Armitage Hux

"All remaining systems will bow to the First Order! And will remember this... as the last day of the Republic!"

- General Armitage Hux to the members of Starkiller Base before the destruction of the Hosnian system

Armitage Hux was a human male military officer who served in the High Command of the First Order, within which he was a leading advocate of the harsh training methods employed to foster absolute obedience amongst its military. As a general in the First Order, he also commanded the Starkiller Base superweapon and led missions of vital importance to the Galactic Empire-inspired regime. He served alongside Kylo Ren, a Force warrior apprenticed to Supreme Leader Snoke who, despite not being part of the military, could also command the forces of the First Order.

Hux was born on Arkanis and was rumored to have been sired from an affair between his father, Commandant Brendol Hux of the Arkanis Academy, and a kitchen worker. Hux and his father, whose ruthless training methods at the Arkanis Academy inspired those of the future General Hux and the First Order, were rescued from the Academy when it was about to fall to the New Republic near the end of the Galactic Civil War. When the war ended with the Battle of Jakku and the signing of the Galactic Concordance, the young Hux and his father were part of the Imperial Navy forces who retreated into the Unknown Regions. These forces later emerged as the First Order. The Republic believed that the First Order was just an unimportant band of Imperial holdouts, but Hux's training methods forged a formidable military. He also longed to use the Starkiller weapon against the Republic; Hux believed that the Republic was a threat to galactic stability, and that it was his destiny to rule the galaxy.

Nearly thirty years after the end of the Galactic Civil War, Hux was part of the mission to recover a map to Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi, on Jakku. Ren led the search for the map, which they were unable to locate. To prevent the return of the Jedi and to eliminate the Resistance, which, under the command of General Leia Organa, emerged to combat the First Order, Snoke allowed Hux to use the Starkiller weapon against the Republic's capital world of Hosnian Prime. The Resistance was left without military support from the Republic, so Hux soon turned the weapon towards the Resistance base on D'Qar. Before he could destroy them, however, an attack squadron led by Commander Poe Dameron&mdash;with ground support from Han Solo, former stormtrooper Finn, and the Jakku scavenger Rey&mdash;destroyed Starkiller Base, forcing Hux and his troops to flee the planet.

Early life
"Brendol, I understand you have a son. Not of your wife&mdash;an illegitimate child? Will he be the best the Empire has to offer?''" "''I&hellip; Armitage is a weak-willed boy. Thin as a slip of paper and just as useless. But I'll teach him. You'll&hellip; you'll see. He has potential."

- Grand Admiral Rae Sloane and Brendol Hux

Armitage Hux was born during the last days of the Galactic Empire, and was the illegitimate son of Brendol Hux, a Commandant for the Imperial Academy on Arkanis, the result of an illicit affair with a kitchen woman. While growing up, Armitage always thought it was his destiny to rule the galaxy.

The young Hux remained on Arkanis while the forces of the New Republic laid siege to the system. As he was putting together his Shadow Council (an intended successor to the Imperial Ruling Council) onboard the super star destroyer Ravager, Fleet Admiral Gallius Rax specifically ordered Grand Admiral Rae Sloane to ensure that Brendol Hux and his son were both safely taken off planet, much to Sloane's perplexity. He explained this by saying "The Empire needs children." With the assistance of bounty hunter Mercurial Swift, the two were safely taken off planet as Arkanis fell to the enemy.

Fall of the Empire
"... 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 command of Brendol's child soldiers

Following the Attack on Chandrila, Armitage followed his father Brendol to the planet Jakku. Gallius Rax had proclaimed himself Counselor to the Empire and brought the Imperial remnants to the desolate world for a final showdown against the New Republic. In the months leading up to the Battle of Jakku, Armitage kept away from Brendol, who physically and psychologically mistreated him. Brendol trained 24 local orphans into Rax's personal guard of child soldiers.

After the Battle of Jakku had commenced, Armitage traveled with his father, Counselor Rax, the Adviser Yupe Tashu, and the child soldiers aboard a transport to the Jakku Observatory. The Observatory was a secret facility in the Plaintive Hand plateau which was instrumental to the later Emperor Palpatine's Contingency plan. Rax planned to detonate the planet Jakku along with the New Republic and Imperial forces. He planned to take Armitage and his father Brendol into the Unknown Regions to rebuild the Empire.

During the journey to the Observatory, Hux found himself alone in the transport hold with the child soldiers. Hux was intimidated by the older children, who had been trained into ruthless killers by his father. Counselor Rax then entered the room and asked Armitage if his father had explained anything to him. Armitage confirmed that this was not the case and indicated that his father did not like him. Taking pity on Armitage, Rax told the boy that he, his father, and the other children would be traveling far away. Rax also hinted that Armitage would have a special destiny to play in the future.

