STARKILLER

Author's notes from The Secret Academy by Jason Fry, which explores Brendol’s original ( unsanctioned ) trials for the stormtrooper project. In which he tries to mold children from early on to become ruthless killers. Poor baby Armitage had a sinister nanny droid.

But sadly that is a reoccurring trend.

The comic is drawn in the style of the chosen artist and they rarely make the characters look like the actor. I've seen that with other characters too. But it's generally more biased toward villains or secondary characters.

I might not love the art style but I am just happy when the comics actually portray Hux acting in character. Verses the writer writing him ooc.

I don't blame you, I am equally confused. I think that may be the route they are taking. Project Necromancer is an entirely new thing that doesn't have any novel canon roots. But all of the cloning implications seem to be pointing toward the creation of Snoke and the project to make a vessel for Palpatine's return.

I didn't picture Brendol as being one who is obsessed with cloning, based on how he is described in several novels. Though he did take inspiration from the clone army when designing the program to train children as soldiers from birth. I was initially thrown off by Brendol potentially being involved with this project ( I still kind of am ) because it seemed as though the First Order staff ( including Armitage ) was rather clueless about Palpatine's existence, aside from Pryde. But I suppose that is what makes it plausible, if we consider that Pryde and Brendol are close friends. They could have been involved in the covert project together.

Rae never had a chance to have a family or a daughter, but...

Fate sets her upon a different path.

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Next to her sits Brendol Hux, once-commandant of the Arkanis Academy. Mercurial Swift did his job and rescued the man (and she makes a mental note to get the bounty hunter paid for that work). Hux is a big, blustering, ego-fed pig. Gone a bit to pasture, that one: His gut strains at his buttons, his neck is fat, and his firm jaw has gone soft with an unshorn patchwork of facial hair. He looks haggard, lost, angry. Occasionally he seems to remember that this is a dinner, then dives down into his meal with sudden gusto, shoveling food into his mouth once more.

Brendol Hux as described by Grand Admiral Rae Sloane.

Hi there! So this is such an interesting idea. I love it.

Especially since there were a lot of predictions, after The Force Awakens novelization & visual dictionary came out, that Rey named herself after Captain Raeh. Captain Raeh was a rebellion starfighter pilot who died in the Battle of Jakku. The old starfighter helmet you see Rey wearing while she's sitting out side her AT-AT home on Jakku, at the beginning of TFA, belonged to Captain Raeh.

It's funny how similar her last name is to Rae Sloane's first name.

Of course, these predictions came out way before Rey was proclaimed a Palpatine in canon. So that retcon could make your headcanon valid. Especially if Rae's parents were once involved with the Remnant.

I think the second layer to Hux restraining from allowing people to use his first name is fear of attachment. His childhood taught him to fear vulnerability because it resulted in pain. Attachments make you vulnerable. People you love can hurt you, betray you, expose you or manipulate you. 

I really love seeing fics and content where Armitage allowing someone to use his first name is the first deep show of trust. 

The parallels between the speech patterns, mannerisms and expressions are uncanny. The fact that they had Brian play Brendol was ideal. I'll be back to expand on this later, but Armitage genuinely is a culmination of Brendol & perhaps Sloane or other influences. The concept of partially becoming who you hate is so intriguing narratively.

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But even then, one imagines Armitage was always looking for ways to impress or destroy his own father. The look he shot at Brendol was pure loathing.

Consider that this excerpt from the Phasma novel occurred right After Armitage comforts a child. It's an interesting element of character development because we also learn, from Cardinal, that Armitage has the potential to be very cruel ( in reference to him intensifying Brendol’s harsh stormtrooper indoctrination process ). Yet he still has a bit of tenderness in that scene with the child, which has no apparent ulterior motive. Which displays that he might not be an inherently cruel person. I love the trope of moral regression and I think Armitage Hux encompasses it. He becomes more corrupt and cruel with age, from influence and selfishness.

