First Order (Star Wars)

• 1. Introduction

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  The First Order stripped its soldiers of their names, issuing serial numbers instead. In Star Wars: The Force Awakens, one trooper introduces himself only as FN-2187. That single detail captures the whole organization. The First Order rose from the ashes of a defeated empire, aiming to crush a new republic and rule the galaxy by force. How does a beaten empire quietly rebuild itself into a galaxy-spanning war machine? What set its fleets and troopers apart from the empire they replaced? And after decades hidden on the fringe, what finally broke its rule?

• 2. Born From Defeat

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  In 4 ABY, the Galactic Empire's defeat at the Battle of Endor, depicted in Return of the Jedi, triggered a galaxy-wide uprising. Thousands of worlds joined the Rebel Alliance to finish off an empire already crumbling into warlordism. The Alliance then reorganized as the New Republic, reclaiming the Core Worlds, including the capital, Coruscant.

  A year after Endor, the last Imperial fleet gambled on one final counter-offensive, climaxing at Jakku in the biggest battle since Endor itself. The counter-offensive was decisively defeated. Surviving Imperial forces retreated to a handful of Outer Rim sectors, holding only a small fraction of the galaxy's population and industry. Rather than pay the cost in lives to finish them off, the New Republic offered terms instead. The resulting Galactic Concordance was a humiliating armistice, forcing strict disarmament and heavy reparations onto what remained of the Empire.

  According to Chuck Wendig's Aftermath trilogy, Imperial Admiral Rae Sloane and Commandant Brendol Hux became the de facto founders of the First Order. Sloane had been introduced as a mere captain in the 2014 novel A New Dawn by John Jackson Miller. After rising to Grand Admiral, she coined the term First Order while helping build the reborn empire that would eventually take that name. The trilogy also hints that Sloane later mentored General Hux, who appears there as a child in the novel Empire's End.

  Over the following three decades, the fugitives styled themselves as an isolated hermit kingdom. They secretly rearmed in violation of their armistice, pushing into the unexplored Unknown Regions to seize new worlds far from New Republic eyes.

• 3. A Republic Splits

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  The 2016 novel Star Wars: Bloodline traces how the movement formally took the name First Order, only six years before The Force Awakens. By then, the New Republic Senate had split into two rival camps. Leia Organa led the Populists, who wanted to decentralize power, while the Centrists wanted authority concentrated in a strong central government.

  Many Centrists were former Imperials who admired the old Empire's order. They feared the New Republic would grow as weak and ineffectual as the Old Republic without firm central control. Eventually, many Centrist worlds seceded from the New Republic, reuniting with Imperial holdouts on the fringe to form the new government called the First Order. During this split, First Order conspirators publicly revealed that Leia was the daughter of Darth Vader, badly damaging her standing among the remaining Populists. Even so, most of the remaining Senate was content to let the Centrists go, judging the new First Order too small to threaten galactic peace.

  This new First Order came to be ruled by a mysterious Force-wielder called Supreme Leader Snoke. Emperor Palpatine had secretly created Snoke to control the Order after purging its previous leadership. Through Snoke, Palpatine seduced Leia's own son, Ben Solo, to the dark side, and Ben took the new name Kylo Ren. On turning, Kylo slaughtered most of his uncle Luke Skywalker's other Jedi apprentices, while the rest joined him, and he destroyed Luke's new academy. Blaming himself for the massacre, Luke fled into self-imposed exile, searching for the ancient first Jedi Temple. Kylo, meanwhile, took a position as Snoke's right hand within the First Order's military.

  With her political standing badly weakened and the Senate gridlocked, Leia Organa withdrew from politics. She formed her own private army, called the Resistance, to fight the First Order within its own borders. She was joined by other veterans of the old Rebel Alliance, including Admiral Ackbar. Publicly, the New Republic disavowed any direct association with the Resistance to preserve deniability, though several senators privately funneled it funds and resources. This standoff lasted six years, right up until the events of The Force Awakens.

  Comic book writer Charles Soule, creator of the 2015 series Star Wars: Poe Dameron, described the moment just before the film this way: "The New Republic and the First Order are in a position of détente, and while there have been a few small skirmishes between the Resistance and the First Order, it's very much a sort of cold war."

• 4. Quality Over Quantity

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  First Order commanders built their military around a stark creed: survival of the fittest. If a soldier could not fulfill a duty and died trying, doctrine held that so be it. The Order believed it grew stronger by culling the weak from its ranks.

  Its armistice with the New Republic also capped how many ships it could build. So instead of the old Empire's swarm tactics, the First Order made efficient use of the few resources it had. Culturally, it streamlined the Sith-influenced philosophies the Empire had already carried.

  The Last Jedi reveals a key breakthrough: First Order hyperspace tracking technology. The tech let its ships chase an enemy vessel from one hyperspace jump to the next, until one side ran out of fuel. Rogue One had mentioned this research in passing decades earlier, describing it as an Imperial project already underway almost forty years before The Last Jedi.

