Ysanne Isard

"The fact that she could not learn about me immediately made me an enemy."

- Mara Jade

Ysanne Isard was an agent and later Director of Imperial Intelligence; a ruthless and cunning woman who earned herself the nickname "Iceheart", a pun on her last name. Though some considered her beautiful, she exhibited heterochromia iridium, possessing one red and one blue eye. Oddly, she bore the insignia of a Moff.

Later, she became the "Stewardess of the Galactic Empire" in opposition to Trioculus and Kadann, during which she removed her rank insignia, and bore a red version of a Grand Admiral's uniform. It was however, under her rule that the Empire began its long, slow decline. She was described more than once as being "Emperor in all but name" and was referred to at least once as Empress Ysanne Isard. It was Isard who released the deadly Krytos virus onto Coruscant and destroyed a large part of the cityscape with her personal flagship/prison Lusankya. Escaping death during the Bacta War, Isard would return to threaten the New Republic after Thrawn's campaign, but was ultimately defeated.

Early life and career
Isard was the daughter of the Director of the Senate Bureau of Intelligence, Armand Isard. As a youth, she grew up in the Emperor's court. When her father's department became the Imperial Intelligence Agency, Ysanne began her career as a field agent. After the formation of the New Order, the Emperor made many enemies whom he needed killed or imprisoned. Due to this, the Isards gained more power than ever before.

Ysanne became a great field agent and did not take advantage of her father's position. She was ambitious and formed alliances within Imperial Intelligence and began plotting behind her father's back.

Rise to power
"I would fear betrayal at your hands, Ysanne, before I would fear it from her."

- Palpatine

Just before the Battle of Yavin, Rebel spies captured a datapack containing the coordinates and secrets of the new Death Star. Armand sent his daughter to recapture the datapack. She encountered Hal Horn and forced him to help her, but even with the help, she was not able to recapture the valuable information. She then realized why her father had sent her there, it was a suicide mission; he had wanted her dead. In retaliation, Ysanne pinned the failure of the Darkknell Mission on her father, as well as convincingly framing him for the terror attacks on Garm Bel Iblis which had caused his deflection to the Rebellion. Two Imperial Royal Guards then entered the Imperial Intelligence Director's office, flanking Armand, as he was whisked away to his grisly execution. A persistent rumor still circulates that Isard herself pulled the trigger on the blaster that killed her own father.

Ysanne Isard was then promoted to the position of Director of Imperial Intelligence. To demonstrate her usefulness, she made sure that she remembered that the only person that mattered was the Emperor. She suggested to the Emperor that he build a combination of an interment center and a brainwashing facility. Impressed by her suggestion, Palpatine gave her a twin to Darth Vader's Executor-class Star Dreadnought, which she named Lusankya. In an operation whose details still remain unclear, the Super Star Destroyer was buried under the Coruscant cityscape.



Hidden below the surface of Coruscant, Isard used the Lusankya as a private prison where she sent captured Rebels to be brainwashed and made into sleeper agents. Even a Rebel General, Jan Dodonna, was held captive in the massive battle station.

With her newfound power, Isard became a regular in the Emperor's royal court. While attending the Emperor's elaborate parties, Isard was known to spy on those close to Palpatine, testing their loyalty and making sure that they were not a danger to her Emperor. During this time, Isard also claimed to be one of the Emperor's lovers. It was at Palpatine's court that Isard first met Mara Jade. Because she could not find any information on her, she became immediately suspicious, informing the Emperor that she found her a threat. The Emperor dismissed her worries, refusing to give her any information on the Emperor's Hand.

After the death of Palpatine and the defeat of the Empire during the Battle of Endor, she massacred hundreds of citizens who had celebrated the news. In a false alliance, she allied herself with Grand Vizier Sate Pestage who assumed command of the Imperial Center. At this time, Isard also took the liberty of arresting Mara Jade on the charge that she had been stealing from an Imperial museum. Jade had been studying an artifact from the museum when she collapsed from the shock of the Emperor's death. Isard knew from Pestage that Mara had a wealth of secrets about the workings of the Empire and was afraid of her.

