First Order Supreme Council

The First Order Supreme Council, also known as the High Council, was a group of top military commanders selected from the First Order High Command. Supreme Leader Kylo Ren established the council to put his directives into action and to devise a plan for the future of the galaxy under the totalitarian authority of the First Order. The intention behind its creation was to foster greater collaboration and coordination within a system where the majority of high-ranking officers possessed limited understanding of the First Order's capabilities and goals. However, collaboration was unfamiliar to the proud individuals who led the First Order. Consequently, many of their gatherings were marred by backstabbing and territorial disputes.

The Council's central hub was located on the Steadfast, a Resurgent-class Star Destroyer belonging to the First Order Navy and serving as the command vessel of Allegiant General Enric Pryde, the Council's highest-ranking member, second only to the Supreme Leader. Following significant damage to its predecessor, the Finalizer, this Star Destroyer also served as Ren's flagship.

The Council, which comprised the highest-ranking military officers and their closest assistants, had a wide range of responsibilities. These ranged from maintaining strict security on the Steadfast to overseeing the First Order's war efforts on a galactic scale. In the latter case, General Bellava Parnadee was specifically tasked with overseeing the occupation of contested worlds and directing the First Order Army on occupied Kijimi, Torost, and Odynnia Gavo.

While some Council members admired and supported Ren, others secretly opposed his rule or were concerned about his handling of the First Order-Resistance War. The Council found the young Supreme Leader's command style, which remained reactive despite his growing responsibilities and maturity, to be unsettling. Nonetheless, General Amret Engell admired Ren's initiative and unquestioned authority, and she sought to build an army worthy of her Supreme Leader's approval, having succeeded the deceased Captain Phasma as the head of the First Order stormtrooper training program. General Domaric Quinn had been a junior officer in the Galactic Empire before rising to a key command position in the First Order's ground forces. Quinn, unlike Engell, was frustrated by having to serve under Ren, who was more than a decade younger than him. As a technologist, Quinn disapproved of the mysticism of Ren and his predecessor, Supreme Leader Snoke, but he tried to avoid questioning their methods.

The Council as a whole reflected the First Order's highly regimented military structure and, as such, had a limited understanding of the ways of the Force as embodied by Snoke, Kylo Ren, and the Knights of Ren. They were particularly concerned about Ren's complete submission to the dark side of the Force and how it fueled his drive for power, preferring more conventional tactics and strategies for conquering the galaxy. General Armitage Hux, a rival of Ren's before Snoke's assassination, was convinced that Ren had lost his mind, diverting First Order resources away from the war to investigate the return of the Sith Lord and fallen Galactic Emperor Darth Sidious. While the concept of the Force was also foreign to Pryde, he was wise enough not to disrespect Ren's beliefs, focusing instead on the material advantages they offered to the military. Pryde was also secretly an agent of the resurrected Sidious.

Relationships within the Council's ranks were more contentious than cooperative. Although Hux and Pryde served together on the Council, Pryde held his younger colleague responsible for the destruction of Starkiller Base. Unlike Hux, Admiral Frantis Griss had Pryde's complete trust and reported directly to the Allegiant General. Ultimately, the Council's high-ranking officers were driven by their pride and personal agendas, as was often the case with ranking officers in the First Order and the Empire before it. In comparison, the aides who served them focused on carrying out their duties with maximum efficiency, although some were eventually drawn into the Council's politics. Commander Masir Trach transferred from the Finalizer to the Steadfast, where he became entangled in a silent power struggle between Hux and Pryde. His association with both senior officers allowed him to sense the tension between them, but he tried to avoid any conflict by focusing on his orders.

Before the Supreme Council was created, the First Order was led by Supreme Leader Snoke, a humanoid alien strong in the Force, whose origins were a mystery even to his closest subordinates. While he ruled the First Order with absolute authority, Snoke was content to focus on spiritual matters, delegating control of the military to his generals and allowing propaganda masterminds to shape the public image of his regime. Following the destruction of the New Republic, which triggered open conflict between the First Order and the Resistance, Snoke was killed by his apprentice, Kylo Ren, the heir to the Skywalker bloodline. After killing his master, Ren solidified his position in the succession by keeping his involvement in Snoke's death a secret, lest his subordinates question his claim to the title of Supreme Leader.

