Stormtrooper (First Order)

Stormtroopers, also known as First Order stormtroopers or "bucketheads," were the infantry soldiers of the First Order, a fascist military junta from within the Unknown Regions of the galaxy. As the latest evolution of one of galactic history's most distinctive symbols of military might, the First Order's infantry units were outfitted with stark white armor derived from that worn by the Galactic Republic's clone troopers and the Galactic Empire's identically named elite shock troops. To ensure absolute loyalty and conformity, First Order troopers were identified by alphanumeric designations instead of individual names and programmed from birth through regular exposure to tightly-controlled propaganda. Ultimately, members of this new generation of stormtroopers were trained to serve one purpose—conquering the galaxy in the name of the First Order.
The First Order Stormtrooper Corps was formed during the New Republic Era, following the outlawing of its Imperial-era predecessor in the aftermath of the Galactic Civil War. Though the Galactic Concordance banned the mobilization of stormtroopers, the First Order secretly began its own stormtrooper program under the supervision of General Brendol Hux and Captain Cardinal, and later General Armitage Hux and Captain Phasma beyond the supervision of the New Republic. Throughout its time, the program was centered on training human conscripts from early childhood. During the Cold War between the First Order and the New Republic, stormtroopers were presented as a territorial protection force. After the destruction of the New Republic capital, their true nature as the First Order's invasion army was revealed, leading to open war against the Resistance.
Having conquered large swathes of territory, stormtroopers were to become its enforcers ruled by Supreme Leader Kylo Ren—the dark warrior who succeeded Snoke as absolute ruler of the First Order. By the final days of the conflict, stormtroopers were supplemented by the red armored Sith troopers, a secret army developed on the hidden world of Exegol by the Sith Eternal cult. Despite their combined power, the newly-formed Final Order was ultimately defeated by Resistance forces and their allies at the Battle of Exegol, after which the First Order military faced a series of uprisings across the galaxy.
==History==
===Origin===
The armored soldiers of the First Order evolved from one of the galaxy's most distinctive symbols of military might—the stormtroopers of the Galactic Empire.Star Wars: The Last Jedi: The Visual Dictionary Representing a new generation of stormtroopers, First Order troopers could trace their origins even further back to the clone troopers who fought for the Galactic Republic during the Clone Wars. When the Empire fell, suffering catastrophic defeats at Endor and Jakku,Aftermath: Empire's End the New Republic crafted a peace treaty that ended the Galactic Civil War, yet also reduced the Empire to a rump state through the enforcement of strict disarmament treaties and punishing war reparations.
Desperate to end the war and having regained his power, Grand Vizier Mas Amedda, oversaw the dismantling of the Imperial regime and its replacement by a provisional government on Coruscant following the death of Counselor to the Empire Gallius Rax. The Stormtrooper Corps was consequently dissolved due to the Galactic Concordance banning the recruitment and training of stormtroopers.Star Wars: The Force Awakens: The Visual Dictionary
===Rise of the First Order===
====Project Resurrection====
Although the Empire officially capitulated to the Republic, a group of Imperial officers, nobles and technologists refused to accept the outcome of the war. Embarking on an exodus into the Unknown Regions, the Imperial remnant was ultimately reorganized into a hermetic state known as the First Order. By hiding in the unexplored regions of galactic space, the First Order was able to conduct a massive military buildup—forging new armies and fleets in secret—in violation of the Galactic Concordance. The presence of stormtroopers in the First Order's ranks was a well known fact to the New Republic, but the First Order convinced both the government and much of the galaxy that their soldiers were only for defense. Only the Resistance suspected the stormtroopers' true purpose. Drawing inspiration from the ideas of Brendol Hux, a former Republic officer and Imperial commandant who found the Empire's stormtroopers lacking, the First Order conscripted humanStar Wars Character Encyclopedia: Updated and Expanded establishes that the stormtroopers of the First Order were all humans. children under Project Resurrection, creating a new Stormtrooper Corps.
