Armand Isard

"COMPNOR appears to have been represented at least partially by Armand Isard, while the ISB appeared through Deputy Director Harus Ison and Colonel Wullf Yularen."

―Beaumont Kin, The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire^[4]

Armand Isard was a male Director of the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order and member of the Joint Chiefs of the Imperial Military. Prior to his membership in the Galactic Empire, he was the Director of the Senate Bureau of Intelligence as part of the preceding Galactic Republic. Isard was present at a meeting of the Joint Chiefs in 14 BBY, where he attempted to speak but was cut off by a junior officer signaling news of a rebel attack.

Biography

"However, within other holdings that did not exist on Coruscant there are records of figures like Grand Moff Tarkin communicating to COMPNOR. A good number of these communications, though bland in content, were addressed to Crueya Vandron, Armand Isard, and Kinman Doriana."

―Beaumont Kin, The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire^[4]

Armand Isard served as the Director of the Galactic Empire's COMPNOR (recruitment poster pictured).

Armand Isard was a male^[1] who served in the Galactic Republic prior to and during the Clone Wars, a conflict between the Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems, and he eventually served as the director of the Senate Bureau of Intelligence.^[3] When the Republic transitioned into the Galactic Empire^[1] in 19 BBY,^[5] he^[2] became part of Emperor Palpatine's inner circle. Isard served as the Director of the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order^[1] and represented the commission as part of the Joint Chiefs of the Imperial Military. Transmissions from Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin to Isard were not located in the Imperial Archives on the Empire's homeworld Coruscant.^[4] Later that year,^[6] when speaking with Senator Bail Prestor Organa about his search for evidence proving the Jedi Order had been framed for treason in the transitional period from the Republic to the Empire, Imperial Intelligence agent Haki Zeophrine considered that a successful acquisition of evidence would potentially cause Isard to disgracefully resign from his position.^[7]

In 14 BBY,^[8] when a rebel cell operated by former Imperial Intelligence agent Berch Teller began to cause problems, Isard attended a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of the Imperial Military on Coruscant. During the meeting, Isard attempted to speak but was interrupted by a junior officer who reported a rebel attack on Lucazec.^[1] In^[4] his^[9] book The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire,^[4] published in 35 ABY,^[10] historian Beaumont Kin mentioned Isard's role as the director of the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order and position among the Joint Chiefs. Despite finding the content within bland, Kin was able to cite transmissions between Tarkin and Isard and claimed that their absence from the Imperial Archives meant that they were some of the only COMPNOR records to have survived the purge of Imperial records. As COMPNOR's director, Kin believed that Isard inevitably served within the secretive COMPNOR entity known as the Select Committee.^[4]

Personality and traits

Isard had raven black–colored hair.^[1]

Behind the scenes

Armand Isard first appeared in the current Star Wars canon in James Luceno's 2014 novel Tarkin.^[1] Luceno stated that he included Isard in Tarkin as he fit into a role that was part of the story Luceno was writing, hence his appearance rather than the invention of a new character.^[2]

In the Star Wars Legends continuity, Armand Isard first appeared in the short story "Interlude at Darkknell," published in the 1999 anthology book Tales from the New Republic and written by Timothy Zahn and Michael A. Stackpole.^[11] He was first pictured in the twenty-fifth strip of Reversal of Fortune, a series of webstrips^[12] published on Hyperspace between October 2004 and June 2005.^[13] The strips were written by Paul Ens and illustrated by Tom Hodges.^[12]