Isard had several of her agents interrogate Mara to try and find any information that would help her gain an edge over Pestage. However, Mara was savvier than Isard had anticipated and she used a mind trick on Isard's agent Ivak to release herself from prison. Isard tried to recapture Jade by putting the Imperial Palace on lockdown, but Jade's skills proved too great. She broke into Isard's office, stole codes from her personal database, and then arranged passage off-world. Even Isard's tech Tal Burren was unable to locate and stop her from escaping.

Although an important person had escaped, Isard soon had other things to concern herself with. In the Imperial Palace, Ysanne found a suite of Spaarti cloning cylinders and transferred one to Lusankya. There, she grew a clone of herself, which was kept in suspended animation. Meanwhile, she acted as an advisor to Sate Pestage, who had declared himself Galactic Emperor. Despite this, Isard was actually making another false alliance with the Imperial Ruling Circle and began plotting against the new Emperor. In addition, as Pestage's top advisor, Isard was able to make him look incompetent in front of the Imperial Ruling Circle.

Later, Isard gave Pestage poor advice resulting in his defeat by the New Republic at Brentaal. Due to this show of incompetence, Pestage knew that his rivals were planning a coup. He planned to make secret peace talks with Leia Organa on Axxila, but the Imperial Ruling Circle became aware of this and ordered his arrest.

Pestage fled and the Imperial Ruling Circle assumed command. However, Ysanne Isard had them all murdered within a single day. Isard then assumed command of Coruscant herself. She tried to recruit Admiral Delak Krennel, but he snapped the neck of Sate Pestage, killing him, and fled to become the Warlord of the Ciutric Hegemony, creating yet another threat to Isard's power.

Isard had the loyalty of much of the Imperial Military and had control of the Imperial Center. During her tenure as ruler, she wielded the power and prestige equal to or surpassing that of the Imperial Grand Admirals. But Warlord secession and the New Republic threatened her Empire. Only eight months after Endor, she lost the Black Fleet after she recalled her forces in order to defend the Core Worlds against Admiral Ackbar. A year after Endor, her Empire almost crumbled when a coup organized by the Imperial Central Committee of Grand Moffs and the False Prophets of the Dark Side attempted to usurp her power. During this time, Isard reinstated the galactic freedom of religion, hoping to dispel the faith of spiritually-starved citizens in the False Prophets. Barely, Isard was able to survive by manipulating the downfall of the two factions and executed many of them for high treason. Even Jerec, a High Inquisitor, was not able to topple her regime.

While in power, she took to wearing the unadorned uniform of an admiral.

The fall of Isard's Empire


Isard, still in control of the Imperial Center and most of the Imperial Military, kept her Lusankya filled with Rebel Alliance inmates and constantly updated the memory of her sleeping clone. Several months after Jerec's death, she captured a former Imperial and, at the time, a member of Rogue Squadron, Tycho Celchu, and gave him the worst tortures her prison/brainwashing facility had to offer. She also kept in touch with Grand Admiral Thrawn, a constant threat whom she hoped would not turn against her, in the Unknown Regions. Thrawn demanded Baron Fel, a former Imperial Fighter Pilot turned traitor, for his Imperial/Chiss army. Looking to keep her formidable potential rival appeased, Isard set up the capture of Fel, planned by Thrawn, and gave him Fel as a prisoner.

Three years after Endor, before the New Republic took Coruscant, she had the scientist General Evir Derricote create the Krytos virus, which only targeted nonhuman races. Realizing that a New Republic invasion was imminent, Isard left the infected nonhuman citizens on Coruscant for the New Republic to deal with the problem. When the Republic fleet arrived at the Imperial Center, Isard took Rogue pilot, Corran Horn, captive, making it look as if he had died and took him to the still buried Lusankya. Horn resisted her tortures and blew her cover. She then fled Coruscant on board Lusankya, which in the process tore off a large part of Coruscant's cityscape, killing millions.