The First Order utilized the training methods of its predecessors, the Galactic Republic and the Galactic Empire, while training the new generation of stormtroopers. Although First Order stormtroopers were non-clone humans like their Imperial precursors, they were trained from an even younger age—virtually from birth—whereas Imperial stormtroopers were recruited in their adolescence. In this regard, First Order stormtroopers were modeled on Republic clone troopers as well as the Jedi Knights. Both the Grand Army of the Republic and the Jedi Order trained their members from infancy, which influenced Brendol Hux's beliefs on how to train the ideal soldier. His son, Armitage Hux, viewed First Order stormtroopers as the Jedi's legacy.Star Wars: The Last Jedi: Expanded Edition
The new stormtroopers were taken from their families and raised to be absolutely loyal to the First Order. By 34 ABY,Star Wars: Galactic Atlas approximately thirty years after the Empire's defeat at Endor, the stormtrooper legions were under the command of Captain Phasma as well as other notable leaders such as General Armitage Hux and Kylo Ren. Above all, their allegiance was with Supreme Leader Snoke, ruler of the First Order. Although all stormtroopers were trained for absolute loyalty to the First Order, a Worker Of The Month award could be given to troopers who distinguished themselves; FN-0208 was one stormtrooper who won the award.
====The buildup to war====
In 29 ABY,As established in to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: The Visual Dictionary, the First Order was publicly formed through the Centrists five years before the "Starkiller Incident." Since Star Wars: Galactic Atlas dates the incident to 34 ABY, the First Order must have been publicly formed in 29 ABY. Centrist star systems seceded from the New Republic, becoming the public face of the First Order. As the New Republic and First Order entered into a Cold War, Stormtroopers again became a common sight in the galaxy, yet the public at large had forgotten the troopers' Imperial legacy. Instead, the stormtroopers were merely portrayed as the First Order's territorial protection force; the soldiers never entered the Republic's borders, respecting treaties with a government they intended to overthrow. The true purpose of the Stormtrooper Corps remained a secret, but Senator Leia Organa, fearing what the First Order was capable of, formedBloodline a private military group known as the Resistance in response.
During the Cold War, the First Order was opposed by the Resistance, which fought to prevent the First Order from restoring Imperial rule to the galaxy. Stormtroopers stood in stark contrast to their Resistance trooper counterparts, who embraced their individuality while the Stormtrooper Corps was designed to stand as a faceless, uniform bloc.Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge: Traveler's Guide to Batuu The Resistance cataloged that there were special stormtroopers equipped for crowd control, cold weather, and incendiary tasks. Still, intelligence analysts were convinced that there were many more special troopers yet to be discovered.Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary, New Edition Two Resistance agents, Iden Versio and Shriv Suurgav, discovered Project Resurrection. Versio accused the program of being exploitative, abducting children and brainwashing them to serve the First Order. Her former comrade, Gideon Hask, countered that the First Order rescued children by giving them purpose as soldiers in an army of unprecedented military might.
Following the abduction of Torra Doza, an event orchestrated by the First Order in order to gain Captain Imanuel Doza's trust by rescuing his daughter, First Order stormtroopers were posted on the Colossus ostensibly to protect the station against further pirate raids. Their presence on the Colossus generated mixed opinions among the station's inhabitants, such as Tamara Ryvora and Kazuda Xiono. While Ryvora welcomed the stormtroopers as a necessary safeguard against piracy, Xiono—a spy working for the Resistance on Castilon—opposed the soldiers whom he viewed as "bad guys." Xiono believed that First Order stormtroopers were trained solely for war. Nevertheless, Ryvora regarded the troops as the solution to the station's security issues.
====Treason in the ranks====
In addition to the First Order's goals, which included the destruction of the New Republic and the Resistance, they supported Kylo Ren's quest to destroy the last Jedi, Luke Skywalker. To that end, Phasma and an armed force of stormtroopers conducted an assault on Tuanul, a village located on the planet Jakku where Ren hoped to gain information pertaining to Skywalker's hidden location. The Resistance likewise attempted to locate Skywalker, sending Commander Poe Dameron to obtain information from Lor San Tekka. Dameron killed a few stormtroopers, including FN-2003 during the attack, but was subdued by Ren's Force powers and subsequently captured by First Order troops.
