Armitage Hux

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

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

Hux was a human male who served as a General in the First Order approximately thirty years following the Battle of Endor. A young, ruthless officer, he had complete confidence in his troops, training methods and weapons. Serving under Supreme Leader Snoke, Hux was one of the highest-ranking members of the First Order, and the commander of the superweapon known as the Starkiller.

Early life
Hux was born during the last days of the Galactic Empire, and was the son of Brendol Hux, a Commandant for the Imperial Academy on Arkanis. While growing up, he always thought it was his destiny to rule the galaxy.

When the Empire signed the Galactic Concordance and surrendered to the New Republic, Hux, and many others, who grew up hearing stories of great Imperials, and how the Empire saved the galaxy from the chaos of the Clone Wars, believed that the New Republic was weak and would never live up to the supreme power of the old Empire. So Hux, and other Imperial Officers fled to the Unknown Regions, 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. He, through technological terror, 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
"GENERAL!"

- Supreme Leader Snoke to General Hux at 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 Star Destroyer Finalizer and answered to Supreme Leader Snoke. After the failure to capture the BB-8 droid containing a piece of the map that led to the planet where Luke Skywalker was hiding, Hux spoke to Supreme Leader Snoke, and got his permission to finally test the superweapon. He then assembled the First Order army at Starkiller Base and ordered the base's weapon against the New Republic for supporting the Resistance by firing and destroying the Hosnian system, which at the time hosted the Republic's Capital and Senate.

After learning of the location of the Resistance base on D'Qar, Hux ordered Starkiller Base to prepare its weapon to fire against the planet. While its weapon was charging up, however, 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.

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.

During filming of The Force Awakens, several different version 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

 * Before the Awakening
 * Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens
 * Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens novelization
 * Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens junior novelization
 * Star Wars: Episode VIII