Cardinal

**Cardinal**, also known as **CD-0922** or **Archex**, and nicknamed **Red** and **Emergency Brake**, was a desert-adapted Jakkuan male stormtrooper who held the military rank of Captain in the First Order. His skills were spoken of with high regard even by Supreme Leader Snoke. At some point before the attack on Tuanul, Cardinal interrogated the Resistance spy Vi Moradi aboard the Resurgent-class Star Destroyer *Absolution* for information about the past of his rival, Captain Phasma. After he confronted Phasma about her past and her involvement in the death of General Brendol Hux, the two fought and he was defeated, almost dying in the conflict. He was taken by Moradi and brought to the Resistance.

Following the Battle of Crait, Archex joined Moradi on Batuu on her mission to establish a new base for the Resistance. After the base on Batuu was destroyed he was captured by the First Order.

## Biography

### Early Life

Archex was born on Jakku to a clan of desert-adapted nomads. His father was killed by a nightwatcher worm in the Sinking Fields before he was born. Archex was raised by his mother and the clan, eking out a living in the wild desert near a settlement on the edges of the Goazon Badlands. When Archex was eight years old his mother was killed during a 'security action' meant to drive the nomads away from the settlement. Now orphaned, Archex joined a gang of other orphans who refused to be taken by Anchorites. Life with the other orphans was difficult, with Archex being pressed into unsavory deeds at the age of twelve before being kidnapped by agents of Gallius Rax.

Near the end of the Battle of Jakku, Archex and several other orphans were invited by Imperial Commandant Brendol Hux to come with the Imperials into the Unknown Regions. Archex agreed, wanting to leave behind the cruelty of Jakku. He was inducted into the stormtrooper cadet program and given the designation CD-0922. CD-0922 was one of the first of the new stormtroopers of what would later become the First Order, having been taught by Brendol that the New Republic was disorderly and corrupt, and that only the First Order could bring peace and order to the galaxy.

### Captain of the First Order

> I was his personal guard. He handpicked me on Jakku, trained me himself. I was infinitely loyal. From the time I first put on this armor, he trusted me to keep him safe. He designed it himself because he said red was a color of power. Every moment he spent in my company, he knew he was safe.
>
> Cardinal to Vi Moradi regarding Brendol Hux

A loyal adherent of the tenets of the First Order, CD-0922 eventually became a captain and was put in charge of stormtrooper physical training. Stationed on the *Absolution*, he served with distinction as both the lead stormtrooper trainer as well as Brendol Hux's personal guard. CD-0922 was presented with a personalized set of red stormtrooper armor and given the name Cardinal by Brendol.

Cardinal's new name came with new responsibilities and new freedoms and Brendol used Cardinal's familiarity with 'night market' worlds to expand the First Order's acquisition of children for the Stormtrooper program. He selected a few chosen recruits, forming the RX Cadre. These Stormtroopers were meant to be his own personal legion with whom Cardinal ran raids against slavers. He would buy slaves for the program while scoping out a merchant's operation, the RX Cadre gathering information on the slaver and their merchandise. Several days later he would return under the cover of darkness with a raiding party, all of them wearing black raid armor as camouflage and disguise.

### The Expeditionary Squads

> Every single one I couldn’t save was taken into Brendol’s project. They were all implanted with a Grysk control implant. By an expert. The project stripped them all of what made them people, all sixty of them. I had to watch as the lot of them started to form a **hive** like a tiny enclave of Grysk Clients.
>
> Archex to Vi Moradi on his greatest failure

After the event on the *Eclipse* implicated the entire RX Cadre, Cardinal and Brendol disagreed over how to proceed with the disgraced stormtroopers. As the RX Cadre had been his personal legion, Cardinal was shamed by their disgrace and insisted on handling their discipline himself. Brendol disagreed, insisting on reconditioning the entire cadre. Those who resisted reconditioning would be repurposed for a project he was working on. The RX Cadre was disbanded against Cardinal's protests. Those who resisted reconditioning were given to Dr Calla Katsuo for Brendol's project. The Expeditionary Squads were created.