After executing San Tekka for refusing to cooperate, Ren directed Phasma and the stormtroopers to exterminate the village's entire population. With the exception of FN-2187, every trooper complied with Ren's order, firing into the crowd until the last villager was dead. The experience of witnessing the First Order's brutality and the deaths of his comrades influenced FN-2187's decision to commit desertion by abandoning his life as a stormtrooper. He proceeded to escape from the Finalizer, a Resurgent-class Star Destroyer, by freeing Dameron before commandeering a TIE/sf space superiority fighter. FN-2187 used the starfighter's weapons against the troops in the hangar, killing several stormtroopers that attempted to prevent his escape.
Returning to Jakku, FN-2187 encountered more stormtroopers at Niima Outpost on Jakku. However, he was able to escape from his former comrades with the help of a scavenger, Rey and the Resistance astromech droid BB-8. His betrayal of the First Order caused Ren to berate all stormtroopers as susceptible to treason. However, General Hux maintained his confidence in the First Order's army as well as their conditioning for complete loyalty.
===First Order-Resistance War===
====March of the First Order====
With the completion of the First Order superweapon, Starkiller Base, General Hux declared the end of the New Republic's reign to a large assembly of stormtroopers and other military personnel. Saluting their general, the stormtroopers witnessed the activation of the superweapon, resulting in the utter destruction of Hosnian Prime along with the Galactic Senate and a substantial portion of the New Republic Defense Fleet.
Meanwhile, the hunt for Skywalker led Kylo Ren and an armed force of stormtroopers to the planet Takodana where the dark warrior attempted to capture BB-8, aware that the droid contained part of the information regarding the last Jedi's location. The stormtroopers assaulted a castle belonging to Maz Kanata during their search for the BB unit, then pursued BB-8 and Rey into the forest where several troopers were killed before Ren apprehended the scavenger.
During the battle, FN-2199 confronted the traitor FN-2187, who now referred to himself as "Finn." After a brief duel FN-2199 defeated Finn in single combat, only to be shot by the smuggler Han Solo. Nevertheless, the First Order captured Finn and his allies, but the arrival of a Resistance X-wing starfighter squadron distracted the troops, granting their prisoners an opportunity to escape. As the First Order fended off the Resistance's attack, one of the stormtroopers advised Ren to send for reinforcements. Instead, Ren ordered his troops to withdraw from Takodana, having discovered that Rey already accessed the information he wanted from BB-8.
At Starkiller Base, Kylo Ren interrogated Rey in an attempt to get the map out of her, but his efforts were in vain, as Rey resisted him and revealed herself to be Force-sensitive. Ren went to inform his Master, Supreme Leader Snoke, about his discovery and left FN-1824 to keep watch over Rey. After two failed attempts, Rey managed to perform a mind trick on the stormtrooper, forcing him to to free her. When Ren returned and found that Rey had escaped, he angrily called the guards and destroyed the interrogation chair with his lightsaber, prompting two passing stormtroopers to quickly turn and walk away to avoid confrontation.
Shortly after, the Resistance attacked Starkiller Base, resulting in a large dogfight in the air as the First Order scrambled a defense force to protect the base. On the ground, Han Solo, Chewbacca, Finn, and Rey headed to the oscillator to destroy it, engaging multiple stormtroopers along the way. As Solo and Chewbacca planted the explosives, Ren and a squad of stormtroopers arrived at the oscillator to find them. The stormtroopers aimed their blasters at Solo when he confronted Ren out in the open, hoping to convince his son to abandon the First Order and return home. Ren was shot by Chewbacca after the First Order warlord struck down his father, causing the stormtroopers to open fire on the Wookiee warrior. Despite their efforts, the troopers failed to stop Chewbacca from detonating the explosives, killing the soldiers and damaging the oscillator. As a result, Dameron was able to fly in and destroy it. With the oscillator destroyed, the First Order moved to evacuate its forces from Starkiller Base as the planet collapsed into a star.
