Isabelle Ardant

Isabelle Ardant (née Chu; 1969 – 2015) was an Operations executive in the Historical Research division of Abstergo Industries, and a member of the Inner Sanctum of the Templar Order. She had regular contact with Álvaro Gramática, but disliked him intensely.

In 2015, she, Violet da Costa and Juhani Otso Berg were tasked with finding a Shroud of Eden, which they uncovered beneath Buckingham Palace. However, though da Costa escaped with the Shroud, Ardant was killed by the Assassin Shaun Hastings.

Early life
Ardant was born in Hong Kong in 1969 and moved to the United Kingdom to attend the University of Cambridge, where she specialized in computer science. Later, she became the first woman to be recruited by Abstergo Industries via their "Young Innovators" program. Ardant started out as a digital archivist, but gradually rose in rank, eventually securing the position of Operations Executive for the Historical Research division.

She thus became responsible for managing and archiving Abstergo's genetic memories, collecting them from different branches of the company and making them available to one another. In this way, Ardant came into contact with much of Abstergo's research, which led them to induct her into the Inner Sanctum. Meticulous by nature, she would guard the company's most valuable secrets.

Collaboration with Gramática
At some point in 2011, Ardant was given the responsibility of archiving the genetic memories of Project Legacy, an assignment she was displeased with, as she believed it to be beneath her rank. However, through the Project Legacy data, she discovered that Abstergo had acquired a Shroud of Eden during World War II. Due to the recent setbacks that the company had suffered, Ardant saw an opportunity to get into Alan Rikkin's good graces and decided to attempt repairing the artifact.

On 3 October, Ardant took the Shroud with her to Mexico City, where she met up with Álvaro Gramática. She asked her fellow Templar to try and reactivate the artifact – to which he accepted – while she searched her archives for more information and people that had previously come into contact with it.

In early January 2012, Ardant was invited by Gramática to join him at an Abstergo facility in Paris to check up on his progress. She was unnerved to discover that he intended to shoot himself in a desperate attempt to activate the Shroud, as his work over the past few months had yielded little results. Ardant reluctantly agreed and reacted with horror when an entity named "Consus" manifested itself through Gramática upon the artifact's activation.

In June, Ardant arranged for Templar agent Violet da Costa to be Gramática's test subject for six months, feeling it was too risky to have the head of Abstergo's Future Technology shoot himself each time to summon Consus. After Gramática and da Costa's partnership ended, Gramática continued studying the Shroud by himself, until the artifact was destroyed in an Assassin attack on the facility in 2014.

That same year, Ardant sent an email to Gramática, in which she briefed him about the 2.7 seconds of footage depicting the Isu, that had been successfully extracted from John Standish's genetic memories. Although the data was relatively mangled, she was able to make out architectural styles and large guard-like figures, which excited her.

In September 2015, Ardant informed Álvaro that, through Master Assassin Arbaaz Mir's DNA sample, they had found out that Arbaaz's son, Jayadeep Mir, had been searching for a Shroud of Eden in London during the 19th century. Álvaro, excited by the news, told Isabelle that he wanted someone researching Jayadeep's memories as fast as humanly possible.

In October, Ardant spoke with Gramática regarding Desmond Miles' son, who was also a Sage; though she was quite excited at the potential data he could reveal, she refused to condone Gramática's plan to kidnap the ten year old and vivisect him, and instead proposed that he be placed in an Animus for fifty years to study his memories.

Quest for the Shroud
Around the same time, Abstergo was on the trail of a Shroud of Eden. On 24 October, Ardant entered her office in London, where she shared a video conference with Gramática, who was heading the search, promising to bring in Sigma Team. Seconds after she ended the call, and calling Gramática a prick, she was confronted by the Assassins Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane. However, Juhani Otso Berg and Violet da Costa turned up, but a set of explosives allowed the Assassins to escape. Angered by their escape, Isabelle ordered Sigma Team to hunt them down.

Some time afterward, the Templars learned that the Shroud was hidden underneath Buckingham Palace, but unknown to them, so had the Assassins. Hastings, Crane and Galina Voronina attacked Ardant, da Costa and Berg. While Ardant was distracted by Berg and Voronina's fight, Hastings snuck up behind the Templar and stabbed her in the back with his Shock Blade, electrocuting and killing her. When the Assassins were forced to retreat without the Shroud, Violet managed to escape with it, leaving an unconscious Berg and Ardant's body behind in the process.

Legacy
Following her death, Ardant was succeeded by Simon Hathaway as the head of Abstergo Industries' Historical Research division and as a member of the Inner Sanctum.

Personality and characteristics
Unlike most of the members of the Inner Sanctum, Ardant seemed to have a sense of morality, especially when it came to children. This was demonstrated when she showed utter disgust at Álvaro Gramática's desire to experiment on and vivisect a ten year old boy; even though the boy in question was both a Sage and the son of the late Desmond Miles, Ardant refused to allow or condone it, citing the idea as "inhumane". Though this stands in direct contrast to other Templars that were willing to allow direct or indirect harm to children, including Laetitia England and Álvaro Gramática, she was still willing to rob him of his freedom and sanity by sticking him in an Animus for the rest of his life once he was old enough.

Like most high-ranking Templars, she disliked having to work with people or assignments she felt were beneath her such as Abstergo's Project Legacy. Ardant also demonstrated a vengeful side, such as demanding the painful death of Assassin Shaun in the Temple when he tried to kill her in her office.

Trivia

 * Ardant's maiden name, Chu, can be 朱 written in the, in which case it would mean "vermilion", or 楚 in the used in Mainland China, referring to one of the kingdoms in the Zhou dynasty. As Ardant is from Hong Kong, where the Wade-Giles romanization is in official usage, her surname is most likely the former.
 * Ardant's office featured portraits of Élise de la Serre, Haytham Kenway and Charles Lee, as well as a kukri that was displayed on one of the tables.
 * Among other things, Ardant's computer contained a Helix directory of various British Assassins and Templars.
 * According to Ardant’s calendar, she had meetings scheduled with Alan Rikkin, Mitsuko Nakamura, and Melanie Lemay throughout October 2015.
 * Ardant was part of the development team for Abstergo Entertainment’s Liberation video game.