Cardinal barely recognized the stormtroopers who survived the process of implantation. He was forced to watch as the hivemind formed and the lines between individuals began to blur. However, the project was successful in some ways as it produced the very type of physically perfect soldier that Brendol had been working toward. Cardinal was kept in charge of their training despite his distaste for the project. He tried to show Brendol what the Expeditionary Squads had become but Brendol never acknowledged any of the 'wrongness' that bothered Cardinal so. Instead he ordered Cardinal to continue working with them, even as other stormtroopers were added to the Expeditionary Squads following the 'success' of the RX Cadre. Brendol insisted he had a plan for the eventuality that the project got out of hand but he never enacted this plan, nor did Cardinal know what it was.

### Rivalry with Phasma

Roughly five years after Cardinal was presented with his personalized armor, Brendol conducted a scouting mission to the planet Parnassos. While surveying the planet, Brendol's ship was shot down by an automated weapons system and crashed on the planet. With the help of members of the local Scyre tribe, including Phasma, Brendol was able to find his ship and make contact with the First Order. Brendol returned to the *Absolution* with Phasma in tow, along with a young girl from Parnassos named Frey. Phasma wore a set of dirty, ill-fitting stormtrooper armor.

Cardinal was instructed to familiarize Phasma with the *Absolution*, with First Order technology, and with her duties as a stormtrooper. His role as head trainer was to be split with Phasma, who would focus on training the teenage and adult stormtroopers aboard the *Finalizer*. Brendol would also get a new personal guard, allowing Cardinal to focus on the expanding stormtrooper training program and on the Expeditionary Squads. These changes upset Cardinal, who was uncomfortable with how close Brendol expected him to become with the Expeditionary Squads. He was also suspicious of Phasma and jealous of her close relationship to Brendol, his father figure. This jealousy increased a year later, when Phasma received her own personalized armor. Soon after, Brendol died of a mysterious illness.

### Self-Imposed Isolation

Per Brendol's orders, control over the Stormtrooper program and the *Absolution* fell to his Second, Cardinal. Cardinal found the idea of command overwhelming and he sought out a Second of his own to take the burden off his shoulders. He considered taking Brendol's son Armitage as his Second but soon it was agreed that Armitage was better suited to take over as head of First Order Infantry while Phasma maintained control over Stormtrooper finishing on board the *Finalizer*. Cardinal would maintain command over special projects, including the *Supremacy* and the Expeditionary Squads, and Stormtrooper education on the *Absolution*.

Sensing the opportunity, Admiral Brooks offered to take command over the *Absolution* while keeping Cardinal as his Second. Cardinal agreed to reduce the burden on himself. Then he found he couldn't control the Expeditionary Squads and broke apart the hive while attempting to bury the existence of the project by handing control of it to someone who offered to help the entire project disappear. The Expeditionary Squads were split apart into groups of two to four and spread across the fleet in an effort to help them retain their humanity, or at least the opportunity to die in the field.

Cardinal allowed the shift of power, even as Phasma and Armitage took control of the *Supremacy* from him. He justified it to himself as leaving the Order in more capable hands than his own. Still, doubts remained as he wondered if he should have held onto power, onto the *Absolution*, onto the Infantry, or even onto the Expeditionary Squads.

### Interrogating Vi Moradi

> Our differences make us vulnerable. Vulnerable to misrule, corruption, to getting mired in bureaucracy instead of effecting real change. Stability ensures progress for everyone. That's the whole point of government.
>
> Cardinal, aboard the Absolution

In early 33 ABY, a starhopper piloted by Resistance spy Vi Moradi was captured by the *Absolution*. Moradi had been ordered to research Phasma by General Leia Organa. Cardinal suspected that Moradi had information about Phasma after her ship's logs were checked, and it was discovered she had recently traveled to Parnassos. He took Moradi to an interrogation room hidden deep within the battlecruiser to ask her what she knew about Phasma. Cardinal was not trained in interrogation; however, a meeting was planned on the *Absolution* for the next day between Cardinal, Phasma, Armitage, and Kylo Ren, and he was desperate for information he could take to Hux to prove Phasma was dangerous. Cardinal tortured Moradi in an electrified apparatus in an attempt to get information.

