“ It is the task of the First Order to remove the disorder from our own existence, so that civilization may be returned to the stability that promotes progress. A stability that existed under the Empire, was reduced to anarchy by the Rebellion, was inherited in turn by the so-called Republic, and will be restored by us. Future historians will look upon this as the time when a strong hand brought the rule of law back to civilization. „
~ Kylo Ren expressing his views on recent events in galactic history and the goals of the First Order.
“ The First Order is a remnant born of a war thirty years gone. Yes, they persist, yes, they continue, but by all accounts they do so barely. They are, at best, an ill-organized, poorly equipped, and badly funded group of loyalists who use propaganda and fear to inflate their strength and their importance. „
The First Order is the main antagonistic faction of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, first appearing in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The First Order is a reactionary, military, and political organization made up of the surviving remaining members and forces of the former Galactic Empire that were able to form together to create an organization bent on destroying the New Republic and restoring the fallen Empire.
During the Battle of Endor, the Galactic Empire lost the Sith Lord Darth Sidious when Darth Vader redeemed himself and turned against the Sith Lord, throwing the Emperor down a Death Star shaft to his doom. Vader became Anakin Skywalker once again in the last moments of his life. The Battle of Endor ended in victory for the New Republic. Soon after Endor the Rebel Alliance formed a new galactic government called the New Republic.
Without the leadership of the two Sith Lords, the Empire began to dissolve. Just over a year after the Battle of Endor Republic and Imperial forces met over Jakku, and that battle ended in a decisive victory for the New Republic.
The surviving Imperials, represented by Mas Amedda, were forced to sign the Galactic Concordance with the New Republic. Left unable to form an effective resistance against the New Republic many Imperials fled to the Unknown Regions to escape and regroup in hopes of restoring the former Empire.
Amongst the fleeing officers was Grand Admiral Rae Sloane, Brendol Hux, and his son Armitage. Meeting with the Emperor's Super Star Destroyer Eclipse, Sloane and other surviving Imperial Forces regrouped. As part of a contingency developed by Palpatine in the event of his demise, he commissioned the exploration of the unknown Regions, where the Empire was to retreat and reestablish itself in the event of it's defeat. In addition to Operation Cinder (which invloved physical destruction of the Empire in the event of Palpatine's untimely death), secret bases, factories, shipyards and research laboratories were established in the Unknown Regions to act as a base for rebuilding the new Empire and it's war machine.
Not long after that the First Order was born and would model itself from the principals of the former Empire and would appoint former Imperial Officers to lead the order. Eventually the First Order would fall under the control of Snoke, a powerful being strong in the dark side of the Force, who assumed the title of Supreme Leader, with absolute control over the new regime. Through currently unknown means Snoke engineered the takeover of the First Order from old Imperial veterans such as Hux and Sloane, however same was done in part by creating a new generation of Officers, trained and indoctrinated from birth in the ideology of the First Order, loyal to Snoke. He also managed to win over to his side Armitage Hux, the son of Brendol, who rose quickly through the ranks to General partly thanks to Snoke's favour, but also due to his own scheming, treachery and assassination of his rivals (including eventually his own father Brendol).
The First Order would soon continue to grow and prosper as the order saw more and more of the Empire's lost strength return. The former assistants to the late emperor would return and became members of the First Order and began carrying out the order's greatest military secrets.
The First Order would later on begin to conduct mass militarization and growth and established multiple military bases, facilities, factories, and research centers to help speed up the growth of the order to help rebuild the strength of the former Empire to have a strong resistance against the New Republic. To circumvent laws passed by the New Republic banning arms sales to the First Order, many companies simply spun off subsidiaries (Blastech and Mersonn created Sonnblas, for example) that operated in First Order space.