Hux turned away from the trooper’s holofile. He respected Ren and his abilities, but he was not afraid of him. One did not rise to the rank of general in the forces of the First Order by showing fear.

Hello! Thank you, that's so kind of you! I'm just a nerd who loves to research and happens to find Hux fascinating.

We see two people stand up for Armitage in the Aftermath: Empire’s End, but they are both fairly convoluted. I’m going to start with Gallius Rax, who gifts Armitage control of the child soldiers. 

They are hungry and feral and he tries not to tremble. But the boy trembles harder, instead. The door to the transport bay opens, and a man steps in—the boy knows this man: Counselor Rax. The man comes and stands before the boy, looking down. “Hello, Armitage.” “Sir,” the redheaded boy says in a small voice. “Hello.” “Has your father explained to you what’s happening?” “No, sir.” “Hm. Brendol does not much like you, I suspect.” Tears line the boy’s eyelids as he nods in agreement. “I suspect that is correct, sir.”

In the scene, a five year told Armitage is shivering while riding in a transport with a group of preteen/teen soldiers. He is afraid and confused. He has been taken from his home by his father ( away from his step-mother and mother ) without any explanation to this dismal desert planet. Note: It’s not known to Brendol or Armitage that Rax is the one who ordered them to be brought here without Brendol’s wife or Armitage’s mother. Rax ordered Sloane to arrange the evacuation under those pretenses ( before Rax betrayed Sloane ). 

For now, I leave you with a gift.” “What’s that, sir?” “These other children? They stare at you, don’t they?” “Y…yes, sir.” “They want to kill you, I fear. They want to slash you with their fingernails. They want to bite you until you are just unrecognizable pieces. They would, if given half a chance, beat you with common rocks until all your limbs were broken sticks. Just as I was once a savage of Jakku, so too are these children savage in the same way. Your father’s work has only heightened that impulse. He has sharpened them the way you do a knife.” The boy is truly afraid.

I just wanted to include the above scene to display the tone and make Rax’s manipulation apparent....

“The gift. You want to know about the gift. Here it is, Armitage: You will lead these children. They will serve you. And one day soon your father will pass down his teachings to you, and you will learn to do what he did. It will be your life’s work to take children like these savages and hammer their malleable minds into whatever shape you so require. They will be tools built for the work at hand. That is my gift to you, boy. One day your father will die. One day soon, I fear. And you will take his place.”

The thing about this scene is that, when isolated, it is misleading. You think Rax is giving Armitage protection via control of the child soldiers. But, in reality this is not true. Because Rax never revokes Brendol’s control over the soldiers. That is apparent via a later scene where Brendol gives orders to the child soldiers ( by Rax’s command ) to intimidate Sloane. The soldiers respond to his commands without questions. 

Brendol and Armitage posses control over the child soldiers in tandem. But the power is imbalanced because, ultimately, Brendol still has control over Armitage.

And this is very in character for Rax, who views people as tools. 

Now to move to Sloane’s relationship with Armitage. For context, during the above scene, Sloane is not present in the Remnant at all. Rax has betrayed her by framing her for making a very sloppy attack on the New Republic. The Imperial Remnant believes her to be dead. And Rax intended for the New Republic to capture or kill her. But she survives and escapes, with serious injuries, and is determined to return and expose Rax.

By the time Sloane and Armitage have their encounter, Rax has all but destroyed the Imperial Remnant via inciting the Battle of Jakku. And Sloane ends up teaming up with a rebel to kill Rax and stop him from destroying the entire planet. She escaped the planet with Brendol Hux, the child soldiers and Armitage Hux, while barely alive.

