Director Leonard Church

"It is an undeniable and may I say fundamental quality of man that when faced with extinction, every alternative is preferable."

- Director Leonard Church "You were my greatest creation"

- The Director to Agent Carolina before she leaves him for the last time

Dr. Leonard Church was the Director of Project Freelancer up until recently. He was under arrest for numerous protocol violations, as stated in the beginning of Reconstruction, the season finale. He is the primary antagonist of Season 9 and Season 10.

Project Freelancer
In Season 9, the Director was first seen in the Trailer, giving access to the Pelican trying to board Angel On My Shoulder, in order to get medical aid for Agent Maine. He was then seen speaking to a Doctor after getting off the Pelican. During Maine's surgery, the Director briefly interviews Wash demanding to know what had happened. In the episode, The Twins, the Director is again seen overlooking South and North Dakota's mission on retrieving data at the Bjordinal Cyrogenics Research Facility. He then gave clearance for Agent Carolina to aid North and South when they became surronded at the helipad. He briefs North, South, and Carolina after they return from their mission. He has the Counselor change the boards, placing North ahead of South. This angers South causing her to question him. He tells her that stealth was one of the mission objectives, something South failed to follow, and, as a result, made their next mission more difficult.

In Case File 01.045, C.T. believes the Director is selecting the Freelancers to see who the best of the best are, which in reality, will only make them divided. In Introduction, Washington tells the other Freelancer agents to call the Director as Maine and Wyoming began using live rounds on the training course. C.T., with her negative outlook on the Director, replies to Wash, "Who do you think gave them the ammo?", implying the Director supplied Wyoming and Maine with the ammo. He then comes down to the training floor after York is injured with a grenade. He says he will not punish Maine or Wyoming as they were being inventive. When talked back to by Wash he yells at him saying that the enemy will not follow protocol either, and leaves the room. During the mission to recover the Sarcophagus, he prepares to fire the MAC at the 110 story building to destroy it. However he is advised by the Counselor to wait until the Agents are away. He ignores this warning telling the Counselor to shut up and fires. Later when F.I.L.S.S refuses to drop a pod for Agent Texas due to safety protocols, the Director has her fire it anyway. In the mission, Tex recovers the briefcase and contacts the Director. The Director applauds her for her work. In Labor Pains, he welcomes the newly born Delta, telling him that together they will do incredible things. During the Season Finale, the Director tells Carolina that she will partake in more missions that will require her to do questionable things, in which Carolina agrees nonetheless, saying she will do anything for the Director.

Some time later on, he contacts York, who is on a mission, about the mission's status. He is pleased until Delta mentions remote alarms being sounded. He tries to get York to abandon the mission, but York continues to try and work at the lock. He is aboard the Mother of Invention when it comes under attack from Insurrectionist ships, however they are able to deal with these. Once the Staff Of Charon comes out of the rubble, it attacks the Mother of Invention and gains the upper hand, but it leaves. When the team returns to the Pelican, he asks of their status, to which they say they have everyone but C.T. who is gone. He asks them to define gone.

He reappears with the Counselor who then orders Delta to assist him with a new test simulation for Agent North and his new A.I Theta. After the succesful test, he is giving a lecture to the Freelancers in a classroom about the A.I stages. When South complains that Agent Texas didn't have to attend class, the Director angrily tells her she did not need the class. When it became clear C.T was actually working with the Insurrection, he orders the Freelancers to attack and reclaim C.T's armor, else it fall into the wrong hands. He yells at Carolina when asked if any other personnel will be helping them, telling her to leave personnel decisions to him alone.

Some time after this mission, Carolina, being manipulated by Gamma and Sigma, demands she receive an A.I. When the Director offers her either Eta or Iota, she asks for both. At first the Director disagrees, until Carolina states the newer A.I fragments are continually getting weaker. He goes to the training field once Carolina has Eta and Iota implanted in her. He demands to know why there was an unscheduled match taking place, but as soon as he realizes Carolina's opponent is Tex, he desperately shouts, "''No! Allison!". ''This causes all the Freelancers except for Tex (she learned to control Omega) and Washington (he had not yet received Epsilon) to cry out in pain, especially Carolina. When the Counselor suggests Carolina be sedated, the Director shrugs it off, saying the choice was hers and she must live with her choices.

