Armand Isard/Legends

"The Isards make their own luck."

- Armand Isard

Armand Isard was the Director of the Senate Bureau of Intelligence, and respectively, post 19 BBY, the Director of Imperial Intelligence. From humble beginnings as an SBI agent, he worked his way up through the ranks, doing sterling work for the Republic, and constantly aiding the war effort during the Clone Wars.

During Palpatine's reign, Armand worked closely with Lord Vader and the Inquisitorius to hunt down the survivors of Order 66. On several occasions, Isard's men were able to pinpoint the location of Jedi for the benefit of Vader or Inquisitor Tremayne. Simultaneously, Armand began grooming his daughter, Ysanne, for a career as a field operative.

As she grew, she became more and more capable in her role, and, naturally, Armand felt threatened. He sent her on a suicide mission to Darkknell as a means of getting rid of her, but, much to his surprise, she survived and completed the mission. On her return to Imperial Center, she had Armand framed for treason, and personally executed him, ending his decades-long career as Director of Intelligence and launching her own.

Intelligence reforms and the Separatist Crisis
"For too long the unscrupulous have been taking advantage of chinks in the bureau's armor. I say, 'no more.' The SBI will be a vital weapon in the fight against those who would fragment our Republic, and not a tool of convenience for the wealthy and corrupt."

- Armand Isard

By the time of the Separatist Crisis, Isard had reached the rank of Senate Bureau of Intelligence Director, a position he would hold until the dissolution of the Old Republic. Shortly before the Clone Wars, he had a Crisis Branch created for the SBI, an act that had not been seen since 60 years prior. During this reform, Isard fired the 32 Mid Rim subdirectors of SBI, claiming that they were "rife with corruption". But Isard's detractors claimed that these reforms were only giving more power to Palpatine&mdash;an assumption that would prove to be correct.

To further the suppression of anti-Republic feeling, Isard had the Sluis sector HoloNet node shut down, as a response to the pro-Confederacy rallies in the area. Isard told HoloNet Regional: "This isn't about freedom of speech. The HoloNet is a Republic asset, and Sluis sector has opted to leave the Republic. It's well within our jurisdiction to shut down their network during this crisis."

Isard had to work overtime to deal with the constant threats to the Republic. Due to the impending threat of war, fear was rife throughout the populace of Coruscant, causing people to panic at any given thing. There was also the threat of lone operators: those not affiliated with the Confederacy, but still capitalizing on the crisis to do personal damage to the Republic.

Count Dooku, the Confederacy head of state quickly became SBI's top priority, when he was sighted in the Gree Enclave. Though Dooku managed to escape under the radar once again, he had been sighted using an unidentified and exotic craft, a prospect that had SBI worried.

SBI's concerns were directed back home once again, however, when protests were held outside the Senate Rotunda. Despite claims to the contrary, Isard's handling of the situation was purely non-violent, and he was able to disperse the crowds effectively, with the help of the Senate Guard.

Clone Wars
"Our recruitment methods for the crypt teams are aggressive and unprecedented, which is indicative of the importance of the matter."

- Armand Isard, speaking of the CIS propaganda threat

When the Confederates began transmitting propaganda along conventional Republic communication lines, Isard decided that it was time to take extreme measures. He formed an entirely new Intelligence Committee, called the Cryptanalysis Department, that would be dedicated to the protection of Republic HoloNet channels. The Committee would dissuade both CIS propaganda and viruses, thereby hopefully keeping Republic media free of enemy taint. Isard resorted to unusual recruiting techniques for the new Committee: while the heads of department would be drawn from existing SBI ranks, slicers would be enlisted from the populace. Candidacy was determined by the transmission of a unique encrypted recruitment guide, which the hopefuls would receive and decrypt to pursue the job further.

As the Wars ground on, Isard devised the shadow trooper, a new type of clone commando that would be used in covert operations during the war. They were used as a replacement for the dwindling ARC Troopers. These troopers, fitted with state-of-the-art Phase II armor, would operate in a solitary manner, and would be the precursor to Storm Commandos and Shadow stormtroopers.

To combat the technological advantage held by Dooku in his alliance with Wat Tambor and the Techno Union, Isard appointed Baron Orman Tagge, head of TaggeCo, to a position in the SBI Analysis Bureau, in a bid to compete with the Union in the arms race.

In 20 BBY, Duro fell to the forces of the Kaleesh General Grievous. This caused widespread panic in the capital, due to Duro's relatively close proximity. Isard held a press conference to assure the citizens that there was nothing to panic about, and that core world security would be increased. At the same time, Terrinald Screed was given direct control of Coruscant's garrison, but Isard insisted that this had nothing to do with any tip-offs that SBI could have hypothetically received as to an attack on the capital.

When Praesitlyn, home to the Intergalactic Communications Center was attacked by Confederacy forces under the command of Pors Tonith, Isard needed to collect information from unorthodox sources. He was able to gain intelligence on the attack from Captain Zozridor Slayke, a former pirate, much to the chagrin of his peers. Along with Palpatine, Shayla Paige-Tarkin, Mas Amedda, Jannie Ha'Nook, Sly Moore and Sate Pestage, Isard planned to resolve the Praesitlyn crisis. The SBI provided the two Jedi commanders dispatched, Nejaa Halcyon and Anakin Skywalker, with all the relevant info needed, and the operation was a success.