Gallius Rax informed Armitage that he was giving him command of the child soldiers as a gift. Rax told Armitage that he would succeed his father in training the children into tools of warfare. Rax then addressed the child soldiers and instructed them they were bound to serve Armitage and should be willing to give their lives for him. Armitage thanked Counselor Rax, who told the boy that the future of the Empire needed him. After Rax had exited the transport hold, Armitage ordered one of the boys, who had dark hair and freckled skin, to strike his comrade, a lad with sandy hair and sallow cheeks.

After landing at the Jakku Observatory, Rax instructed the Huxes and the child soldiers to board a replica of the Emperor's yacht Imperialis while he and Tashu entered the Observatory to initiate Jakku's destruction. Ultimately, Rax was killed by Grand Admiral Sloane, who managed to stop Rax from destroying Jakku with the help of the rebel couple Norra Wexley and Brentin Lore Wexley. Seeking an opportunity to rebuild the Empire in her own image, Sloane accompanied the Huxes and the child soldiers on their journey into the Unknown Regions.

During the journey, Sloane befriend Armitage and struck an agreement to protect the boy from his father if he kept her safe from the children. Sloane subsequently beat Brendol into submission and forced him to stop hurting his son and to teach the boy everything he knew. For several months, the Imperialis traveled through the Unknown Regions in order. During the journey, Armitage and his father trained the children. He became more vicious during those months, which Sloane regarded as unusual even for such a small boy. After months of traveling through space, the Imperialis rendezvoused with the Emperor's Super Star Destroyer, the Eclipse.

The First Order
"Your son. Armitage. I know you don't like him. I suspect you hurt him&mdash;psychologically or physically, I don't know, and I don't care. You will leave him alone. And you will teach the boy everything that you know. Are we clear?"

- Grand Admiral Sloane became Armitage's protector

Meanwhile, the New Republic signed the Galactic Concordance with the defeated Empire, ending the Galactic Civil War and dissolving the Empire. Growing up in exile, Hux was raised by his father on stories of great Imperials and how the Empire saved the galaxy from the chaos of the Clone Wars. Due to his upbringing, Armitage believed that the New Republic was weak and would never live up to the supreme power of the Old Empire. Many other Imperial officers also fled to the Unknown Regions along with the Huxes, where they would create the First Order, a military and political junta that rose from the ashes of the fallen Empire and followed its imperial ideology. Using technological terror, Hux achieved military superiority throughout the Order, eventually gaining the rank of General.

As General, Hux had complete confidence in his troops, training methods and weapons. His soldiers, who were often trained on capital ships, underwent vivid simulations to create the most loyal soldiers for the Order. This system was an extension of the ideas of his father's Commandant's Cadets, from the Arkanis Academy.

General of the First Order
"Supreme Leader, I take full responsibility for th--''" "''GENERAL! Our strategy must now change."

- Supreme Leader Snoke and General Hux discussing the Starkiller Base

About 30 years after the Battle of Endor, Hux was the general who commanded Starkiller Base, the primary base of operations of the First Order, as well as the Resurgent-class Battlecruiser Finalizer and answered to Supreme Leader Snoke. Deeming Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi, to be a threat to the First Order, Hux, along with Kylo Ren, were given the directive. Though First Order possessed maps from the Empire that would lead them to the planet where Skywalker was hiding, they lacked a final piece. To that end, the Finalizer traveled to Jakku and dispatches a bridge of stormtroopers to attack the settlement of Tuanul, where Ren captured a Resistance pilot named Poe Dameron, who already acquired and hid the final piece of the map. After Ren interrogated Dameron, he informed Hux that the prisoner had entrusted the map to a BB-8 unit. Hux dispatched stormtroopers back to Jakku to search for it and posted a bounty on the droid.

Subsequently, Dameron was freed by a stormtrooper and the pair attempted to escape on a TIE/sf space superiority fighter, disabling the Finalizer's turbolasers. Hux ordered the ventral cannons to shoot down the fighter, causing it to crash-land on Jakku. Upon informing Ren of the incident, the dark knight deduced that the traitorous stormtrooper was FN-2187. Hux checked with Captain Phasma, who noted that this was FN-2187's first offense.

