Imperial Security Bureau

The Imperial Security Bureau was a sister agency and rival to Imperial Intelligence. The Bureau worked closely with Emperor Palpatine, being led five years into his reign by a Bureau Chief under which served Deputy Director Harus Ison who often operated in conjunction with the Joint Chiefs. Alongside Ison worked Colonel Wullf Yularen, who served as the liaison between the ISB and Imperial Intelligence, connecting the two agencies of the Security branch. In time, Yularen would rise to become the ISB director: that position, combined with his rank of colonel, linked up well to the level of authority he held as a Fleet Admiral during the Clone Wars. On the field, ISB was sometimes attached to various fleets, sometimes falling under the command of the Navy and working alongside Naval intelligence. Members of the ISB worked from the ISB Central Office as part of the Federal District on Coruscant, while agents in the field would constantly provide intelligence updates to headquarters.

The ISB used a martial structure to their organization's ranks. Such ranks included, from junior to senior, ensign, lieutenant, flag lieutenant, captain, commander, senior commander, major, colonel, general, and admiral. Positions in the ISB included that of Chief Investigator, chief supervisor, ISB Supervisor, ISB Attendant, loyalty officer, Inspector General, deputy director, director, intelligence officer, and minister. The ISB high command governed the ISB, while the ISB board led by Major Lio Partagaz coordinated intelligence tasks per sector. Many military officers feared the group and its power.

Prospective ISB personnel were drawn from the Imperial Academy system and given training within the ISB Academy and Offices complex, located within the Verity District on Coruscant. Members went through a training regimen which included learning xenophobic propaganda, and were taught from the ISB Loyalty Manual. Members of the ISB were taught a specialized vocabulary to prevent outsiders from understanding their conversations. The term "auditing" was used to signal that suspects knew they were being investigated. The practice of provoking a suspect to commit a crime was referred to as "crustbusting," and interrogating a supposed innocent in the hope that they would react suspiciously was known as "scattering." Framing a wanted suspect for a crime to make sure that they would be arrested was referred to as "Jabba."

Following completion of the Academy, recruits filed into one of several branches of the organization, such as Surveillance, Interrogation, and Re-Education.

High-ranking ISB agents could command stormtrooper squads, override orders of civilian and military authorities, replace questionable officers and commandeer Imperial military hardware, including Star Destroyers. Loyalty officers of the ISB were tasked with ensuring that regular troops and officers obeyed orders and conformed to Imperial ideology, and were regarded with great fear and respect. Impromptu inspections, undercover surveillance and seemingly limitless authority gave such officers unprecedented access to the lives of regular servicemen, creating a culture of fear to deter any tenuous links within the chain of command.

While most ISB agents were human, at least one Gotal named Barrisk Favvin worked as an ISB agent in the Kupohan city of Tonekh.

The Enforcement branch of the ISB served as backup for agents in the field, specially trained to provide support when necessary.

Interrogation was the second-largest branch in the ISB, and was intent on extracting information from various lifeforms to obtain valuable information. It claimed to have a 95 percent success rate in recovering useful data from questioned subjects. To that end, the ISB notably used IT-O Interrogation Units developed by the Imperial Department of Military Research.

The Re-Education division was focused on what some called "brainwashing" its subjects into supporting the Galactic Empire and its actions across the galaxy. Project Unity consisted of re-educating elements of society resistant to the New Order through a process of psychological manipulation and pharmaceutical conditioning.

Advanced Weapons Research was an agency responsible for special research and development of classified weapons, both before and during the Galactic Civil War. Weapons development fell under the arm of Imperial Intelligence while the Imperial Security Bureau defended the agency's secrets.

The Internal Affairs division maintained order by investigating possible instances of insubordination within the Empire, with Yularen briefly heading a division dedicated to exposing sedition within the Imperial Senate before becoming Deputy Director of the Naval Intelligence Agency. In addition, a single Internal Affairs officer was stationed aboard all Star Destroyers to investigate any signs of sedition among the crew.

Those in Investigations used previously collected data to suppress rebel activity. Its members included ISB Supervisors, who met as a governing body known as the ISB board on Coruscant.

The Special Operations division was responsible for varying tasks within the Bureau, such as establishing Project Hidden Eye during the Galactic Civil War.

Operatives in the Surveillance branch were by far the most numerous, with its members focused on deciphering encrypted information and analyzing data to screen for potential threats against the New Order.