  Such tracking may have existed even earlier. In A New Hope, Darth Vader had already followed the Tantive IV from Scarif to Tatooine, even through hyperspace.

• 5. The New Fleet

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  The Resurgent-class Star Destroyer, the mainstay of the First Order fleet, is nearly twice the size of the old Imperial-class ships it replaced. Though the fleet was only a fraction of the Empire's former size, thirty years of advances made each new ship far more powerful one-for-one. With a naval doctrine that finally valued starfighters, the Resurgent-class borrowed its carrier-centric design from the old Galactic Republic's Venator-class Star Destroyer.

  The First Order's standard starfighter, designated TIE/fo, improved on the old Empire's TIE/ln model with greater attention to pilot stamina and survivability. Its Special Forces flew a heavier, two-man variant called the TIE/sf. Visually the color scheme flipped. Imperial TIEs wore black solar panels on a light grey frame, while First Order TIEs wear white panels on a dark metal body.

  The Last Jedi introduced the TIE silencer, a heavily armed elite fighter. It draws visual inspiration from the old TIE Defender and Darth Vader's TIE Advanced x1 prototype. Wider and more elongated, it carries heavier weapons and shields, built to face X-wings head-on. Its technical designation is TIE/vn, a holdover from earlier drafts that called the ship the TIE vendetta. Kylo Ren flies his own TIE silencer in The Last Jedi to assault the Resistance ship the MC85 Star Cruiser Raddus.

  In The Rise of Skywalker, another new craft appears: the TIE whisper. It comes in two variants, one with interceptor-style solar collectors and one styled after the standard TIE fighter. The fighter-style version appears during Poe Dameron's mission to the Sinta Glacier Colony. Kylo Ren flies the interceptor-style version as his personal craft, chasing both Palpatine and Rey, and Rey destroys both of his ships.

  The animated series Star Wars Resistance adds still more variants: the TIE Baron interceptor, designated TIE/ba, and a TIE bomber variant designated TIE/se. The older TIE/sa bomber, once flown by the Empire, returns to service as the First Order bomber. Other variants include the TIE/es assault shuttle and a heavy TIE/rb Brute starfighter.

  For elite passengers such as Kylo Ren, the First Order uses the Upsilon-class command shuttle, an evolution of the old Imperial Lambda-class T-4a shuttle. It drops the old shuttle's third fin and adds large wings that fold in on themselves upon landing.

  The Last Jedi also debuts the Mandator IV-class Siege Dreadnought, larger but rarer than the Resurgent-class. It serves as an orbital bombardment platform that can wipe out a planet's population centers using conventional weapons alone, just short of a true superweapon. Dwarfing even that ship is Supreme Leader Snoke's personal flagship, the Mega-class Star Dreadnought Supremacy. Wing-shaped and wider than it is long, the Supremacy is roughly the size of a small country. At its greatest width the Supremacy measures 60 kilometers, equal to about 18 Resurgent-class Star Destroyers lined up end to end.

• 6. Bred For War

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  First Order stormtroopers are not conscripted; they are kidnapped from their home worlds as children and trained from birth for no other purpose. Unable to conscript quadrillions of troops or afford a cloned army, the First Order settled on this method instead. Constant drilling in war games and simulations makes First Order soldiers far more effective one-on-one than the endless conscript waves the old Empire once fielded. Regular indoctrination and propaganda programs keep them fanatically loyal, trained never to hesitate or question an order.

  Stormtroopers deploy in squads of ten, with the tenth slot reserved for a specialist. That specialist is usually a heavy gunner, but sometimes a flamethrower trooper or a riot trooper carrying an energy baton capable of blocking a lightsaber. Their armor closely resembles the Empire's, sharing the helmet visor, nasal filters and overall shape, though the filter was extended. According to First Order officer Captain Phasma, not even a Wookiee could crush that armor.

  Some stormtroopers held ranks, a real improvement over the Empire's single-rank system. Rank was shown by the color of a trooper's shoulder pauldron: white for squad leaders, black for sergeants, red for officers. A stormtrooper who earned the rank of captain received a blaster-proof cape. Captain Phasma took this further, making blaster-proof chrome copies of her own equipment and improving the vision modes built into her helmet's visor. Captain Cardinal, bodyguard to one of the First Order's founding fathers, received almost all-red armor from his superior as a mark of trust. The Rise of Skywalker introduces jet troopers, a new variant equipped with G125 projectile launchers and jet packs.

  On the ground, its heaviest siege weapon is the AT-M6, an evolution of the old AT-AT walker. Serrated cable-cutters on its legs let it walk on its knuckles instead of foot pads, guarding against the trip-ups that downed AT-ATs at Hoth. Combined with a hunched-over siege cannon, the result looks almost gorilla-like next to the AT-AT's more elephant-like frame.

• 7. Fire Over Hosnian Prime

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  In The Force Awakens, the First Order's base of operations is Starkiller Base, the ice planet Ilum turned into a mobile superweapon. It can destroy entire star systems across the galaxy by firing through hyperspace. General Hux commands Starkiller as a ruthless young officer devoted to the First Order.

