpg|Promotional art
ACS Jack the Ripper DLC.jpg|Promotional art
ACS Prologue 7.png|Jack confronting Jacob
ACS The Unfortunates 3.png|Jack looming over London
==Appearances== 
*Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag 
*Assassin's Creed: Syndicate – Jack the Ripper 
*Assassin's Creed: Last Descendants – Fate of the Gods 
*Echoes of History 
==References==
de:Jack the Ripper
es:Jack el Destripador
fr:Jack l'Éventreur
it:Jack lo Squartatore
nl:Jack the Ripper
pl:Kuba Rozpruwacz
ru:Джек-потрошитель
zh:开膛手杰克
Category:1888 deaths
Category:Individuals
Category:Unidentified individuals
Category:English people
Category:Serial killers
Category:Rooks
Category:Assassins
Category:British Assassins
Category:Assassin turncoats
Category:Individuals with Eagle Vision
Category:Londoners
Category:Animus hosts