====Annihilation of the Resistance====
Despite the loss of Starkiller Base, the First Order moved to impose its rule over the galaxy through military force, having eliminated the New Republic as an obstacle. At that time, the First Order's forces included ten thousand combat ready troops. Simultaneously, the First Order endeavored to destroy the Resistance once and for all, forcing Organa and her followers to abandon their base on D'Qar. Hoping to disrupt the First Order's ability to track the Resistance fleet's movements through hyperspace, Finn and Rose Tico infiltrated the Mega-class Star Dreadnought Supremacy—the flagship of Supreme Leader Snoke—but were ultimately captured by Phasma and her stormtroopers. After bringing the prisoners to a hangar containing a large gathering of stormtroopers, Phasma sentenced Finn and Tico both to summary execution. Just as the executioner troopers moved to carry out the death sentence, the Resistance flagship Raddus crashed into the Supremacy at lightspeed.
The act split the Mega-class Star Dreadnought in half, leaving a huge gap open to space where many crew members and stormtroopers perished. In their ensuing escape from the crippled Supremacy, Finn and Tico battled surviving stormtroopers in the hangar. Finn bested Phasma, who was sucked down into the flaming wreckage and died. By then, Snoke had been assassinated by his apprentice, Kylo Ren, who then defeated the slain leader's Elite Praetorian Guards with the help of Rey. Their alliance was short-lived, however. Rey rejected Ren's proposal that they rule the galaxy together, causing the dark side warrior to blame Snoke's death on the former scavenger. Discovered by Hux, Ren claimed it was Rey who had killed Snoke and assumed control over the First Order as the new Supreme Leader.
Seizing control of the First Order as the new Supreme Leader, his first act in power was to deploy the First Order's forces, including an army of snowtroopers, to the planet Crait where he intended to annihilate the remaining members of the Resistance. During the Battle of Crait, the First Order overwhelmed the Resistance's defenses and stormed the outpost where they hid, although a small group of survivors managed to escape aboard the Millennium Falcon due to Rey's intervention. Several days after the battle, Resistance forces encountered stormtroopers during their missions to Bracca and Corellia, which was a planet the First Order had occupied.Resistance Reborn
Meanwhile, formations of stormtroopers lined up before Ren on the Finalizer, where Ren formally introduced himself as the new Supreme Leader and unveiled Snoke's corpse. Claiming that it was the Resistance who had slain Snoke, Ren promised his military he would usher in a new beginning and lead them into glory. After a moment of confusion, the stormtroopers rallied under Ren with a salute as Snoke's remains drifted out into space.Legacy of Vader 1
====Conquest of the galaxy====
After a lifetime of training to fulfill one purpose, the forces of the First Order deployed throughout the galaxy, with stormtroopers leading the charge. Large swathes of the galaxy fell to legions of white-armored troopers—an image that was once a symbol of galactic salvation during the Clone Wars, but now appropriated by the First Order. Seemingly appearing everywhere the First Order expanded to, the fall of the New Republic allowed the stormtroopers to carry out their true mandate as an invasion army; the First Order saw no point in respecting the laws of a fallen government, and therefore, they discarded the facade of maintaining a territorial protection force.
At this time, the First Order began abducting and conscripting even more children from across the galaxy to grow its stormtrooper ranks even further. This was ruthlessly carried out under the direction of General Amret Engell, who enthusiastically supported the new Supreme Leader and strove to create an army that was worthy of his approval. Indeed, some planets such as Kijimi had most, if not all, of its children taken for conscription at the start of its occupation. During the war, the 709th "Red Fury" Legion,Galaxy's Edge 1 an elite force made of stormtroopers chosen by Supreme Leader Kylo Ren himself,Galaxy's Edge: Black Spire was deployed to the planet of Batuu. On Batuu, stormtrooper lieutenant Gauge was also tasked with operating a re-education camp to turn civilians into soldiers.Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy's Edge – Last Call
===Fall of the First Order===
====Return of the Emperor====
Despite occupying vast regions of the galaxy, the First Order's forces were smaller than the Imperial Military. When Darth Sidious—the Dark Lord of the Sith and Galactic Emperor—announced his return, a contingent of stormtroopers accompanied Supreme Leader Ren during his excursion to Mustafar where they fought the Alazmec of Winsit on the castle grounds of Fortress Vader. Ren outpaced his stormtrooper escorts, cutting a swathe of destruction through the Alazmec cultists to acquire a Sith wayfinder that once belonged to his grandfather, Sith Lord Darth Vader.