The Imperial Security Bureau was formed by Galactic Emperor Palpatine as a secret law enforcement organization, dedicated to rooting out enemies of the New Order and the Galactic Empire and maintaining stability throughout Imperial territories shortly after the proclamation of the New Order. Within fourteen years, the organization grew from a handful of agents into an organization double the size of Imperial Intelligence.

Following the Clone Wars, the agency helped oversee the dismantling of Confederate warships and martial supplies. Concurrent loyalty purges saw vast amounts of Separatist propaganda destroyed, rescinded, and withheld. Only a handful of propaganda posters such as Ansibella Dellu's Count Dooku: Words of Truth escaped the purges. When Art Group agents discovered egregious violations of its artistic tenets, agents of the ISB were called in to make troublesome artists disappear.

Five years into the Emperor's reign, Imperial Intelligence agents found a cache of communications devices on the remote world of Murkhana and referred the case to the ISB, who brought the matter to the Emperor and his Imperial Ruling Council. It was ultimately decided to dispatch Moff Wilhuff Tarkin and Darth Vader to investigate the cache, which was in reality set up by a small rebel cell, despite the ISB hoping to receive full oversight of the investigation from Imperial Intelligence and the Naval Intelligence Agency.

During that same year, the ISB maintained an active operation on the planet Zeffo, a world that was of interest to the Emperor's Project Auger. Signs posted by the Bureau on Imperial equipment warned residents of a local village that looters of the project would be shot on sight.

In 9 BBY, Lank Denvik, a member of the ISB, began an operation designed to capture Jedi Knight Cal Kestis, a target of great interest to the Empire. Denvik sent his spy, Bode Akuna, to infiltrate Kestis's team. Akuna was a former Jedi who survived the Purge that destroyed the Jedi Order. Having met Denvik during the Clone Wars, the two struck a deal. Denvik would hide Akuna from the rest of the Empire, especially the Inquisitorius, an organization dedicated to eliminating surviving Jedi, which Denvik despised, if Akuna worked for him. Akuna's daughter, Kata, was part of the deal. In addition to Kestis, Denvik also targeted Cere Junda, an ally of Kestis who was conducting an operation on the moon Jedha.

However, Akuna decided to leave the ISB to go with his daughter to Tanalorr, a world beyond the reach of the Empire. Akuna stole the compass that would show the way to Tanalorr from Kestis and lured him to Denvik's station in the Nova Garon system to use Kestis' invasion as a distraction to escape with his daughter. Akuna and his daughter escaped and Denvik was confronted and defeated by Kestis, and as Akuna's actions on Jedha attracted Darth Vader's attention, Denvik told Kestis to kill him, as he believed it would be better than being killed by Vader. Though Kestis felt very much like killing Denvik for sending Akuna and causing Junda's death, he spared the ISB member. What Denvik feared eventually came true when Vader went to the station and executed him. Denvik was strangled with the use of the Force.

By 5 BBY, by which point Colonel Wullf Yularen was serving as ISB director, the ISB's Investigations branch had established a "war room" at its Central Office in Coruscant. ISB agents were assigned oversight over different sectors in the galaxy and regularly reported to Major Lio Partagaz. Some ISB agents such as Lieutenant Blevin jealously guarded their sectors and resented other colleagues such as Lieutenant Dedra Meero conducting investigations in their turfs. Following the ambush on Ferrix, Blevin led the Imperial takeover of the planet from Preox-Morlana's corporate tactical forces on the grounds of their incompetence in arresting a suspected local insurgent Cassian Jeron Andor.

The ISB subsequently requisitioned the local Hotel Rix as the new Imperial headquarters on Ferrix. Despite Blevin's obstruction, Meero and ISB Attendant Heert uncovered evidence suggesting that the recovery of a stolen Starpath Unit on Ferrix was linked to the thefts of Imperial military equipment and technology at various Galactic locations.

Following a successful insurgent heist at an Imperial dam on Aldhani, Major Partagaz summoned several ISB agents and ordered them to come up with a punitive Star Sector and Planetary Emergency plans in response to the attack. In response, Yularen met with Emperor Palpatine and convinced him to grant the Bureau several key concessions including access to Imperial Military resources, new laws giving the Bureau unprecedented powers of search, surveillance, and seizure, and a new Public Order Resentencing Directive which increased prison terms and fines. The ISB also imposed a punitive tax on sectors harboring insurgent activity and arrested 134 Aldhani residents on suspicion of abetting the insurgents.

