What Is The ISB Mentioned In The Mandalorian Chapter 15?

For fans of the wee baby Grogu, The Mandalorian chapter 15 was a particularly somber affair. The Child remained in the custody of Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) and out of sight for the entirety of season 2's penultimate episode. Chapter 15 focuses on Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) trying to track down exactly where Gideon is keeping his charge, with the help of Inmate 3467, less formally known as Migs Mayfeld (Bill Burr, who loves to razz Star Wars fans).

In order to locate Gideon, Mayfeld led Mando to a mining facility, where he suspects they'll find information about his whereabouts. However, the recon mission isn't an easy one; the facility in question is run by one of the most fearsome arms of the Empire's police state: the Imperial Security Bureau, or the ISB. If Storm Troopers are the Empire's army, then the ISB is its secret police, charged with tracking down, rooting out, and eliminating rebellious elements and other threats from within the state (via StarWars.com).

The ISB's menacing presence has cast a shadow across the galaxy since the rise of the Empire, and chapter 15 isn't even the first time they've been mentioned on The Mandalorian. In Chapter 8, they got a shoutout while the show was detailing Moff Gideon's ignoble resume, which includes a stint as an ISB officer.

There have been references and sightings of the ISB throughout many properties in the Star Wars franchise, beginning with the movie that started it all.

Although the specifics of the organization weren't brought to light until later entries in the franchise, viewers first got a glimpse of the ISB in Star Wars: A New Hope, in which an ISB Colonel named Wullf Yularen (later voiced by Tom Kane) can be seen on the Death Star (via Wookiepedia). He and his ISB comrades were little more than background players in that first movie, but, when the franchise expanded and began to fill in the events from before the first trilogy, they became more prominent players.

Yularen was featured in the animated series, Star Wars: Rebels. While the ISB has appeared all across the franchise's universe, Rebels — which follows the crew of the starship Ghost as they fight against the Empire in the years leading up to the events of A New Hope — is perhaps the property into which it factors most prominently. One of the more important characters on the series is a former protege of Yularen named Alexsandr Kallus (David Oyelowo). While Kallus starts off as a promising ISB officer, he eventually defects and begins working with the rebels as a spy within the Empire's secret police force (via Wookiepedia).

Considering The Mandalorian is stuffed to bursting with deep-cut references to the larger Star Wars canon, it's no surprise that the nefarious ISB has been getting shoutouts on the series.