Subsequently, Supreme Leader Snoke ordered BB-8 captured or destroyed if necessary. When Hux informed Ren, the latter questioned the competency of their stormtroopers, given that one of them committed high treason, and suggested that the First Order instead appropriate a clone army like the Galactic Republic and early Empire before them. Hux assured him that his stormtroopers were trained from birth to succeed and reminded Ren not to let his obsession with Skywalker interfere with their mission.

Commanding Starkiller Base
After BB-8 fled Jakku aboard the Millennium Falcon, Hux and Ren returned to Starkiller Base, where they spoke to a hologram of Supreme Leader Snoke. Snoke was not happy that they let the droid slip through their fingers and stated that the Jedi would rise again if the map got to the Resistance. Hux humbly took full responsibility for his failure, but the Supreme Leader interrupted him, declaring that their strategy had to change. Hux suggested testing the superweapon and destroy the New Republic for supporting the Resistance, leaving their enemies vulnerable. After receiving authorization for the undertaking, Hux then assembled the First Order army at Starkiller Base and gave a grand speech, proclaiming that the destruction of the Republic would be the beginning of the First Order's rise to power in the galaxy. At his signal, the base's weapon fired and destroyed the Hosnian system, which at the time hosted the Republic's capital and Senate, wiping away its leadership and fleet.

Subsequently, the First Order received a tip from an informant on Takodana that BB-8 was there, so Ren led an attack squadron. However, Ren instead captured BB-8's accomplice, the Jakku scavenger Rey, because she had seen the map, and ordered the division to retreat as the Resistance engaged them. Ren brought Rey back to Starkiller Base and attempted to extract the map from her mind, only to learn that the girl was strong in the Force and turned his own mind probe against him. Hux later walked in a conversation between Ren and Snoke, the latter asking what happened to BB-8. The general humiliated his colleague by telling the Supreme Leader that Ren decided the droid was not longer valuable to the First Order's mission, and that the girl was all they needed. He then informed Snoke that they tracked the Resistance scout ship performing recon on Starkiller Base back to the Ileenium system. Snoke ordered Hux to use the superweapon to destroy the Resistance before they could find Skywalker.

However, while its weapon was charging up, the Resistance led a starfighter assault against Starkiller Base, which resulted in the base's destruction before it could fire on D'Qar. Hux was then ordered by Snoke to evacuate the planet and to take the defeated Kylo Ren with him.

Personality and traits
"You. Do you agree to do as I say? I want you to hit the boy to the right of you. Hard."

- Armitage grew from a frightened young boy into a fearsome military commander

Armitage Hux was a human man with red hair and pale skin. When he was a young child, his father Brendol Hux regarded him as a weak-willed boy. In his childhood, Hux was frequently belittled by his father. Despite Brendol's disdain for his own child, both Gallius Rax and Rae Sloane recognized that Armitage had the potential to become a military commander of the First Order. Under Rax's influence, the boy grew more vicious and was willing to order his father's child soldiers to hurt each other in order to assert his authority. From childhood, Hux was raised on stories of heroic Imperials and how the Empire had brought peace and order to the galaxy following the Clone Wars. Hux believed that the the galaxy needed to be saved from chaos and that the New Republic was too weak to rein in these problems.

As an adult, General Hux was a methodical commander who continued his father's program of training stormtroopers from infancy. Hux was a scientific and technologically-minded man who had little patience and understanding for Force-wielders like Kylo Ren. Hux had an acrimonious relationship with Kylo Ren and the two competed for the favor of the First Order's Supreme Leader Snoke. Hux was rankled by Kylo Ren's questioning of his faith in his men and methods. He also tried to deflect blame onto Kylo after First Order forces on Takodana failed to recover BB-8 and the map to Luke Skywalker.

Due to his upbringing, Hux believed that he was destined to rule the galaxy. He regarded the New Republic as an illegitimate government that had to be destroyed in order to usher in the First Order. Hux believed that Starkiller Base held the key to retaking the galaxy from the New Republic. While Hux was distressed by the Resistance's destruction of Starkiller Base, he nevertheless complied with Snoke's orders to recover Kylo Ren and bring him to the Supreme Leader.

Skills and abilities
As a General in the First Order, Armitage Hux commanded the First Order's armies and Starkiller Base. He was familiar with the operating systems of a Resurgent-class Battlecruiser and Starkiller Base.

Equipment
General Hux wore a charcoal grey general's uniform, black gloves, a polished officer's buckle, traditional flared-hip breeches, and insulated books. He also wore a crested command cap emblazoned with the insignia of the First Order and a gaberwool officer's greatcoat. Hux believed that a tidy appearance was essential to maintaining discipline. When addressing his men, he wore a parade uniform designed to broadcast his authority as a First Order General.