Lieutenant Meero took advantage of the ISB's new powers to accelerate her investigation into the stolen Starpath unit and other Imperial equipment. When Blevin accused Meero of interfering in his sector, Meero successfully convinced Partagaz that the Rebellion ignored his artificial sectorial boundaries and theorized that there was a organized rebel effort to obtain Imperial military components across different sectors. Impressed, Partagaz reassigned Ferrix and the Morlana sector to Meero.

Continuing her investigation, Meero questioned the former Preox-Morlana Deputy Inspector Syril Karn, who informed her about the fugitive Andor. Based on this information, Meero theorized that Andor was attempting to sell the Starpath Unit to a shadowy insurgent figure code named "Axis." She convinced Partagaz to provide her investigation with expensive surveillance equipment, local agent funding and a . Consequently, Imperial forces on Ferrix were able to intercept Bix Caleen's radio transmission to Axis. In response, local Imperial forces arrested Caleen and the transmitter's owner Salman Paak. Meero subsequently traveled to Ferrix to personally interrogate Caleen.

In response to Caleen's defiance, Meero allowed Dr. Gorst to torture her with recordings of the cries of doomed Dizonites. Meero also convinced the local Imperial garrison commander Prefect Vanis Tigo to spare Meero since she was the only one who could identify Axis. She however allowed him to execute Paak as an example to the local population. Later, Meero briefed Major Partagaz about Caleen's interrogation. While Caleen yielded no information about Axis, she correctly deduced that Andor was linked to both the Ferrix and Aldhani incidents since Caleen and Imperial Army witnesses had identified the suspect as clean-shaven. Meero also informed Partagaz that she was using Andor's adoptive mother Maarva Andor as bait.

After Imperial forces captured a rebel pilot using a stolen Imperial masking unit and learnt that Anto Kreegyr's group were planning to raid a power station at Spellhaus, Meero convinced her ISB colleagues to kill the pilot and stage an accident for the purpose of luring Kreegyr's group into a trap on Spellhaus. Partagaz approved of Meero's plan and scheduled a meeting with Military Intelligence to discuss countering the planned insurgent raid.

Per Meero's plan, the dead pilot and their ship was recovered by Kreegyr's insurgents near Kafrene. They believed the Kafrene's authorities staged story that the pilot had perished while exiting hyperspace as a result of a hydraulic failure. As a secret double agent working for Axis (the antique dealer Luthen Rael), Supervisor Lonni Jung warned Rael that the ISB was aware of Kreegyr's upcoming raid on Spellhaus and that Meero was a threat to the rebel network. However, Rael decided to sacrifice Kreegyr's faction in order to mislead the ISB into believing that they had the upper hand. Meanwhile, the ISB Attendant Corv spied on the Rael's operative Cinta Kaz while she monitored the ill Maarva's residence.

Following the death of Maarva, Meero convinced Prefect Tigo to allow the locals to hold a funeral procession in the hope of luring her adoptive son Andor out of hiding. In addition, Attendant Corv continued his surveillance of Kaz and Andor's friends Brasso and B2EMO. Corv later questioned Caleen whether Kreegyr was the elusive "Axis."

Meero's plan to lure Kreegyr's group into a trap on Spellhaus succeeded. All insurgents participating in the raid were killed. While Partagaz was jubilant and closed the case, Meero was upset that the Imperial authorities had taken no prisoners since they could have assisted in the search for Axis. Despite the Imperial victory, Rael managed to convince the Partisans' leader Saw Gerrera not to take part in Kreegyr's raid and not to warn Kreegyr, leading Partagaz to believe that the Bureau was winning the struggle.

Meero then proceeded with her plan to trap Andor during Maarva's funeral procession. Confident that her plan would succeed, Meero rebuffed Imperial Military Lieutenant Merzin Keysax's suggestion that they deploy snipers and containment units for the operation. However, Meero failed to anticipate that the late Maarva would use her funeral to deliver a posthumous speech urging the inhabitants of Ferrix to resist Imperial rule. During the ensuing riot, Paak's son Wilmon Paak hurled a bomb which killed and wounded several Imperial personnel, and damaged the local Imperial headquarters. As a result, Andor was able to escape and subsequently reestablished contact with Rael, who recruited him into the Rebellion for a second time. In addition, Caleen, Brasso, Wilmon and B2EMO escaped offworld. During the chaos, Corv was killed by Kaz. Meero was almost killed by the rioters but was rescued by Karn, who shared her desire to hunt down Andor.

