Colonel Varin Luthais was an Imperial Security Bureau officer who became the leader of a conspiracy to overthrow Director Ysanne Isard from her position as head of state of the Galactic Empire in 5 ABY.
Biography[]
Early career[]
Varin Luthais was a Human male whose background was mostly unknown due to the nature of his work. He was a career intelligence officer since his days in the Galactic Republic's Internal Security Bureau during the Clone Wars, during which his role was identifying and removing Separatist spies on Coruscant. After the conflict ended and the Declaration of a New Order, Luthais continued his service in the new Imperial Security Bureau, and although the nature of his exact work within the ISB was also largely unknown, by the time of the Battle of Yavin he had reached the rank of colonel and became the chief of the Internal Affairs Department. Luthais was regarded as a very intelligent officer by his colleagues and, being a veteran of the Clone Wars, commanded respect among the Imperial military's high command. The colonel was also known to have been a strong supporter of Galactic Emperor Palpatine and the New Order.
He had found a rival in the form of fellow ISB officer Urek Reven sometime in the early years of the Galactic Empire, but the man's death during the Western Reaches Operation in 18 BBY ended this problem for Luthais.
Conspiracy[]
With the death of Emperor Palpatine and much of the Imperial leadership at the Battle of Endor, the fragmentation of the Empire began under the emboldened New Republic's offensives while the remaining government officials on Imperial Center were to busy jockeying for power over the increasingly ignored central government. Colonel Luthais helplessly observed the fall of one sector after another to the New Republic as the Imperial Military remained leaderless due to the internal shenanigans on Imperial Center. Disillusioned by the state of the Empire after the death of the sovereign and disgusted by the actions of the remaining officials, Luthais began gathering like-minded officers from the ISB who also strongly believed in the ideals of the New Order and thought the Ruling Council was going to bring the Empire to ruin. The group began plotting to overthrow the current government and seize control using their allies in the Imperial Army. However, the plans of the Imperial hardliners changed as he received more information on the actions of Ysanne Isard, director of the ISB rival agency Imperial Intelligence.
The colonel accelerated his plans as it became apparent that the intelligence director was planning on usurping control herself, which Luthais thought would be a disaster as his sources informed him on her role in manipulating the Ruling Council and the head of state, Grand Vizier Sate Pestage, which led to defeat on the front lines for the Empire and less cohesion in government. The hardliners of the "Sons of the Emperor" movement (as they referred to themselves) created a holographic impersonation of the late Emperor Palpatine and intended to use this to make the rest of the Empire believe that he had somehow survived, with the ISB leaders being appointed to key government posts, seizing control. Another obstacle proved to be Colonel Leynar Orlean, chief of the Bureau's Imperial City office, who Luthais believed had been placed by Isard to monitor her rivals within the ISB. He had to be removed for the plan to go ahead. Orlean was known for his corruption, so Luthais had some of his unsavory contacts orchestrate a complex scheme that got Orlean involved in several Black Sun prostitution and drug trafficking rings in exchange for a cut of the profit they generated. This would have been the evidence to formally accuse Orlean of corruption and remove him.
Luthais sped up his plans when the Grand Vizier disappeared from the galactic capital for a period of time and he initially thought that Isard was the one responsible for the sudden disappearance. However, to complicate matters further, around that time an officer from the Special Intelligence branch of Imperial Intel, Captain Salzor Reven, was transferred to ISB Internal Affairs. Reven—coincidentally the son of Urek Reven, the colonel's former rival who had died two decades ago—had been reassigned to the Bureau's Internal Affairs Department by Isard. Luthais saw this as yet another attack against him by the intelligence director. Captain Reven's first assignment turned out to be an investigation into the death of Reylan Horuk, a Coruscant Security Force investigator who was also a former ISB officer. He had been killed by the Black Sun after getting too close to figuring out the truth behind who orchestrated the criminal dealings that Orlean had become involved in.