Her first encounter with Armitage convoluted and conditional

The months for Sloane are hard and lonely. The Imperialis is a cold, impeccably designed ship, and she shares it with a pack of wild children and the haggard, haunted remnant of the man named Brendol Hux. The early days of the trip were spent worrying about whether or not one day Hux would rally his vicious orphans to slay her while sleeping. But once she saw that the children listened to Hux’s own son—a pale slip of a boy with a tousle of red hair—she went to him and asked young Armitage to make a deal with her. She said to Armitage: “If you’re willing to keep me safe from the children, then I will keep you safe from your father. Do we have an accord?”

Armitage agrees and then Sloane goes to Brendol to try to strike and deal but it doesn’t go well...

The oaf made a mistake, then: he came at her. His hands reached for her throat. Even beaten and bruised as she was, it took her no time to hyperextend his knee with a hard kick. As he doubled over, mewling, she grabbed a hank of his messy hair, and she began to beat him. She hit him, punching and kicking the man until he was on the floor, on his knees, whimpering. Sloane told him: “If you ever cross me, I will visit this same violence upon you a hundredfold. Whatever waits for us out here, you’re with me. You will not betray me. You will not question me. Do you understand?” He nodded. Smiling through tears. Blubbering that he was her man. Then she added, “Your son. Armitage. I know you don’t like him. I suspect you hurt him—psychologically or physically, I don’t know, and I don’t care. You will leave him alone. And you will teach the boy everything that you know. Are we clear?”

So she brokers a deal by force and commands Brendol to stop abusing Armitage and, instead, pass his knowledge along to Armitage.

For context: Since Sloane was on the run from Rax and trying to survive in the wilds of Jakku, she is very out of the loop with Rax’s plans and even the course of this ship. She has to study the ship to even get an inkling of what lays next for the group. She travels into the unknown regions by the help of Thrawn’s map and the droid sentinel piloting the ship. She is still gravely injured...

It doesn’t help that all along her side has ached fiercely. Every morning she checked the old injury, and though the bruise has faded, the ribs look soft and caved in. And even the faintest fluttering touch of her fingertips upon the skin causes her great pain. Something is broken inside. She tells herself she will fix it when they land on the Eclipse. If they land on the Eclipse.

 This is a trying time for them all. And it’s obvious that her relationship with little Armitage is not the most nurturing but she seems to grow attached to him over time. When they finally arrive at the Eclipse she is wrought with doubt about what comes next and if Brendol will betray her.

Her worries are myriad. Will Hux betray her when they join with the others? Who comes after? Do they serve him, or her? Can she be the legacy of Palpatine, or must she always contend with the ghost of Gallius Rax, his presence lingering in those who remain? That man’s influence was a virus. Infectious and potentially incurable. Then there comes a question of the children: those bright-eyed monsters. They train every day here on board the ship at the urging of both Brendol and his son Armitage. Armitage has grown more vicious during these months, even for such a small boy. Sloane likes him. But she worries about him, too.

We don’t know what happens next. But we do know that she survives and becomes one of the first set of leaders in the First Order, according to a except of the Phasma novel.

In terms of her relationship with Armitage, it’s uncertain. My other post presents details about how Armitage retains views that are similar to those Sloane had. That makes me think that he had a relationship with her. 

Of course, we do see Armitage being abused by Brendol and Brooks in the Age of Resistance: General Hux comics. And that makes me wonder if Rae stopped protecting him? Or if she was just outnumbered by Brendol, Pryde, Brooks and whoever else was in league with them. Especially since she suffered injuries that will probably never fully heal. And then there is the implication, from the Kylo Ren comics, that Brendol is in league with Snoke. So it’s possible that Brendol helped orchestrate Snoke’s control of the First Order?? ( If so that could serve as payback to Sloane and a way for him to take back power from her )

Thank you for reading this very long analysis. I hope it was helpful! If you want me to provide any other sources, let me know! Also, fyi, I summarized a lot in order to keep it from being even longer. All of the indented quotes are from Aftermath: Empire’s End by Chuck Wendig 

There are a lot of loose ends that make the rest of their relationship a very unfinished picture. Ultimately, Sloane wasn’t a perfect guardian or defender but it seems like she tried to help Armitage with her limited strength and resources. Initially it was for the sake of her own survival but she also did start to care for him. 