One of the ISB's top members was Agent Kallus, who worked in both the Investigation and Internal Affairs branches of the organization and searched for signs of disloyal activity or insurgency. His primary mission was to ensure it did not spread into a full-scale rebellion against the Empire. In 5 BBY, sometime after the passage of the PORD, the Imperial Security Bureau took special interest in the Lothal-based Spectres rebel cell, whose attacks on Imperial outposts revealed risks of sedition and gave warning signs of rebellion. Kallus became a perennial foe of the Spectres before striking an unlikely friendship with the Lasat Spectre Garazeb Orrelios, which led him to reconsider his allegiance to the Empire. Kallus subsequently became the rebel operative known as Fulcrum, who supplied the Phoenix Cell and Spectres with intelligence.

Later, Kallus helped the Spectres steal Thrawn's TIE/d "Defender" Multi-Role Starfighter blueprints from the Imperial Armory Complex on Lothal. This led Thrawn to realize that the rebels had a mole within the Imperial ranks. Thrawn began screening the local Imperial sector command for the spy with the help of Yularen. To avoid discovery, Kallus framed Lieutenant Yogar Lyste. Despite Kallus' efforts, Thrawn realized that Kallus was the true spy but allowed him to continue operating in order to find Phoenix Squadron's rebel base. Thrawn subsequently tricked Kallus into exposing the location of Chopper Base by disclosing information about the Rebel Alliance's plans to attack the Imperial Armory Complex. However, Kallus managed to escape during the Battle of Atollon and officially joined the Alliance.

During Nightswan's campaign, Colonel Yularen took an interest in investigating the shadowy insurgent leader and pirate known as Nightswan. He was assisted by the Imperial Navy officers Thrawn and Eli Vanto, and future Lothal Governor Arihnda Pryce. Together, they exposed Nightswan's Coruscant spy ring, which included the Higher Skies Advocacy Group and members of the Yinchom Dojo. During the siege of the Creekpath Mining and Refining complex on Batonn, Pryce convinced Yularen to let her accompany Agent Gudry on a mission to disable the Batonn insurgents' deflector shield generator. After Pryce killed Gudry for refusing to evacuate her parents before Thrawn's assault, Pryce blew up the mine's explosive cache to cover up Gudry's murder. This led to many civilian casualties on Batonn, horrifying both Yularen and Thrawn.

By 5 BBY, the outspoken Senator Mon Mothma sensed that she was being tracked by the ISB due to her outspoken opposition to the Emperor's policies in the Imperial Senate. Due to her security concerns, she replaced her driver with a new driver named Kloris but suspected him to be an Imperial spy. Sharing Mothma's suspicions, the antique dealer Luthen Rael's associate Kleya Marki distracted him during Mothma's visit to Galactic Antiquities and Objects of Interest by showing him some items in the store's gallery.

Later, Kloris eavesdropped on an argument between Mothma and her husband Perrin Fertha inside their airspeeder. Mothma scolded Fertha for losing their money and accused him of gambling. In truth, the argument was a ruse for Mothma to conceal her financial transactions to assist Rael's rebel network. Falling for the ruse, Kloris shared a recording of the conversation to his ISB handler Blevin at the ISB's Central Office the following day. Based on this disinformation, Blevin believed that they could use Fertha's gambling problems as leverage against the Senator while Kloris believed that Fertha had a gambling problem.

After Mothma resigned from the Imperial Senate and condemned Palpatine for his actions during the Ghorman Massacre, the ISB issued an alert for Mothma in an attempt to capture her. ISB agents also visited Cantham House on Coruscant, the meeting place of the Cantham House meetings, based on suspicions they had, and questioned Leia Organa and several others there.

Another ISB agent was loyalty officer Sinjir Rath Velus, who was recruited by ISB officer Sid Uddra. After a brutal period of training on the ocean world of Virkoi, Velus personally interrogated the traitorous Imperial Navy officer Lieutenant Alster Grove, who was part of a cabal that sought to assassinate Darth Vader. Velus interrogated Grove, who revealed his fellow conspirators. While Vader executed the other conspirators, Uddra threw Grove to his death in Virkoi's oceans.

