Gallius Rax's child soldiers

"... You will lead these children. They will serve you. And one day soon your father will pass down his teachings to you, and you will learn to do what he did. It will be your life's work to take children like these savages and hammer their malleable minds into whatever shape you so require. They will be tools built for the work at hand. This is my gift to you, boy. One day your father will die. One day soon, I fear. And you will take his place."

- Gallius Rax giving Armitage Hux command of Brendol's child soldiers

Prior to the Battle of Jakku, the Counselor to the Empire Gallius Rax recruited two dozen local Jakku orphans as child soldiers. These orphans were kidnapped by the Hutt crime lady Niima, who had forged an agreement with Rax in return for receiving weapons. Rax's subordinate, the former Commandant Brendol Hux, trained these orphans into a fearsome force of child soldiers and assassins who were loyal to Rax. Rax used these orphans to assassinate the propagandist Ferric Obdur and later to execute an entire unit of adult stormtroopers. These killings were part of the Emperor Palpatine's posthumous Contingency plan to tear down the Galactic Empire.

Rax planned to take these child soldiers along with Hux, his son Armitage Hux, and several other worthy Imperial commanders into the Unknown Regions to start a new Empire. Prior to his death, Rax gave the young Armitage command of the child soldiers and tasked him with leading them. Following the Battle of Jakku, Grand Admiral Rae Sloane, who inherited the Contingency plan from Rax, struck a deal with Armitage to protect the boy from his father if he would ensure that the child soldiers did not attack her during the voyage. After months of travel, the child soldiers along with the Huxes and Sloane rendezvoused in uncharted space with the Emperor's flagship Eclipse.

Behind the scenes
Gallius Rax's child soldiers first appeared in Chuck Wendig's 2017 novel Aftermath: Empire's End, the last installment in Star Wars: The Aftermath Trilogy. It is strongly hinted in the text that these child soldiers became the First Order's first stormtroopers. In Star Wars: The Force Awakens: The Visual Dictionary, it is mentioned that General Hux and his father were part of the Imperial exodus that fled into the Unknown Regions following the Battle of Jakku and the signing of the Galactic Concordance. The younger Hux is credited with modelling the First Order's stormtrooper training regiment using techniques that his father had developed at the Arkanis Academy.

Appearances

 * Aftermath: Empire's End