In the aftermath of the Battle of Jakku, a major remnant of the Galactic Empire that secretly regrouped in the Unknown Regions commanded by Grand Admiral Rae Sloane, and would go on to form the basis of the military of the First Order. Its creation was planned out decades in advance as part of Darth Sidious' Contingency plan, which called for key Imperial assets and personnel to flee into the Unknown Regions and the other portion of the Empire to be destroyed. The seeds for a Imperial resurgence were laid in the Unknown Regions, which had been secretly been explored and prepared by the Galactic Empire.
After Sidious' death at the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY, the Contingency, led by the Emperor's protégé, Gallius Rax, began to make preparations for the exodus to the Unknown Regions. Rax gathered the majority of the Imperial Navy at Jakku, with the intent of luring the New Republic into a trap and destroying both forces. However, Rax was killed by Sloane during the Battle of Jakku, and, urged on by the dying Rax, who anointed her as his successor, Sloane led the surviving Imperial ships, along with other select personnel, into the Unknown Regions to regroup and rebuild a new Empire. In 21 ABY, the remnant had reformed into a successor of Empire, the First Order, a fascist military junta intent on destroying the New Republic. The First Order was itself destroyed in a series of uprisings in 35 ABY.
Darth Sidious had planned for decades for a force of Imperial loyalists to escape to the Unknown Regions following his death.
In 19 BBY, Darth Sidious declared a new Galactic Empire to reign over the galaxy. In order to prepare for the event of his death, Sidious arranged a Contingency plan which would allow him to attempt to regain power. The Contingency called for the Emperor's protégé, Gallius Rax, to destroy the weaker elements of the Empire and then retreat to the Unknown Regions. In order to prepare, the Sith Lord seeded the Unknown Regions with shipyards, laboratories and storehouses, a massive undertaking that had taken decades to prepare. This effort had been made known only to Sidious' elect. In addition to the infrastructure, hyperspace routes and secretly charted planets were prepared.
Immediately after Sidious' death at the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY, his Contingency plan was set in motion. Counselor Rax, the de facto leader of the Galactic Empire, attempted to gather as many Imperials as he could at Jakku, and succeeded in gathering the bulk of the Imperial Navy there, with the goal of destroying as many of the Imperial and New Republic forces as possible.
Grand Admiral Rae Sloane led the Imperial remnant into the Unknown Regions.
The death of Rax at the Battle of Jakku in 5 ABY caused command of the Imperial loyalist forces to fall to Grand Admiral Rae Sloane. With the Empire's defeat by the New Republic on Jakku, Imperial officials and warships from the Imperial fleet were forced to retreat into the galaxy's Unknown Regions, which the Empire had been secretly exploring per the Emperor's Contingency. Sloane, along with other Imperial leaders such as Commandant Brendol Hux, led these former Imperial officers, nobles, technologists, warlords, and fleets in forming a major remnant of the Empire within the Unknown Regions, unwittingly fulfilling Sidious' Contingency plan by creating a secret foothold in the Unknown Regions.
The loss of so many promising officers to the Unknown Regions was a factor in Grand Vizier Mas Amedda's decision to formally surrender the Empire to the New Republic and sign the Galactic Concordance, which dissolved the Imperial government and reduced the Empire to a rump state in the inner systems. In addition to the inner systems' remnant, a wide array of other remnants that refused to follow the terms of the Galactic Concordance sprung up in the known galaxy, such as Gideon's Imperial remnant, Gilad Pellaeon's delegation and the Morak Imperial remnants. Grand Moff Randd also led an Imperial remnant in the Unknown Regions Queluhan Nebula, where he had command of several Star Destroyers.
Having rendezvoused with the Eclipse and anyone who had already reached it in the months after the Battle of Jakku, Sloane and Hux were key figures in the creation of this new regime. Sloane, in particular, was more responsible for continuing Imperial ideology foreword than any other person. They ensured that it would be built along Imperial lines while they also strove to avoid the same mistakes, which set them on a path toward Neo-Imperialism. The New Republic remained unaware of the remnant in the Unknown Regions, despite rumors of an Imperial-inspired threat in the Unknown Regions.
Without the hyperspace routes created by the Attendants, the Imperial survivors would have perished in the Unknown Regions.
From 5 to 15 ABY, the remnant tamed the Unknown Regions as it colonized the vast swathes of unexplored space. Following years of hardship in the wilderness of the Unknown Regions, travelling through barely mapped star systems, the remnant eventually found secure footing in planets that had previously been secretly charted by the Empire. The knowledge of Grand Admiral Mitth'raw'nuruodo "Thrawn," a Chiss native to the Unknown Regions, as well as the aid of hyperspace routs charted by the Attendants, helped the Empire chart the Unknown Regions to be used as a haven for the former Imperials. Without the aid of the hyperspace routes created by the Attendants, the Imperial survivors would have perished in the wilds of the Unknown Regions. In addition to navigational aid, the remnant met secret Imperial reinforcements that had been previously seeded there by the Emperor.
The security of the Unknown Regions allowed the remnant to grow over time. Hidden behind the veil of the Unknown Regions and thus far from the prying eyes of the New Republic, they plotted their return to power, and began a movement to rebuild their armies and fleets in secret, funded by major corporations and using hidden shipyards. In particular, the Vulpinus Nebula was used by Imperial survivors has a haven for decades after the fall of the Empire.
By 21 ABY, a covert partnership was formed between the Unknown Regions Imperial remnant and the Corporate Sector Authority the New Republic Era. Cooperation with the CSA provided secret funding to the remnant, and its leadership assigned High Colonel Enric Pryde to work with the company. A former captain in the Imperial Navy, Pryde survived the Battle of Jakku and worked toward the restoration of the Galactic Empire, although he regarded his mission with the CSA beneath an officer of his rank. The code name Steadfast was assigned to him in order to maintain the secrecy of the remnant's connection to the CSA.
In 21 ABY, the Sith Eternal cult instructed the Jedi hunter Ochi of Bestoon to seek out their agent, Steadfast, for assistance in the search for Rey, the granddaughter of the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Sidious. Contemptuous of his mission with the CSA and the quality of their paramilitary, the high colonel obliged Ochi's request, granting the hunter a company of CSA troopers despite objections from his second-in-command, Viceprex Coromun. Later that year, the First Order, a military junta and successor state to the Empire, was formed by the Unknown Regions Imperial remnant. Its military wing was formed out of elements of the Unknown Regions Imperial remnant.
The First Order rose to be the premier power in the galaxy, albeit briefly.
The Unknown Regions was a successful hiding place for the First Order military, which was able to gather its strength without being noticed by the New Republic. The First Order eventually succeeded in conquering much of the galaxy by 34 ABY but was eventually destroyed in a series of uprisings following the Resistance's victory at the Battle of Exegol in 35 ABY.
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens: The Visual Dictionary
- Star Wars: Build the Millennium Falcon 73
- Star Wars: On the Front Lines
- Star Wars: The Last Jedi: The Visual Dictionary
- Ultimate Star Wars, New Edition
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: The Visual Dictionary
- The Star Wars Book
- Star Wars: Battles that Changed the Galaxy
- Star Wars 100 Objects
- Star Wars: Timelines