The wayfinder led Ren to Exegol, a planet in the Unknown Regions where the Sith Eternal military was developed by the Emperor's followers. Discovering the Sith Eternal's forces bolstered the First Order Supreme Council's confidence in Ren's leadership; the units on Exegol would be used to reinforce the First Order's existing forces, allowing Ren to complete his conquest of the galaxy and rule over a true Empire.
====The hunt for Rey====
Before Ren could take command of Exegol's forces, he was tasked by Sidious to kill the former scavenger Rey, and by doing so, eliminate the last remnant of the Jedi Order. Using his connection with the Jedi apprentice to determine her location, Ren deployed a force of stormtroopers to the planet Pasaana where Rey and her companions were pursued by a team of First Order Treadspeeder Drivers and First Order jet troopers. As they chased the Resistance team through the Pasaana desert, the 125-Z treadspeeder bikes catapulted the jet troopers into the air, allowing the First Order to take to the sky much to the surprise of C-3PO, Finn and Poe Dameron. Though the Jedi and Resistance operatives defeated their pursuers, a group of stormtroopers captured Chewbacca with help from the Knights of Ren.
Rey and her allies later made their way to Kijimi, a planet under military occupation by the First Order. A stormtrooper garrison patrolled the streets of Kijimi City, conducting mass raids to acquire more child conscripts for their growing army. Ren's forces also combed through the city searching for Rey, who managed to infiltrate the Supreme Leader's flagship—the Resurgent-class Star Destroyer Steadfast—along with her comrades. After killing the guards in the main hangar, the group was ambushed by a pair of stormtroopers, FN-0606 and FN-1226, who attempted to apprehend the infiltrators. However, Rey's connection to the Force allowed her to dominate their minds, forcing the troopers to help the Resistance operatives navigate their way through the warship. While Rey left to collect her belongings from Ren's private chambers, Finn and Dameron managed to rescue Chewbacca, and with the Wookiee's help, they stormed down a corridor of stormtroopers, gunning several troops down before being forced to surrender due to the overwhelming number of First Order units.
A squad of stormtroopers escorted the Resistance prisoners to an area where they were to be summarily executed. Before they could complete their orders, General Hux took a blaster rifle from one of the troopers, ostensibly to carry out the deed himself. Instead, he saved the prisoners by killing his own soldiers, revealing himself as the spy who had been feeding information to the Resistance. As Rey's friends returned to the Millennium Falcon, Ren had returned to the Steadfast to confront the last Jedi in person. More stormtroopers arrived in the hangar, where they aimed their weapons at Rey but were held back by Ren, who revealed to Rey that she was in fact Sidious' granddaughter. He urged her to join him, believing they could destroy the Emperor and the Sith with their combined power as a Force dyad. Rey refused Ren's entreaty, however, and escaped from the Steadfast with the help of her friends, who used the engines of the Millennium Falcon to hold the stormtroopers back.
====The Final Order====
Ren would ultimately abandon his ambitions to rule the galaxy, renouncing his dark persona in the wake of his mother's death on Ajan Kloss. Without a Supreme Leader, command of the First Order and its forces defaulted to Allegiant General Enric Pryde, who executed General Hux with a stormtrooper's blaster rifle after deducing that his younger colleague was the spy in their ranks. Having served Darth Sidious in the days of the Empire, Pryde swore fealty to him once more, giving control of the entire First Order to the reborn Emperor.
With the First Order's military forces under his command, Sidious issued an ultimatum to the entire galaxy: all worlds would submit to the combined might of the new Sith Empire or be annihilated outright. In addition to the Final Order, a massive armada of Xyston-class Star Destroyers armed with axial superlasers, the First Order gained an army of Sith troopers. Like their white-armored counterparts, these red-armored soldiers were elite units whose inception was inspired by Republic clone troopers and Imperial stormtroopers, as well as the Sith for whom they were named after. Unlike First Order stormtroopers, however, Sith troopers were even more obedient and machine-like due to their flash-imprinting and loyalty conditioning, both of which were built upon and advanced beyond Kaminoan procedures of earlier generations.