Ren's leadership style differed from his predecessor's. Despite his reliance on mysticism and the dark side for power, he adopted a more hands-on approach to the military. Furthermore, his reign brought greater transparency to a regime that was accustomed to secrecy. In the past, information within the First Order was highly compartmentalized, especially as the regime rose to power and the scope of its operations needed to remain secret from the wider galaxy. As a result, even the members of the First Order's top echelon were unaware of the true scale of its forces. With Ren taking command, the secrecy surrounding Snoke's plan gradually dissipated, and he created the Supreme Council to plan for the future.

Ren anticipated that the Council, drawn from the ranks of High Command, would be rife with infighting. He considered it beneficial to his reign, as he preferred that they direct their energies against each other, thereby reducing the likelihood of them uniting against him. Following Phasma's death, General Engell would enthusiastically double recruitment, much to the Supreme Leader's approval.

As the war with the Resistance continued, a mysterious message broadcasting the voice of Darth Sidious—the long-dead Dark Lord of the Sith who had once ruled the galaxy as Emperor of the Galactic Empire—was heard in 35 ABY. Ren immediately began investigating the Sith Lord's return, unwilling to tolerate any threat to his rule or return to a life of servitude after gaining unprecedented freedom and power. His search for answers led to Mustafar, the volcanic world that was once ruled by Ren's grandfather, Darth Vader. After leaving the Steadfast in orbit around Mustafar's stratosphere, the Supreme Leader personally led a squad of stormtroopers to the Corvax Fen region, where they encountered a colony of Sith cultists, the Alazmec of Winsit.

Allegiant General Enric Pryde and General Armitage Hux watched as Ren and his soldiers slaughtered the cultists. Pryde watched with admiration as his lightsaber cut down one Alazmec after another, and even Hux was mesmerized by the carnage unleashed by his former rival. Even so, he considered the mission a useless endeavor, believing that Ren had gone mad searching for a dead Emperor while the First Order's enemies grew stronger. Pryde chided his younger colleague, agreeing with Ren's decision to find the message's source.

Using his grandfather's Sith wayfinder that he had obtained on the castle grounds of Fortress Vader, Ren embarked on a solitary mission to the Unknown Regions, determined to find the legendary Sith world of Exegol. None of his subordinates objected to their Supreme Leader traveling alone in a dangerous region of the galaxy. When he returned from his journey, the Supreme Council gathered in the High Command conference room on the Steadfast. Before Ren's arrival, Pryde briefed his colleagues on the outcome of Ren's mission, including the discovery of the Sith Eternal cult and their military resources.

The Supreme Leader arrived on the Steadfast accompanied by his personal bodyguards, the Knights of Ren. Admiral Griss greeted them, remaining silent after noticing the mud that Ren's Knights were tracking through the command ship's polished corridors. By this point, Ren had learned that the First Order had captured a Resistance sympathizer. Boolio, an Ovissian miner from the Sinta Glacier Colony, was brought before the Supreme Leader and killed for handing over secret information.

After decapitating the Ovissian with his lightsaber, Ren brought the sympathizer's severed head to the High Command conference room, slamming it on the table and causing his seated officers to flinch, which Ren noted with satisfaction. Supreme Leader Ren then warned his minions that there was a spy in their ranks who had sent a message to the Resistance, but he felt that this agent would not stop them because of what he had seen on Exegol. Ren's report confirmed not only the Emperor's return through cloning but also the existence of a vast fleet—the Final Order—comprising thousands of Xyston-class Star Destroyers armed with axial superlaser cannons. The promise of augmenting the First Order's existing forces with those of the Sith Eternal made Ren confident that his regime would evolve into a true Empire in its own right. It even bolstered the Council's confidence in Ren, as they had been skeptical of his leadership until now.

As Ren waited for the Council to examine the severed, bleeding head on their table, he sensed Hux's unease in the Force and deduced that his appearance was the cause, as he had begun wearing his mask again. However, Hux complimented it, as did General Parnadee. General Quinn interrupted with his assessment of their alliance with the Sith Eternal, his voice dripping with contempt for associating the First Order with a cult. Ren knew that the former junior officer of the Imperial Military disdained anything related to religion and mysticism, and he decided that Quinn would have to learn to respect such beliefs if he wanted to stay alive.