In 19.5 BBY, Kishi, in Coruscant's Westport district, fell prey to what Isard perceived to be a terrorist attack. The locale was overrun by Separatist-controlled stone mites, which had been carried to the capital on the freighter Spinner. In retaliation to the supposed Confederate attack, Isard had a batch of mutant stone mites bred, while his agents discovered that the Spinner ' s last port of call had been Orleon. Believing Orleon to be the location of the Confederate bio-labs in which Doctor Jenna Zan Arbor was breeding the stone mites, he had his own batch of the creatures deployed on the planet. However, the Director had been wrong, and Orleon contained no bio-labs. Nothing could stop his stone mites, and in the course of a week, the planet's structures were nothing but dust. Its entire population was forced to flee while the creatures slowly devoured their homeworld. As a result, Isard was responsible for the destruction of an entire planet.

Isard was a mainstay at Palpatine's conferences, even at those with the Jedi Council. Palpatine had him on hand to provide critical info to others in the room, although Isard was always under strict orders from Palpatine not to reveal everything. This loyalty earned Isard some degree of respect from Palpatine, and served him well in the coming Imperialization of the galaxy.

Hunting the Jedi


After the rise of the Galactic Empire, he was made Director of SBI's successor, the Imperial Intelligence. As a part of the Imperialization process, Isard arrested a batch of Imperial Senators suspected of treason. Shortly after Palpatine established the Empire, Isard accompanied Darth Vader on a mission to the Jedi Temple to retrieve Sith holocrons from the archives. Whilst there, Isard's men detected unauthorized remote access to the archives, and Vader ordered them to track it. As they did, Vader was able to surmise that the hackers were two Jedi, Roan Shryne and Olee Starstone, fugitives of his purge. Whilst Isard pinpointed their location, they were able to escape.

As the Empire continued to forge ahead, Lord Vader founded the Inquisitorius, which would be a Force-sensitive branch of Intelligence. Isard found it difficult to work with one particular Inquisitor, Antinnis Tremayne, who was hunting for a Jedi fugitive called Jodd Sonta. The paramaters that Tremayne set for Isard's staff to pinpoint Sonta's location were far too broad, preventing any kind of specific localization. Vader, at Tremayne's urging, requested that Isard devote more resources to the Inquisitor's mission of hunting the Jedi, but that did not help matters. Eventually, Tremayne was able to link Sonta to the hospitalized Omwati Kodo Finn, yet he failed to apprehend the criminal.

Eventually, Vader took the reins from Tremayne on the Sonta operation, and put him to work with both Isard and CC-5052 in order to catch the fugitive and his Jedi accomplices. Among them was Ekria, a talented hacker. Isard was indignant when CC-5052 suggested that the young Jedi girl may have sliced the Intelligence network, but he had flags set up at choice points, hoping that Ekria would trip them in her slicing efforts. She did so, but only intentionally. Both Ekria and "Sonta," who was actually Drake Lo'gaan, were believed to have been killed on Tepasi.

During this time, he trained his daughter, Ysanne, to be a field agent, much as he had been in his youth. She was allowed to sit in on Intel, ISB, and even Inquisitorius conferences.

The Darkknell Operation
As the years went by, father and daughter did not get along very well, for in 0 BBY he knowingly sent Ysanne on a suicide mission to Darkknell in an attempt to retrieve the stolen Death Star plans. Unfortunately for him, she not only survived the mission but discerned why she had been sent there.

Returning to Imperial Center, Ysanne framed Armand as a Rebel agent and claimed that he was responsible for the theft of the datapads, as well as the bombing of Treitamma Political Center and the murder of Senator Garm Bel Iblis's family. A displeased Palpatine ordered Armand executed, and Ysanne took his place as Director of Imperial Intelligence after killing him herself.

Personality and traits


Isard was staunchly loyal to Palpatine's rule both as Supreme Chancellor and Galactic Emperor. Whilst undoubtedly aware of Palpatine's genocidal policy against several non-Human species and the Jedi Order, it is unknown whether he supported this morally. He did not display any kind of instability, nor did he show any kind of callous indifference towards the sentients of the galaxy until the Darkknell operation, where he effectively sentenced his own daughter to death. When Ysanne turned the tables on him shortly after the Darkknell operation, Isard did not plead for clemency, instead displaying a tinge of pride for his treacherous daughter.

Palpatine knew Isard as a man who knew much, but talked little. This would seemingly conflict with Isard's constant press conferences with HoloNet News,  however, it is more than likely that Isard never told the press anything of importance, instead relegating the truth to a few selected officials in high places.

Behind the scenes
Armand Isard was first mentioned in Michael A. Stackpole's X-wing: Rogue Squadron. Stackpole created the character as an element of Ysanne Isard's backstory, and, as such, very little information about the character himself was known, other than the fact that he had once been the Director of Imperial Intelligence. In 1999, three years after his initial mention, Isard appeared in Stackpole and Zahn's Interlude at Darkknell, a short story set shortly before the Battle of Yavin.

Isard would go unused and unmentioned for a further three years, until Paul Ens and Pablo Hidalgo inserted him consistently into the HoloNet news webpages. His appearances there are more than likely what prompted David Sherman and Dan Cragg to include him in Jedi Trial, marking Isard's first appearance in a major Star Wars novel. Following his Jedi Trial appearance, Isard was a mainstay in "Palpatine's Office" scenes in following works. Paul Ens' Reversal of Fortune finally provided Isard with his first visual appearance, almost a decade after his creation.

Appearances

 * Jedi Trial
 * Reversal of Fortune
 * Labyrinth of Evil
 * Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader
 * Evasive Action: Prey
 * Evasive Action: End Game
 * Interlude at Darkknell
 * X-wing: Rogue Squadron
 * X-wing: Solo Command
 * Millennium Falcon
 * Labyrinth of Evil
 * Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader
 * Evasive Action: Prey
 * Evasive Action: End Game
 * Interlude at Darkknell
 * X-wing: Rogue Squadron
 * X-wing: Solo Command
 * Millennium Falcon
 * Millennium Falcon