====Defeat on Exegol====
As the Sith fleet prepared to depart from Exegol, Resistance forces attempted to halt their launch in a last-ditch effort to prevent Sidious' new Sith Empire from becoming a reality. In the ensuing Battle of Exegol, a contingent of Sith troopers defended the Steadfast while Pryde oversaw the launching of the Sith Star Destroyers. As such, the command ship was targeted by Resistance boarding parties, causing the Sith troopers to launch a counterattack in defense of the Steadfast. Though many Resistance fighters fell in battle against the crimson soldiers, the Sith troopers failed to prevent their enemies from destroying the command bridge along with Pryde. Several standard First Order stormtroopers were aboard the bridge as the ship was destroyed as well. Without the Steadfast to guide the fleet to safe altitude, the remaining Sith Star Destroyers were destroyed by the Resistance and its allies before they could escape into hyperspace, and with the death of Sidious the Resistance claimed victory on Exegol in 35 ABY.Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: The Visual Dictionary dates the events of Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker to one year after the events of Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens. As Star Wars: Galactic Atlas dates the events of The Force Awakens to 34 ABY, the events of The Rise of Skywalker must occur in 35 ABY.
Without the promise of reinforcements of the Sith, the First Order military was suddenly challenged by multiple uprisings across the galaxy. In the aftermath of Resistance victory, Resurgent-class Star Destroyers were attacked and destroyed in the skies above Cloud City on Bespin, the Forest Moon of Endor, and Rey's homeworld of Jakku.
==Training==
The First Order's stormtrooper training program was designed to produce an army of super-soldiers. As a result, members of the new generation of stormtroopers were trained from birth to become elite soldiers with a single purpose in life—to serve the First Order. This form of training drew inspiration from the ideals of Commandant Brendol Hux, who was inspired by the combat prowess and dedication of the Jedi Knights and Republic clone troopers, both of which were instructed from youth to become efficient combatants.
According to Phasma, the ideology of the First Order stormtroopers did not allow for any emotional elements such as sympathy since they were to specifically act as an extension of the Supreme Leader's will, and by extension that of the First Order, alone, and that the troopers were just as strong as they were weak. Likewise, Finn admitted that First Order stormtroopers were considered by their superiors to be expendable; those that were inept in battle were expected to die and not be saved by their fellow allies.Poe Dameron 28 During the fall of the Empire, Counselor Gallius Rax conscripted roughly two dozen orphans from his home planet of Jakku and gave them to Hux, who turned them into a force of child soldiers and assassins loyal to Rax. Prior to his death, Rax placed Hux's illegitimate son, Armitage in command of the child soldiers. As an adult, Armitage incorporated his father's ideas into the training program for the First Order stormtroopers. Captain Grummart was also a figure involved in trooper training whose specialties included archery.Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: A Junior Novel
The First Order employed Jinata Security to abduct infants for the stormtrooper program. Most of the child recruits either came from conquered worlds in the Unknown regions, were children of former Imperials, or were orphans from throughout the galaxy. While in some cases, many impoverished families actually gave up their children to The First Order willing hoping to give them a better future or have less mouths to feed, more often than not, most of the children were taken by force or outright kidnapped.
The First Order processed their conscripts at induction camps where the trainees were separated into groups or "batches." Prior to becoming fully-trained stormtroopers, FN-2187 and trooper 926 were members of Batch Eight. As children, stormtroopers were initially trained under the oversight of Captain Cardinal, a former child soldier who instructed his cadets in hand-to-hand and melee combat, marksmanship, and battle simulations on the Resurgent-class Star Destroyer Absolution. When deemed ready, Cardinal's trainees were transferred to the Finalizer where they would complete their training under the watch of Captain Phasma.Phasma
As the commander of the stormtrooper legions, Phasma endeavored to mold the stormtroopers into the finest soldiers in the galaxy and maintained a constant vigil against any signs of weakness or disobedience. To this end, behavioral and personality conditioning was critical in the training of First Order stormtroopers. In an effort to control their psychological development, the First Order provided its trainees with a steady amount of subliminal sleep messages and First Order propaganda, resulting in the production of soldiers who were completely loyal to the First Order. In addition, rigorous combat exercises and psychological conditioning, the First Order strongly emphasized the values of uniformity and conformity. They were therefore given alphanumeric designations instead of names.