He then harvests the A.I Epsilon, who inherited the Alpha's memories. When attempting to implant Epsilon, Washington begins to have memory flashes of the Director's long lost love, Allison. Once the Epsilon incident ends, the Director orders all the A.I be removed, putting the process on hold. When Tex breaks in to rescue Alpha (with the help of York and North), the Director tells Carolina to stop her. He witnesses the Meta stealing Carolina's A.I and throwing her off a cliff.

Some time passes and the Director decides to relocate the Alpha to a location where no one will look for him...he chooses Captain Butch Flowers, aka Agent Florida, to guard him, and sends both Flowers and Alpha (now thinking himself as Leonard L. Church) to Blood Gulch.

Messaging the Chairman
Throughout the events of Reconstruction, the Director exchanges a number of transmissions with the Chairman, each one revealing more about the Director's personality and views, as well as slowly revealing the tensions he and the Chairman share toward each other. Through the various transmissions and through the information provided by Agent Washington in numerous episodes, it is eventually revealed that the Director and his Freelancer Project was given a single, "smart AI" to experiment with in his soldiers, known as the Alpha. In a severe abuse of power and protocol, the Director has the Alpha AI split into fragments to be copied; this was done by subjecting it to highly stressful scenarios to the point where it detaches portions of itself to maintain its sanity and survive. When the Chairman discovers this after looking into his personal files, the Director is immediately issued a warrant of arrest, and in the beginning of Chapter 19 he is notified that law enforcement members are on their way to detain him. The Director in Reconstruction.During Chapter he speaks to Wash, who has infiltrated the base with the Meta following close behind. When negotiations with Wash fail, and Wash reveals he's known everything since Epsilon was implanted in his head, the Director orders the Meta to kill him — revealing he still had some level of control over Agent Maine (although this could be due to his bribing the Meta with the location of the Alpha, which it demanded). When Private Church appeared and entered the Meta's mind, incapacitating it and giving Washington time to activate the EMP, the Director attempts one final desperate plea to cooperate with Wash, who staunchly refuses before activating the EMP and disabling the entire base.

Current Location and Presumed Death
Carolina actually survived, and enlisted the help of Epsilon, along with the Reds and Blues, to help her find and kill the Director. Eventually, they locate him at the old facility where Epsilon first brought Epsilon-Tex to life. When Carolina and Epsilon confront the Director on their own, they find him constantly rewatching a home video of Allison, the last time he ever saw her. This is where the situation changes...while Epsilon becomes even more enraged and wants the Director to pay for what he has done, Carolina realizes the Director has suffered enough and has been exhausted and broken down as the years went by. Against Epsilon's wishes, she decides to leave the Director alone, acknowledging him one last time. Affter the two leave, the Director orders F.I.L.S.S to shut down all facilities, which would kill off his life support. Using the pistol he asked Carolina to leave behind, the Director presumable uses it to commit suicide.

Audio Diaries
One last transmission was sent to the Chairman of the Oversight Sub-Committee during the Epilogue, with the Director sounding far more subdued and weary than he previously was. Revealing that he never had the chance to participate or sacrifice himself for the war, and that he has been haunted with the memory of his loved one who he lost long ago, he ends the transmission saying that he would come quietly and hope that the court would see things from his perspective. He also stated his belief that the courts would not be able to convict him, because though there are many laws against hurting and terrorizing others, he maintains that there are no laws against tormenting one's own self.

He then closes his transmission by stating his name, which is actually Dr. Leonard Church — revealing that Private Church/Alpha was in fact designed from the Director's own personality and memories. (Tex is later revealed in Reunion to be a by-product of the process and that she was what he remembered of his loved one, Allison, which may explain why he favored Tex during the course of Project Freelancer, while also shedding some light on Church's relationship with Tex.)

Trivia

 * The Director speaks in a subtle southern accent.
 * The machine the Director and Counsler communicate with Wash and the Meta through is actually the Cold Storage Moniter from Halo 3, which is located in the map Cold Storage.
 * Dr. Leonard Church is based on a character from Halo canon called Dr. Endesha.