The First Order would later go on to expand greatly with new fleets of star destroyers and the colonization of multiple worlds and control over vast star systems and planets that were previously left unexplored. General Armitage Hux was eventually put in charge of the regime's most important military projects, including the Starkiller Base, which converted an entire planet into a Hyperspace Superweapon capable of destroying entire stat systems. The indigenous inhabitants of the planet were exterminated to prevent the repeat of the Battle of Endor. Other projects including experimental technologies developed by the old Empire under the Tarkin Initiative, such as active hyperspace tracking.
Supreme Leader Snoke, through use of the Dark Side of the Force, was able to manipulate a young Ben Solo (later naming himself Kylo Ren) into joining the Dark Side of the force, and Kylo turned on his forme Jedi Master an uncle, Luke Skywalker, destroying his temple, recruiting a dozen of his Jedi students to join him and slaughtering those who had fought, bringing Luke's plan to reestablish the Jedi Order to an end. Eventually Kylo formed the Knights of Ren (possible from the aforementioned ex students of Luke) which would become the secret state religious body of the First Order. It became forbidden on all First Order controlled worlds to even pronounce Kylo Ren's original name, presumably under penalty of death.
The First Order remained unnoticed by the Galactic World for the first thirty years of its existence and the New Republic was reluctant to take any action even with the Chancellor going as far as to ignore them. Eventually however, the First Order began to violate Galactic Laws set up by the New Republic and soon, Leia Organa, along with many other senators who were concerned with the First Order, managed to fund and create the Resistance as a means of opposing them and soon war began between the two factions.
Thirty years after the Battle of Endor, the First Order has risen to power and is now at its height. The order has been able to construct the Starkiller base, an ice planet which also serves as a superweapon which can destroy entire star systems when fired. On the planet of Jakku, the First Order sends down a division of Stormtroopers lead by Kylo Ren down to the surface to capture Poe and find a map which would lead them to Luke Skywalker, whom the First Order has been searching for sometime now after he went into self-exile for his failure to stop the Knights of Ren from killing the late young future Jedi.
They couldn't find the map, so they captured Poe and had the entire settlement massacred which lead to a First Order Stormtrooper named Finn to free Poe and defect from the First Order. After his defection, a unit of Stormtroopers were sent down tot he surface of Jakku where they eventually found out where Finn was and attacked both him and Rey along with BB-8.
Sometime later, General Hux gave a speech to a large gathering of Stormtroopers and other military personnel on Starkiller Base where he announced the end of the New Republic, the destruction of the Resistance, and the conquest of the galaxy under the banner of the First Order. Seconds afterwards, the base fired its weapon and it managed to target and successfully destroy the Hosnian System where the New Republic's capital andmain fleet was based at the time. Not long afterwards, the base was found and was destroyed in a bombing run by Resistance bombers, but the First Order leadership managed to escape, regroup, and survive.
After Starkiller Base was destroyed, the personnel killed on the base were avenged when the Resistance fleet was found and was ambushed by the First Order Navy. The effort was spear-headed by General Hux, but was later usurped by Snoke due to his failures. During the attack, a Dreadnought was destroyed, but the Resistance Navy was found and would be ambushed and destroyed one by one until only a few hundred remained alive and they evacuated to the planet of Crait to set up shop in an old Rebellion-era base.
While the fleet was being attacked, the New Republic began falling into disarray with the Core Worlds being weakened to the point that the First Order could conquer them within weeks and some Republic systems, most likely in the outer regions of New Republic territory, had already surrendered to the First Order, some of whom were already leaning towards the First Order due to a promise of order, others because of fear. Kylo Ren brought Rey to Snoke's throne room onboard the Supremacy, but he killed his master along with his guards and the Supremacy itself was destroyed when the last Resistance cruiser was used to destroy both the Supremacy and the other star destroyers via the hyperdrive.
Kylo Ren took over as Supreme Leader and he, along with Hux, lead the ground invasion of Crait where they attacked the Resistance forces on the planet with the intent on destroying them once and for all. Despite their best efforts though and most of the Resistance troops being killed, the remnants managed to escape and the First Order was left with the Resistance still active and an abandoned planet to annex into their territory. Despite the failed attempt at destroying the Resistance once and for all, the First Order has emerged as the new dominate galactic power as the New Republic is in disarray with some of its sytems already surrendering and the major member worlds are said to be conquered within a matter of weeks.