As such, their emphasis of uniformity and conformity was strict enough that the stormtroopers weren't allowed to even remove their helmets unless specifically ordered to do so, with the penalty of doing so usually being mandated psychological counseling. A trooper that displayed "erratic conditioning" could be scheduled for a full mental wipe and reprogram, also known as a brainscrape. Likewise, stormtroopers were not allowed to initiate contact with First Order officers. While children were preferable, it was possible for teenagers and young adults to enlist as a stormtrooper and serve the First Order, as propaganda posters for new recruits could be found in different parts of the galaxy, such as on Castilon. In rare cases even older adults were some sometimes accepted into the Stormtrooper ranks such as Ruthford who was a veteran Stormtrooper of the former Galactic Empire.
Although modern stormtroopers were modeled largely on the stormtroopers of yesteryear, their combat training differed substantially from that of their Imperial predecessors. Unlike the Empire, which resorted to the use of numbing routine for its troopers, the First Order's training simulations, live-fire exercises, and sparring practices encouraged stormtroopers to embrace improvisation on the battlefield. They were, therefore, more effective in battle than the stormtroopers who served as their template. In addition to combat training, all First Order stormtroopers received medical training, albeit only for minor injuries such as non-fatal blaster shots.Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens novelization During training, stormtrooper cadets slapped the rears of other troopers to motivate each other.Star Wars: The Last Jedi: A Junior Novel
Despite General Hux's confidence in the stormtrooper programming, not every trooper was a successful product by the First Order's standards. Examples of defective soldiers included Company 77 and Finn. The stormtroopers of Company 77 refused to fire on unarmed prisoners and had a lack of zeal for the First Order's cause. Likewise, Finn had a lack of zeal for the First Order's cause; combined with his unwillingness to execute unarmed prisoners, it led him to doubt his loyalties before ultimately forsaking his allegiance to the First Order. Both Phasma and Kylo considered FN-2187 as a renegade, albeit the latter also saw him as a prime example of a stormtrooper training program which he viewed as flawed. He theorized that a clone army could serve the First Order in a better capacity. However, Hux remained confident in the collective reliability of the First Order stormtroopers, believing the rogue FN-2187 to be an anomaly in an army of loyal soldiers.
The average First Order stormtrooper stood 1.83 meters tall and weighed 80 kilograms—the same standard requirements that once applied to the Grand Army of the Republic and the Imperial Military.Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Head-to-Head Standard protocol for the soldiers was to always have backup nearby, ensuring their enemies could be swarmed if they were attacked. The Omicron Formation tactic was used for search and destroy missions.
==Equipment==
Members of the First Order's infantry forces wore white armor that was reminiscent of the Galactic Empire's stormtrooper armor, as well as the Galactic Republic's Phase I and Phase II clone trooper armors. Aside from several aesthetic differences, First Order stormtroopers bore a close resemblance to their Imperial predecessors. To denote rank, stormtrooper officers wore color-coded pauldron armor plates. White pauldrons were worn by stormtroopers who served as squad leaders, black pauldrons identified stormtroopers who held the rank of sergeant, and red pauldrons were worn by officers.
First Order stormtrooper helmets could filter out smoke, but not toxins. To deal with toxins, a stormtrooper needed to engage one of several special filters, depending on the specific contaminant. Identification was the province of one or two squad leaders.
In terms of armor strength, stormtrooper armor was held in high regard. Captain Phasma once claimed that not even a Wookiee was strong enough to break First Order armor. To keep weight down, most First Order stormtrooper helmets lacked advanced imaging gear, requiring stormtroopers to use separate quadnoculars in the field to provide them with enhanced imaging. However, standard stormtrooper helmets were still equipped with integral polarized lenses, night vision, communications and targeting systems.
The F-11D blaster rifle was the primary weapon of standard stormtroopers. A successor to the Imperial stormtroopers' E-11 medium blaster rifle, the F-11D was mass produced and provided to the First Order's soldiers by Sonn-Blas Corporation. In addition to the F-11D, Sonn-Blas also designed the SE-44C blaster pistol as a sidearm for the First Order stormtroopers.
==Specialized stormtroopers==
In addition to standard units, the Stormtrooper Corps possessed a variety of specialized troopers like the Old Empire before it. Specialist units were trained and equipped to function in various fields. Additionally, they could also be deployed alongside infantry units, supporting regular troopers in an auxiliary capacity.