  Supreme Leader Snoke, a powerful dark-side figure, has already corrupted Ben Solo, son of Han Solo and Leia Organa. Ben had once been an apprentice to his uncle, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, before taking the masked identity Kylo Ren. As one of Snoke's enforcers, Kylo mirrors his own grandfather, Darth Vader, who served as Emperor Palpatine's enforcer decades earlier. Kylo also leads the Knights of Ren, a mysterious band of elite warriors allied with the First Order. He and General Hux compete for Snoke's approval, while the third member of the commanding triumvirate is Captain Phasma, commander of the stormtroopers.

  Kylo is searching for Luke Skywalker, who vanished years earlier, because Snoke believes a new generation of Jedi could rise while Luke still lives. The First Order launches a pre-emptive strike on Hosnian Prime, the New Republic's capital, to demonstrate Starkiller's firepower. The blast destroys Hosnian Prime's sun, its planets, and the New Republic warships stationed there. The surprise attack kills most of the New Republic's leadership in the Galactic Senate and wipes out a large share of its core military fleets. This clears the way for the First Order to launch a rapid assault across the rest of the galaxy.

  Kylo fails to retrieve the map that would lead him to Luke. The Resistance destroys Starkiller Base moments before it can fire on their own base at D'Qar, though Kylo, Hux and Phasma all escape the blast.

• 8. A War Ends

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  At the start of The Last Jedi, the First Order's fleet attacks the Resistance base on the planet D'Qar. Poe Dameron rashly leads an assault on a Mandator IV-class Siege Dreadnought and manages to destroy it. The cost is the entire bomber wing of the Resistance fleet. First Order TIE fighters then destroy the Resistance's carrier ship, wiping out most of its command. General Leia survives the attack but is left incapacitated, so Vice Admiral Holdo takes command of the fleet in her place.

  The pursuit becomes a battle of attrition. One by one, as fuel runs low, the smaller Resistance ships are picked off by the pursuing fleet. Finn and a Resistance mechanic named Rose set out to disable the tracking device aboard Snoke's flagship, the Supremacy.

  Meanwhile, Kylo Ren kills Snoke and takes his place as Supreme Leader of the First Order. Poe Dameron, believing Holdo inept and without a plan, stages a mutiny against her. Holdo reveals she withheld her plan from Poe because of his reckless dreadnought assault. Her plan is to flee in cloaked shuttles to an old Rebel Alliance base on the planet Crait. She herself stays behind on the Resistance command ship. The First Order discovers the ruse and destroys most of the shuttles. Finn and Rose locate the tracking device but are captured by Captain Phasma. Holdo then sacrifices herself, steering the command ship into lightspeed straight through the Mega-Destroyer, destroying much of the First Order fleet. Finn kills Captain Phasma in the chaos and escapes with Rose to Crait.

  At Crait, the First Order blasts the Rebel base's door using miniaturized Death Star technology. Leia sends transmissions asking allies in the Outer Rim for help, but no aid arrives. Just as the First Order breaches the base, Luke Skywalker appears to challenge them, and a full artillery barrage has no effect on him. Kylo Ren descends to duel him in person, only to realize Luke is merely a Force projection while the surviving Resistance escapes the planet.

  The Rise of Skywalker picks up a year later, with the First Order now led by Supreme Leader Kylo Ren following Snoke's death. Allegiant General Pryde, who served Palpatine in the old Empire, has now joined General Hux at the top of the military hierarchy. Kylo Ren discovers a physically weakened Palpatine hiding in exile on the Sith world Exegol. On Exegol, Palpatine unveils a new fleet of Xyston-class Star Destroyers, called the Final Order. He offers Kylo control of that fleet if Kylo finds and kills Rey, who Palpatine reveals is his own granddaughter.

  General Hux turns out to have been a spy inside the First Order all along, motivated by his contempt for Kylo Ren. Pryde discovers the betrayal and has Hux executed for treason. On the wreckage of the second Death Star at Kef Bir, Rey confronts Kylo Ren. Leia calls out to him through the Force, distracting him long enough for Rey to strike him down. Rey heals him and flees. Afterward, Kylo sees a vision of his father, Han Solo, and abandons the dark side to reclaim his old identity as Ben Solo. Palpatine orders Pryde to obliterate the planet Kijimi as a show of force. That order makes Pryde the de facto leader of the First Order and its Sith fleet.

  Guided by Luke Skywalker's spirit, Rey takes his old T-65B X-wing, Red Five, to Exegol and leads the Resistance there. Finn and Poe engage the Sith Eternal forces while Rey confronts Palpatine directly. Lando Calrissian and Chewbacca arrive with reinforcements gathered from across the galaxy, destroying the remaining Sith forces and killing Pryde in the process. With help from Ben Solo and the spirits of past Jedi, Rey finally destroys Palpatine.

  In response, the galaxy rises up against the First Order. Fourteen years after its founding, the organization is destroyed, closing out fifty-four years of Imperial power.