While the rest of the Council sat in uncomfortable silence, Pryde spoke in support of the alliance and scolded the young general, noting that the people Quinn dismissed as "conjurers" had "conjured" legions of Star Destroyers. The Sith fleet promised to increase the First Order's resources tenfold, giving them a range of power that would compensate for the loss of their superweapon, Starkiller Base, a debacle that Pryde blamed on Hux. However, Ren was unsettled by the Allegiant General's lack of fear toward him. He had considered eliminating Pryde as a potential threat to his power, but ultimately found the veteran officer of the Empire too competent to dismiss. In addition, part of Ren enjoyed knowing that Pryde's presence fed Hux's insecurity and frustration at not having as much power as he used to when Supreme Leader Snoke was still in charge of the First Order.

The discussion about increasing their resources gave Parnadee and Engell an opportunity to promote their own interests, as both generals were keen on expanding the army by conscripting more of the galaxy's children. Quinn, however, drew Ren's ire by further attempting to learn more information about the Emperor's conditions. He did not want them to know that Sidious had ordered him to kill the scavenger-turned-Jedi apprentice Rey, because he had his own plans for her and wanted to kill him so that he could finish what his grandfather started and destroy the Sith once and for all. Regardless of what the Emperor wanted, Ren pursued his own ambitions because he felt he had given too much to obtain his power, and what he wanted most of all was to rule the galaxy with Rey at his side.

Giving in to his anger and impatience, Ren reached toward Quinn with the Force and telekinetically slammed the general onto the ceiling. The impact fractured Quinn's body, and the Council could only watch as Ren asphyxiated him using the Force, leaving Hux visibly shaken because he feared that would be his fate one day. He ordered the Council to prepare their forces to crush any world that resisted the First Order, while he personally oversaw the hunt for Rey with the help of his Knights of Ren.

Pryde and Hux remained at Ren's side during his hunt for the scavenger. Hux seethed with resentment over his diminished status in the First Order, being made to serve under both Ren and Pryde, all the while feigning loyal subordination to both of them. Determined to see his rivals fall, particularly Ren, Hux secretly fed vital information to their enemies, making him a spy for the Resistance. Although he cared nothing for their cause, he wanted Ren's reign to end in defeat more than anything. Upon encountering Rey's group on Kijimi, Hux saved Commander Poe Dameron, Finn, and Chewbacca from execution, and then used Finn's help to injure himself to avoid suspicion. Pryde, however, was not fooled. He correctly identified Hux as the spy and personally executed him for attempting to seek revenge on Supreme Leader Ren, ending the young general's career, ambitions, and life, causing him to meet a similar fate to Quinn's.

Hux's death and Ren's subsequent return to the light side of the Force left Pryde in complete control of the First Order. After contacting Sidious, the former Imperial officer swore his allegiance to the Sith Lord he had once served in the Galactic Civil War and allowed him to take charge of the First Order. As a result, the First Order and the Sith Eternal formally joined forces, and Pryde was appointed as the Sith fleet's commanding officer. The Sith Eternal's first order of business was to send a message to the galaxy, demanding the unconditional surrender of all free worlds or face death. To that end, the Derriphan, a single Sith Star Destroyer, was deployed from Exegol. Armed with a planet-killing superweapon like all of her sister ships, the Derriphan destroyed Kijimi's core, obliterating the entire planet in a single attack.

The Steadfast made its way to Exegol. It was there that Pryde, along with Griss, supervised the preparations necessary to deploy the Final Order fleet. During the unexpected assault on Exegol by the Resistance navy, which was an attempt to halt the launch of the Sith fleet, Pryde himself took control of the fleet. Despite the Resistance's success in eliminating several warships, including the Derriphan, Pryde considered these losses insignificant. The Sith Eternal forces were initially successful in the conflict, but the situation changed with the arrival of the Citizens' Fleet. This fleet was a collection of thousands of civilian ships that had banded together to oppose the Sith fleet. Pryde, taken aback by their sudden appearance, sought to understand how the Resistance had managed to gather such a large number of reinforcements. Griss, however, realized that these were not military ships, but rather common citizens who had chosen to fight against them.

As the battle's momentum shifted in favor of the Resistance, they launched an attack on the Steadfast. The Steadfast had been trying to guide the surviving Sith Star Destroyers to a secure orbit. When the command bridge was destroyed, both Pryde and Griss were killed, and the Steadfast crashed onto the surface of Exegol. General Amret Engell, who was also on Exegol at the time, met the same end. Without Pryde's flagship, the Sith fleet was unable to escape Exegol, leaving the remaining Star Destroyers exposed to attacks from countless enemy vessels. The Battle of Exegol concluded with a victory for the Resistance and their allies, triggering a widespread uprising against the First Order throughout the galaxy.