*Elite stormtroopers — Black armored stormtroopers that utilized elite speeder bikes.
*Executioner troopers''' — Stormtroopers randomly selected to carry out sentences of capital punishment. Their armor was marked with black shoulder plates and a black-striped helmet. They wielded BL-155 Laser axes to carry out their duties.
*First Order jet troopers/jetpack troopers/rocket troopers — Stormtroopers specialized in aerial and space operations.Poe Dameron 25 Multiple sub-variants of these troopers also existed.Poe Dameron 1
*First Order Raiders — Stormtroopers that specialized in discovering Sith artifacts.
*First Order SCUBA troopers — Specialized stormtroopers that were deployed in aquatic environments.
*First Order stormtrooper gunners — Stormtroopers trained to fire vehicle-mounted weapons on both ground and air vehicles. Such weapons included the FWMB-10 repeating blaster on Light Infantry Utility Vehicles and the F-Z0 antipersonnel blaster cannon on Atmospheric Assault Landers.Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Incredible Cross-Sections
*First Order stormtrooper snipers — Stormtroopers who served as snipers during military operations.
*Flametroopers — Specialized stormtroopers that wielded an incendiary weapon and were equipped with specialized armor unique to their function. In combat they advanced in conjunction with the standard infantry, using the D-93 Incinerator flamethrower to force enemies out of their entrenched positions.
*Megablaster heavy assault troopers''' — Stormtroopers that were trained as heavy weapons specialists. Armed with the FWMB-10 repeating blaster, they also fought alongside regular stormtroopers in a support capacity.
*Mountain troopers — Specialized stormtroopers that were deployed in rocky or mountainous environments.
*Prisoner control stormtroopers'''— Specialized stormtroopers trained to react to social unrest and prisoner control.Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge: Traveler's Guide to Batuu
*Riot control stormtroopers — Stormtroopers that were specialist units tasked with enforcing order on worlds within the First Order's domain. Trained in riot-control tactics, they were equipped with betaplast shields and the non-lethal Z6 riot control batons. However, they were also authorized to use lethal weapons in situations where rioters could not be contained with non-lethal equipment. Although their primary function was to serve in the military occupation of planets, riot control stormtroopers could also be dispatched on combat missions with standard infantry troopers.
*Snowtroopers — Stormtroopers specifically trained and equipped to serve in frigid environments, particularly the ice planet that housed Starkiller Base. Their specialized armor and equipment enabled them to operate effectively in freezing conditions. During the construction of the Starkiller, teams of snowtroopers patrolled the frozen world, exterminating indigenous species that were regarded as potential threats to the First Order. They could also be deployed to a location with a more temperate climate if it had enough similarities to an actual frigid environment as to require their presence, such as Crait.
*Tech stormtroopers — Stormtroopers who were trained to extract, decrypt, and analyze data from resources, such as droid memory cores.
*First Order Treadspeeder Drivers — Stormtroopers specialized in riding 125-Z treadspeeder bikes.
*First Order Walker Drivers — Stormtroopers who served as walker crewmembers.
==Behind the scenes==
The stormtroopers of the First Order first appeared in Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens. Daniel Craig makes a cameo appearance as the First Order stormtrooper who frees Rey from captivity on Starkiller Base after falling under the influence of her Jedi mind trick.
Their design, a sleeker version of the original stormtrooper armor, was partially inspired by headphones for Apple Inc. products.Director J.J. Abrams commentary Indeed, costume designer Michael Kaplan, who decided to simplify the armor design for the Sequel era, has said he was inspired by the evolving design of Apple productions, asking himself how Apple would design the armor. The stormtrooper armor depicted in Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi is slightly different than the armor seen in The Force Awakens.
A similar stormtrooper design was used for the T-Stormtroopers who served Galactic Empire of Master Am and Lord Karre in the Star Wars: Visions short "THE TWINS." According to director Hiroyuki Imaishi, the short is set after the fall of the First Order in Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker, which would make T-Stormtroopers a successor class to First Order soldiers.
==Appearances==
===Non-canon appearances===
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*LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens
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*Fortnite X Star Wars
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*LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
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==Sources==
==Notes and references==