“ The First Order is not the Empire. We are purer. We have been through the crucible and emerged stronger. „
The First Order is a military dictatorship similiar to that of the former Galactic Empire. The regime is lead by the Supreme Leader as its head of state and overall de-facto leader. Snoke was the first Supreme Leader as well as the founder of the First Order as a whole and ruled with an iron fist similiar to that of his spiritual predecessor, Palpatine, in how he governed his subjects and subordinates. Much like that of Darth Vader, Kylo Ren held a position of power that was outside the formal rank of the First Order Military and this would lead to conflict between Kylo and other members of the First Order Military hierarchy, primarily General Hux, whenever their objectives and agendas conflicted with each other. First-Sensitives exist within the ranks of the First Order, but the regime lacks any Sith Lords and Inquisitors to deploy.
Much like the New Republic, the First Order lacks any official capital and uses a mobile headquarters instead. Starkiller Base served its purpose as the unofficial capital of the First Order due to it being used as the main base of operation by the leadership of the First Order prior to the destruction of the base at the hands of the Resistance. The Supremacy also served this purpose as it was the flagship of the First Order Navy and the personal base for Supreme Leader Snoke. After both were destroyed, the First Order remains active, but continues to lack a central capital and most likely has a rotation system in which they switch between various unofficial capitals like the New Republic does with their government.
The First Order Security Bureau acts as the intelligence agency of the First Order and helps reinforce the regime across the galaxy both within and beyond the Unknown Regions. One notable agent was Terex, a known crime lord and former Stormtrooper.
They have many broad similarities to the Imperial Remnant faction(s) from the original Expanded Universe novels - particularly the later Hand of Thrawn period novels when they had been pushed back to only a handful of backward sectors in the fringes of the Outer Rim. Both groups are forced by necessity to abandon the old Empire's expedient mentality in order to preserve their few remaining forces. Both groups abandoned many of the old Empire's prejudices along the way: the First Order has a lot more visible female and non-white human members.
Overall the First Order are deadlier and a more formidable enemy than the Empire was, despite not having the former's numerical strength, due to their different military strategy emphasizing quality over quantity, their more advanced weaponry and technology, together with being even more ruthless than the Empire was (both in training/disciplining of their troops and treatment of their enemies). Furthermore unlike the Empire the First Order survived the death of it's founding leader more or less unfazed.
The First Order are reminiscent of HYDRA from the Marvel Comics and its Cinematic Universe and the Millennium Organisation from the Helsing manga and anime, as all three organisations are based on ODESSA.
The First Order Emblem is vaguely similiar to that of Imperial Japan during World War II, although it is black on red as opposed to red on white.
As a hermit state populated by fanatics, devoted to their Supreme Leader and who believe that the outside world is completely decadent whilst its conquest is inevitable, the First Order are also similar to North Korea.
Their combination of unbridled fanaticism and strict military hierarchy, usage of child soldiers and terror tactics, and their ultimate goal of rebuilding one of the most powerful empires in world history are eerily similar to modern Jihadi terrorist groups like al-Qaeda or the Islamic State. Meanwhile, the fact that they're ruled by a religious figure who answers to the title of "Supreme Leader" brings to mind post-revolutionary Iran. The First Order, despite it's evil nature, lacks the depravity of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State however.
The first order are also similar to the Lord's Resistance Army, being a ruthless military junta that uses child soldiers and which is led by a spiritual leader although the First Order lacks the depravity of the LRA.
The First Order also bear some resemblance to the The Brotherhood of Nod in the Command & Conquer videogame series in their authoritarian political ideology, ruthlessness, use of terror tactics and weapons of mass destruction, and blind quasi-religious obedience to their Supreme Leader. Also, like the Brotherhood, the First Order appears to be a hybrid between a nation state, a multinational corporation, and a religious cult rolled into one.