Moradi shared with Cardinal the stories she had heard from a woman from Parnassos named Siv, the former healer and religious leader of the Scyre. Moradi told Cardinal about how Brendol had crashed on Parnassos and was captured by the Claw, a rival tribe to Phasma's Scyre. Phasma and a few of her loyal soldiers, including Siv, freed Hux and his stormtroopers from the Claw and promised to help him find his crashed ship. Moradi revealed how Phasma betrayed her clan in order to save herself by partnering with Brendol in a deal that would have her come with him off-planet and join the First Order. The story of Phasma's rise to power and betrayal were not enough for Cardinal to report to Armitage Hux. Moradi then revealed that the Resistance had learned through slicing the First Order's computer systems that Brendol's death was caused by a venomous beetle found on Parnassos. She asserted that Phasma brought the beetle aboard and killed the elder Hux. The only other person who would recognize the symptoms of the beetle, Frey, died in a weapons accident six months prior. Shocked and appalled by this revelation, Cardinal went to the younger Hux's quarters on the *Absolution* to reveal Phasma's betrayal.

### Confronting Armitage Hux and Phasma

> You're only out for yourself. Your loyalty means nothing. Brendol should've left you where he found you!
>
> Cardinal to Phasma

Cardinal reported to Hux that Phasma had killed his father. Hux asked if Cardinal had any physical evidence proving this to be true. When Cardinal admitted he did not, the younger Hux revealed that he knew Phasma had killed his father, and had, in fact, arranged for the murder. Hux then asked Cardinal if he was still loyal, both to himself and the First Order. Cardinal responded in the affirmative and was dismissed. Cardinal then returned to his quarters and got drunk, upset by what the First Order had become. Early the next morning, he told Moradi that Hux was involved in his father's death, and asked for anything else he could use to stop Phasma. Moradi then revealed that, a few years before Brendol's trip to Parnassos, Phasma betrayed her own family to the Scyre in order to survive, killing her parents and permanently crippling her brother, Keldo. She presented Cardinal with the dagger Phasma had used in the deed, along with a specimen of the beetle used to kill Brendol. By this point, Cardinal had grown to respect Moradi, and as he left to confront Phasma, he left the door to the interrogation room unlocked, giving her the means to escape. Cardinal took the evidence with him to a meeting with Ren, Hux, and Phasma, only to be turned away by Hux. Cardinal returned to his duties, going through the motions for the rest of the day, and spent the evening getting drunk.

At breakfast the next morning, Cardinal took an alteration to his diet card specifically for his hangover and prepared to confront Phasma. Cardinal found Phasma in the kilometer range, and they argued over his training methods. Cardinal attacked Phasma. As they fought, Cardinal attempted to stab Phasma with her own knife. She disarmed him and stabbed him in the chest and the thigh, then left him to die on the range floor. Moradi, in ill-fitting Stormtrooper armor, found Cardinal during her escape attempt and recognized the opportunity. She used him as part of her disguise, transporting him via hovergurney to a hangar in the *Absolution*. She then stole a ship, planning to return to Parnassos because she had promised to go back for Siv and her child, Torbi. Instead she contacted her partner Sunny Owan who directed her to return to D'Qar.

### The Resistance

Cardinal endured torture at the hands of Resistance doctors, who used the excuse of his stab wounds to remove sections of lung and then withhold painkillers after the surgery. When he refused to talk they removed more lung then withheld painkillers again. He finally broke after the third surgery, after the unnecessary removal of two lobes of the right lung. From there he was interrogated by General Organa herself. His admittedly scant experience with Supreme Leader Snoke left him suspicious of her as he still recognized many of the same techniques a Force-user would use to strip their victim of mental barriers before and during torture. This suspicion led him to try and hold back during interrogation. He gave up information he figured had already been compromised: troop movements, outdated comm codes, ship locations, the names of commanding officers, and standing orders for the fleet. Yet despite his efforts, the existence, capabilities, and weaknesses of the *Supremacy* were taken from his mind.

