Secretly guided by the resurrected Sith Lord, Emperor Palpatine, the First Order aims to destroy the New Republic and rule the galaxy as an autocratic military dictatorship.

[3][4] Under the leadership of Supreme Leader Snoke and Kylo Ren, it is the main antagonistic faction of the sequel trilogy and is fought by the Resistance.

According to Star Wars: The Force Awakens: The Visual Dictionary (2015), and the trilogy novel series Star Wars: Aftermath by Chuck Wendig, after the Galactic Empire was defeated at Battle of Endor in 4 ABY in Return of the Jedi, thousands of worlds rose up to join the Rebel Alliance, and destroy the disorganized Empire, which had fallen victim to warlordism.

The remaining Imperial forces were pushed back to a handful of sectors on the fringe of the Outer Rim, containing only a small fraction of the galaxy's population and industrial base.

These sectors were a heavily fortified final redoubt, and the New Republic deemed that they posed too small a threat to justify the high cost in life that liberating them would require.

The New Republic forced the Empire to accept the Galactic Concordance, a humiliating armistice agreement which imposed strict disarmament plans and punishing reparations on the remaining Imperials.

[5][6][7] The Aftermath trilogy establishes Imperial Admiral Rae Sloane, introduced as a captain in John Jackson Miller's 2014 novel A New Dawn,[8] and Commandant Brendol Hux as the de facto founders of the First Order.

Sloane, after achieving the rank of Grand Admiral, coined the term "First Order" as she establishes the reborn empire that will eventually take that name.

[9] Over time, fugitives of the Old Empire reorganized themselves, becoming a firmly entrenched and isolationist hermit kingdom, which spent the next three decades instigating what would become a "cold war" against the New Republic, gradually rebuilding its military strength and secretly re-arming in violation of its armistice agreements.

The 2016 novel Star Wars: Bloodline explained how this faction officially reorganized into the "First Order", and that this final transition only occurred about six years before The Force Awakens.

Ultimately, many Centrist worlds seceded from the New Republic to reunite with the holdout Imperial remnants on the fringe of the galaxy, and formally combined into a new government called "the First Order".

First Order conspirators publicly revealed that Leia was in fact the daughter of Darth Vader, severely harming her political standing among the remaining Populists.

Even after these events, most in the remaining Senate were happy to see the Centrists go, feeling that the new First Order still controlled far too few sectors of the galaxy to ever pose a serious threat to galactic peace.

[4] On his turn to the dark side, Ben/Kylo slaughtered most of his uncle Luke Skywalker's other Jedi apprentices (with the rest joining him) and destroyed his new academy.

"[12] The First Order's handful of sectors simply do not possess the galaxy-wide resources the old Empire used to be able to draw upon, and in addition the armistice treaties with the New Republic put strict limitations on how many ships it could physically build.

Therefore, unlike the old Galactic Empire's swarm tactics, the First Order's military has had to adapt to a more "quality over quantity" philosophy, making efficient use of what few resources it has.

However, it appears that such technology existed at the time of A New Hope, as Darth Vader was able to track the Tantive IV from Scarif to Tatooine even through hyperspace.

With a naval doctrine that accepted the renewed importance of starfighters within their overall strategy, the Resurgent-class adopted the carrier-centric designs of the Galactic Republic's Venator-class Star Destroyer.

The First Order's TIE fighters, designated TIE/fo, are more advanced than the old Empire's TIE/ln model, and show greater concern for unit stamina and survivability.

Mandator IV-class Siege Dreadnoughts are larger but rarer than Resurgent-class Star Destroyers, used as orbital bombardment platforms which can functionally wipe out entire planets' population centers (albeit through conventional weapons, just short of being considered superweapons).

First Order soldiers and crews have constantly trained for combat in war games and simulations, making them much more effective one-on-one than the endless waves of stormtrooper conscripts fielded by the old Empire.

Occasionally, they modify their outfit even further—Captain Phasma made blaster proof chrome copies of all her equipment and greatly improved vision modes of her helmet's visor.

These cutters are positioned in such a way that the AT-M6 walks on its "knuckles" instead of the pads of its feet, which—combined with a heavy siege cannon which gives it a hunched-over appearance—gives the AT-M6 an almost gorilla-like profile compared to the more elephant-like AT-AT.

[18] Snoke is a powerful figure in the dark side of the Force and has corrupted Ben, the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa who had been an apprentice to his uncle, the Jedi Master Luke Skywalker.

Poe Dameron rashly leads an assault against a Mandator IV-class Siege Dreadnought – one of only a handful of heavy orbital bombardment platforms in the First Order fleet – and manages to destroy it, but at the cost of the entire bomber wing of the Resistance.

This devolves into a siege-like battle of attrition, as one by one the smaller Resistance ships run out of fuel and are destroyed by the pursuing First Order fleet.

Finn and a Resistance mechanic, Rose, embark on a mission to disable the First Order's tracking device in the Mega-class Star Dreadnought Supremacy.

Lando Calrissian and Chewbacca arrive with reinforcements from across the galaxy, and they destroy the remaining Sith forces, killing Pryde as well in the process.