Following the destruction of the first Death Star, the ISB engaged in an increasing number of operations to root out the growing rebellion, and became busier than at any previous time in its history. These operations included a plan to sway mathematical genius Drusil Bephorin to the Empire's cause by keeping her in a sort of luxurious imprisonment on Denon. Project Hidden Eye was aimed at seeding sleeper operatives across the galaxy to spread propaganda and secretly report on citizens. The project, however, was cut short due to the intervention of Commander Luke Skywalker, a hero of the Rebel Alliance. After the scourge of the droids, the ISB officer Melchior Votto, who had ties with the bounty hunter Raslin Grace, hired Grace for a hunt for Chelli Lona Aphra, much to Grace's delight.

During the Great Purge of Mandalore, Moff Gideon was a member of the ISB and participated in the Purge. After the Night of a Thousand Tears, most of Mandalore's forces were defeated. The ISB reached out to Bo-Katan Kryze to negotiate a ceasefire. Gideon told Kryze that all Mandalorian lives, as well as all cities that remained at the time, would be spared if she agreed to submit to the Empire and disarm. Aware of the shame such an act would bring, but believing the survival of her people came first, Kryze gave up the Darksaber to Gideon as an act of surrender. However, Gideon would betray Kryze, continuing the Purge while taking the Darksaber for his own.

As with most other governmental agencies following the Empire's defeat at the Battle of Endor, the ISB was left scattered as the New Republic attacked distant ISB outposts and fomented dissent. Twenty days after the Battle of Endor, the ISB kept information on the Emperor's posthumous contingency plan on one of its Black Sites, the Wretch of Tayron. However, the base was taken by Rebel Alliance General Han Solo and his elite Pathfinders. The base commander was unable to initiate a data purge, and the Alliance obtained information on Operation: Cinder, thwarting attempts at its implementation for over three months.

In the months following Endor, the ISB was given full oversight over the security of the Imperial throneworld, Coruscant, after the Imperial Navy refused to provide ships to defend the planet, with Fleet Admiral Gallius Rax viewing it as a symbol of indolence and torpidity. As such, control of Imperial forces was left to the Empire's chief administrator, Grand Vizier Mas Amedda. While the ISB lacked the ships to effectively withstand a New Republic naval assault, ISB-loyal stormtroopers and personnel were deeply entrenched on the surface of the planet, which was already involved in a civil war between the ISB and New Republic–backed resistance movements.

Velus joined a team of Imperial hunters led by the New Republic starfighter pilot Norra Wexley after defecting to the New Republic. After losing his family during a New Republic attack on the Hyborean Moon, Romwell Krass Junior abandoned his post and traveled the galaxy to grieve the loss of his loved ones. During the Battle of Jakku, Commander Brisney served as the ISB officer aboard the Imperial Star Destroyer Inflictor.

As late as around five years after the Imperial defeat at Endor, Imperial remnant facilities, such as the refinery operated by remnants based on the world of Morak, were run by former ISB operatives.

By 28 ABY, A former ISB officer turned small-time businesswoman, Arliz Hadrassian, was the leader of the Amaxine warriors, a paramilitary faction that served as a front group for the First Order, a remnant of the Old Empire based in the Unknown Regions.

During a meeting with the Centrist senator Ransolm Casterfo, Hadrassian spent hours regaling the young senator with stories about her career in the Imperial Military and the ISB, unaware that he was part of Senator Leia Organa's investigation into the Amaxine warriors. Additionally, the First Order itself maintained its own version of the ISB of sorts, accordingly the First Order Security Bureau.

During the early development of what became Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, John Knoll's original story draft, which was planned to be an episode of the ultimately unproduced Star Wars: Underworld live-action TV show, depicted the character of Orson Callan Krennic as a double agent in Jyn Erso's Rogue One team reporting them to the Imperial Security Bureau, specifically to , his boss and an important member of the agency. The idea, however, was cut when writer Gary Whitta rewrote Knoll's treatment.

The 2023 canon reference book Star Wars: Dawn of Rebellion: The Visual Guide includes a list of the rank insignia plaques of the ISB officers; the rank of major is depicted as having a plaque with four blue tiles. However, Lio Partagaz, who is identified in the book as being a major, is shown in Andor Season One as wearing a plaque with five blue tiles.

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