Sensing he was still holding back, General Organa ordered Cardinal to be 'rehabilitated' on the planet Cerea, to test a proposed 'peaceful and nature-led deprogramming protocol' meant to rehabilitate defectors and prisoners from the First Order and counter the First Order's ideological 'brainwashing'. Participants practiced daily meditation, stretching, and dance; ate an entirely plant-based diet; abstained from most uses of technology; and were forced to sleep in silenced rooms. The first step of this deprogramming stripped him of his name 'Cardinal', enforcing upon him the use of his childhood name Archex. He suffered this deprogramming protocol for six months before being released into the custody of Owan and Moradi but he was forced to wear a tracking anklet for an additional 15 months before the Resistance trusted him enough to allow him his autonomy.

### Missions with the Resistance and Black Spire Outpost

> I was kept isolated from any and all meetings with Order personnel. Whether to keep my defection deniable or to keep me from going back I can't say. They wouldn't even let me see FN-2187. I don't know if they even told him about me. Poor kid, he must feel so lost right now.
>
> Archex during interrogation by Agent Nil

As Archex was not trusted to operate on his own in the Resistance, he was assigned to Owan and Moradi and kept isolated from the majority of the Resistance. As Moradi was the one to 'turn' him, it was assumed that she would be the one capable of controlling him. In deference to Moradi's torture and Archex's injuries, their first missions were easy intelligence gathering operations. Several of these operations involved meeting with First Order defectors and double agents, including a traitor known as Pavan. Archex was kept away from these meetings, forced to guard the location with Owan while Moradi did the actual intelligence gathering. It was during these missions that Owan revealed her dislike of Archex. She blamed him for Moradi's break of confidence after her torture and she resented being 'saddled' with him after his 'pretend defection'. She made it clear she awaited the day she had the chance to shoot him for defection back to his 'precious First Order'.

Over time Archex began developing romantic feelings for his captor Moradi. Whether this was a variation of Stockholm Syndrome or she was simply the only receptive person in his orbit was unknown. He was unsure what to do with these feelings as he found the idea of sexual contact repulsive and so he never said anything to her. Still, the pair of them developed an easy rapport that Owan came to resent.

In 35 ABY the trio of them were assigned to Batuu to set up a base for the Resistance. After D'Qar it was recognized that the Resistance could never collect in one single location again and needed multiple small bases across the galaxy. Batuu was meant to be one such base. While Owan and Moradi incorporated themselves into the society of Black Spire Outpost, Archex took a different tactic. He began by carving toys for the children, then expanded his operating into babysitting and teaching young children. His experience with raising the young Stormtroopers of the First Order made him an invaluable asset to the Resistance's effort to ingratiate themselves with the people of Batuu.

When RX-3081 found Archex alive on Batuu, the base was cut off from Resistance support. Supplies and personnel were gradually extracted from the base as the Resistance knew Archex's presence had compromised their operations on the planet. The base would remain as a decoy for the First Order to vent their rage upon. The plan was for Archex to be left in command of the base after Owan and Moradi had concluded their business and been extracted but they never had the chance. Agent Nil Teysi tracked Owan and Moradi to Black Spire and killed them both, leaving Archex alive. He was transferred to First Order custody and the Resistance Base was razed.

### Return to the First Order

Archex made the choice to abandon the childhood name forced upon him by the Resistance, reclaiming the name 'Cardinal'. Cardinal was interrogated by Grand Marshal Hux. Hux found Cardinal's information on the Expeditionary Squads and on Colonel Pryde's involvement too valuable to squander and so chose to keep Cardinal in custody. After being held in confinement, Cardinal was interrogated again, this time by Director Nikev Viciu. Cardinal endured psychological torment before breaking, admitting he'd loved Moradi, admitting his own actions in the Resistance, and admitting his own inhumanity as one of Jakku's desert-adapted. Armed with this information, Director Viciu informed Cardinal of the Multi-Species Inclusion Program, emphasizing how the Program had benefited Cardinal himself. Then Viciu gave Cardinal the option to be reconditioned, to return to active duty. Cardinal accepted.