Development
"I think General Hux would just like a little bit more order in the universe. Whatever it takes is where he's at."

- Domnhall Gleeson, on General Hux

The character of General Hux was created for the 2015 film Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens, in which he is portrayed by Domhnall Gleeson. Gleeson was cast in the movie in April 2014, just one day before appearing in a publicity photo of the cast doing a table read of the script. He afterward rented a screening room in his hometown of Dublin, Ireland, and watched all three installments of the original Star Wars trilogy to prepare for shooting the new film &mdash;he has described arriving on the set of a Star Wars movie on his first day of shooting as a breathtaking, "pinch me" moment. Details of Gleeson's character, including the name General Hux, were first revealed to the public at the San Diego Comic-Con in July 2015.

While developing Hux's character, Gleeson and the film's production team posited that he was an obsessive character who does not get a lot of sleep. They created his look with that in mind: pale with dark eyes, and dead-set on his goals. The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams has called Hux a merciless character, and Gleeson has described him as someone who enjoys having authority and holding onto it at all costs. He has also stated that Hux "would just like a little bit more order in the universe" and would do whatever it takes to achieve that order. In the leadup to the film's release, he joked that Hux was obviously an evil character due to his British accent, a trait shared by numerous Star Wars villains. Gleeson was excited to play such a character, as it was unlike any acting role he had previously done and allowed him to explore the notion of authority. StarWars.com has confirmed that Gleeson will return in Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi.

During filming of The Force Awakens, several different versions were shot of a scene where Hux addresses the troops of the First Order, as J.J. Abrams hoped to try it at various levels of intensity. He ultimately "wanted it big," and he and screenplay writer Lawrence Kasdan believed that it was Hux's major moment in the movie. Although the amount of stormtrooper extras present for the scene made Gleeson nervous, he also felt like it gave him a sense of the number of people his speech was intended to affect. The speech has been compared to Adolf Hitler speaking at a Nuremberg Rally and has been described by reviewers as being an over-the-top and random moment in the film.

Continuity
"I'd imagined Zare catching sight of a red-haired baby in a hover-pram pushed by a sinister nanny droid, but that wound up feeling like a reference for a reference's sake, which I've come to believe undermines storytelling instead of supporting it."

- Jason Fry, on writing Servants of the Empire: The Secret Academy

Prior to The Force Awakens release, a character named Brendol Hux was introduced in Servants of the Empire: The Secret Academy, a young readers' book by Jason Fry that serves as a tie-in to the television program Star Wars Rebels. In the book, Brendol Hux reveals his ambition to create an army of soldiers loyal to the Galactic Empire from birth. A StarWars.com Databank entry later revealed that Brendol Hux is General Hux's father, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens: The Visual Dictionary went on to confirm that Hux's army of stormtroopers in the film&mdash;trained from infancy to be loyal to the First Order&mdash;are an extension of his father's group, the Commandant's Cadets.

Fry originally conceived of the cadets to advance a plotline in his story, but he was struggling to find them a goal or a purpose that would eventually come into fruition. The idea to connect them with General Hux came in November 2014 when he met with Lucasfilm Ltd. about another project, Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Incredible Cross-Sections, and was privy to concept art, stills, and a synopsis of the upcoming movie. He then proposed to Pablo Hidalgo of the Lucasfilm Story Group that the idea of training children to be stormtroopers began with Hux's father in the era of Star Wars Rebels, and when Hidalgo ran it up the chain of command, the answer came back in the positive. Fry considered inserting a "red-haired baby" Hux into his book, being cared for by a sinister nanny droid, but he ultimately felt that it was a reference for the sake of a reference and cut it from the final draft.

Appearances

 * Aftermath: Life Debt
 * Aftermath: Empire's End
 * Phasma
 * Before the Awakening
 * Poe Dameron 2: Black Squadron, Part II
 * Poe Dameron 10: The Gathering Storm, Part III
 * Poe Dameron 11: The Gathering Storm, Part IV
 * Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens
 * Star Wars: The Force Awakens novelization
 * Star Wars: The Force Awakens: A Junior Novel
 * Star Wars: The Force Awakens: New Adventures
 * Star Wars: The Force Awakens Beginner Game
 * Star Wars: The Force Awakens—Graphic Novel Adaptation
 * The Force Awakens, Part I
 * The Force Awakens, Part III
 * The Force Awakens, Part IV
 * The Force Awakens, Part V
 * The Force Awakens, Part VI
 * Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi

Non-canon appearances

 * Disney Infinity 3.0
 * LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens
 * LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens (DK Readers)
 * LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens (DK Readers)