Fleeing the Imperial Center, Isard headed to the bacta-rich world of Thyferra, taking it and its bacta assets. For a while, her position as the duly elected leader to sovereign world ensured her safety from the Republic, but this was merely a temporary reprieve. She later fought Rogue Squadron in a conflict known as the Bacta War. During the battle, Lusankya was captured; however, Isard managed to escape and scatter the prisoners, even though it seemed as though she had perished.

Isard escaped, but her now fully grown and functioning clone did as well. Her clone allied with "Prince Admiral" Krennel. The real Isard was busy putting herself back together mentally, never mind rebuilding her Empire. Eventually, she overthrew a weak warlord named General Arnothian and took control of his TIE Defender facility while Grand Admiral Thrawn waged war on the New Republic. Isard was shocked when the Emperor Palpatine was reborn in a new clone body. For the loss of the Imperial Center and Lusankya, she feared execution and promised to reclaim her Super Star Destroyer.

After Thrawn lost the war, Isard's forces rescued Rogue Squadron from an ambush by Prince-Admiral Krennel's starfighters at the moon Distna. The seemingly altruistic Isard explained to the Rogues that she wanted help in bringing down Price Admiral Krennel of the Ciutric Hegemony. Though skeptical, the Rogues had little choice and agreed in exchange for the opportunity to free the ex-Lusankya prisoners. Ackbar organized a fleet and pounded the Ciutric defenses while the Rogues, posing as TIE defender pilots, infiltrated the base and freed the prisoners. As Isard no doubt desired, Krennel and the Isard clone died in the fighting.

Despite her help in freeing Lusankya prisoners, Isard was not to be trusted. She later tried to recapture her beloved Lusankya, but upon entering her quarters, Isard was slain by her long-time foe and New Republic counterpart, Iella Wessiri, in the effort that finally brought down "Iceheart."

Personality and traits


Isard's personality and traits were often compared to her two mismatched eyes. She could be icily cold, heartless and cruel, but was also prone to fiery, temperamental fits of anger. These traits reasserted themselves at different times in her actions.

Even as a field agent, Isard was ambitious, calculating, and ruthless&mdash;turning her own father over for execution to cover for herself and simultaneously taking his job. She controlled the Empire in power, if not in name, and had a deep desire to control things, a weakness that would help lead to her defeat in the Bacta War. Her entire Lusankya prisoner complex was devoted to controlling the prisoners and using them as her tools to bring down the Rebellion

Isard also believed in herself; supremely confident in her abilities, she would often brook little argument from her subordinates in a command style similar to Darth Vader's. Corran Horn once commented that she had little capacity for love, despite her claim of relationship with the Emperor.

Ships under her command

 * Lusankya - Executor-class Super Star Destroyer
 * Virulence - Imperial II-class Star Destroyer
 * Avarice - Imperial I-class Star Destroyer
 * Corrupter - Victory II-class Star Destroyer
 * Binder - Interdictor Star Destroyer

Appearances

 * Evasive Action: Prey
 * Coruscant: Center of the Empire
 * Interlude at Darkknell
 * X-wing Rogue Squadron 25: The Making of Baron Fel
 * Mara Jade: By the Emperor's Hand
 * Mara Jade: A Night on the Town
 * Handoff
 * X-wing Rogue Squadron: In the Empire's Service
 * X-wing Rogue Squadron: Family Ties
 * X-wing Rogue Squadron: Masquerade
 * X-wing Rogue Squadron: Mandatory Retirement
 * X-wing: Rogue Squadron
 * X-wing: Wedge's Gamble
 * X-wing: The Krytos Trap
 * X-wing: The Bacta War
 * X-wing: Wraith Squadron
 * X-wing: Iron Fist
 * X-wing: Solo Command
 * A Forest Apart
 * X-wing: Isard's Revenge
 * I, Jedi
 * X-wing: Starfighters of Adumar
 * Vision of the Future
 * Star Wars: Union
 * Red Sky, Blue Flame
 * Dark Tide II: Ruin
 * Edge of Victory II: Rebirth
 * Betrayal