Cardinal was moved from the brig to a set of officer's quarters where he was left to his own devices. With his illusion of humanity stripped from him, he began exploring his own desert-adapted nature. Nervous about his upcoming reconditioning, as he'd seen first-hand just how damaging the process could be, he left a message for his future self should his memory be wiped completely. During his efforts, an attempt on his life was made. RX-0967 of the Expeditionary Squads was sent to kill him. A guard stunned them both and both were transferred to Dr. Katsuo's care.

## Personality and Traits

> Look, I didn't know what it felt like to have a full stomach until Brendol Hux found me. I'd never slept off the sand, never gone a night without waking to rats or sand fleas or something worse nibbling at me. The other kids were cruel, the adults were worse. That's what your New Republic does. Ignores poor backwater planets and funnels money to the rich planets that can afford to have a voice in the Senate. Who spoke for Jakku? No one. Who spoke for the boy I was? No one.
>
> Cardinal to Vi Moradi

Cardinal was a male desert-adapted who was born and raised on the desert planet of Jakku. Cardinal learned to survive as part of a nomadic clan, then as an orphan, living off of sand rats, birds, crickets, and spiders. At the age of twelve he began to turn to prostitution to provide water for himself and the younger orphans he associated with. At the age of thirteen Brendol Hux offered to take him off-world during the last moments of the Battle of Jakku. Cardinal was grateful to the Imperials, and loyal to Brendol in particular. In the First Order, Cardinal found his inner strength to survive and thrive, becoming a principled instructor for the First Order. Feeling as if he finally had a purpose as a physical trainer for stormtroopers, Cardinal wanted to share that feeling with other orphans found throughout the Unknown Regions of the galaxy where the First Order operated. Cardinal believed that the New Republic sowed chaos through its disorder and corruption, and that chaos led to suffering. In Cardinal's opinion, the First Order would bring order to the galaxy, lifting all beings up to live in peace and prosperity.

It was Cardinal's undying loyalty to Brendol and the First Order that eventually lead to Cardinal's jealously of Phasma.

Cardinal was a devoted disciple of the First Order and skilled teacher. Having been a soldier since he was a teenager, Cardinal understood how to train the young cadets. While Brendol and his officers handled the psychological programming of the cadets, Cardinal focused on physical instruction, including hand-to-hand and melee combat, marksmanship, and battle simulations. However, Cardinal did not care for unearned confrontation, and hoped the First Order spread its will over the galaxy through diplomacy more than war.

As Archex, his first reaction to the Hosnian Prime cataclysm was shock and disgust. He was encouraged to hate what the First Order had done, the Resistance framing the loss of so many innocent lives a war crime and an unforgivable act of desperate aggression by a fascist organization that cared nothing for the lives of its citizens. But his own tactical training recognized the merit of ending a war in a single shot and considered the billions of lives lost an acceptable trade to the otherwise inevitable loss of trillions of lives and the razing of thousands of planets in the long war of attrition that the New Republic would have waged. After a disastrous attempt to confide in Moradi, he learned to keep any and all thoughts contrary to Resistance doctrine to himself.

As an evolved diaspora, Archex found the Resistance to be almost fanatically rigid in their enforcement of his humanity. As such, he endured discomforts that the First Order had not pressed upon him after Brendol's death. Even when assigned to missions where his desert-adaptation would be a benefit, he was discouraged from straying from a human ideal that he didn't understand.

## Equipment

Cardinal wore a set of red stormtrooper armor, designed personally by Brendol. The armor was colored red as Brendol believed red was the color of power. The armor was presented to Cardinal during a ceremony in front of thousands of other stormtroopers and CD-0922 was officially named Cardinal in reference to the bird of the same name. As a captain of the First Order, Cardinal also wore a traditional captain's cape. As an officer of the Order, he had the right to be transported aboard a Upsilon-class command shuttle.

Archex favored desert gear, a long cloak with a desert veil. The veil provided some measure of anonymity in addition to its usefulness in a variety of weather situations. He used an old Grand Army of the Republic DC-15 as his Resistance companions were uncomfortable with the idea of him carrying any sort of concealed weapon. Because of injuries sustained in his fight with Phasma, injuries that were never properly tended to per Organa's orders, he was also somewhat reliant on a cane.