It’s obvious by the end of Aftermath that Rae Sloane has begun to grow attached to Armitage. Despite their rocky beginning she did protect him from Brendol. So I would not be surprised if Sloane was responsible for his rise in the First Order. ( And I’ll explain why. But first, some context: ) What better way to create a revised version of the Empire than with a genius child who can develop technology that will pull a broken organization from that ashes? We know from the Phasma novel that Sloane is gone by 30 ABY. ( Cardinal mentions her and Armitage defensively retorts that she is not around). But Cardinal also mentions that Brendol was preparing for a meeting with Grand Admiral Sloane and the first set of First Order leaders on the day he gives Cardinal his new title as Captain. That signifies that Sloane was still around and in command of the First Order after it became a more established organization. So she did not die while they were still forming the First Order in the unknown regions. That also means that she was around while Armitage was at the Academy and rising through the ranks as an officer. Which clarifies a lot of his contradicting beliefs. 

When I say contradicting beliefs I mean the disparity between Armitage’s  desire to rise and thus buy into Snoke’s ideals of what the First Order is ( after Snoke becomes Supreme leader and supersedes the apparent first group of leaders including Grand Admiral Sloane ) versus Sloane’s original beliefs of what she thought her new revised Empire should comprise of. This is honestly what makes Armitage Hux such an interesting character to me. 

Snoke’s outlook obviously entails the destruction of worlds and ruling by force. The First Order is a tool for his dark agenda. It helps him keep his stronghold over the galaxy and gives him the firepower to secure his reign and further his own goals. Armitage Hux’s pride in the completion of Starkiller and his many other projects, along with his attempts to keep a strong grasp on the power he has attained, displays him buying into these beliefs. I think that part is rather evident and widely accepted. But then there is the other facet of Armitage. The part that still clings to ideals that are similar to Sloane’s beliefs of the version of the Empire she wanted to create.

You can see that here in Hux’s internal monologue, featured in The Last Jedi novelization, by Jason Fry

But Hux knew the future would need a different kind of leader—one able to direct the galaxy’s industries and nurture their innovations, while commanding its citizens’ respect. Snoke wasn’t that leader. And neither was Ren.

Versus Sloane’s inner monologue during Aftermath: Lift Debt by Chuck Wendig:

Slavery has never been part of the perfect Empire that lives inside her head. It may have been necessary for a time, but now the galaxy should be made to see the Empire’s glory—and you can’t teach them of its splendor through slavery. Slavery is not strength; it is weakness. Citizens should serve the Empire because it is right to do so. Why would any choose otherwise?

The idea that citizens should server the Empire/First Order because it’s the right thing to do is common between them both. For context, Sloane came from a gang infested world that the Empire helped clean up. So her outlook on Imperial occupation is positive & her idea of a perfect Empire was one that promoted order and peace with necessary force. She grew disillusioned with Palpatine’s version of the Empire which used uncessary force and had cult-like attributes. ( Disclaimer: This is not a commentary stating that Sloane’s ideas are right. Sloane is still very much a villain. Just with a moral code. Despite how convoluted her moral code is. The First Order is still clearly still a bad organization. )

Now consider the fact that Armitage Hux tried to talk Snoke out of firing Starkiller a second time because he was afraid of eliminating occupied planets that were not involved in the war...

Snoke replied with cold satisfaction. “We do not need it. Prepare the weapon. Destroy their system.” Collected and composed as he was, Hux was not immune to surprise. “The system? Supreme Leader, according to the most recent galographics, at least two and possibly three habitable worlds circle Ileenium. Following the destruction of the Hosnian worlds, would it not be worthwhile simply to destroy their base and claim the remainder for the Order?

-The Force Awakens novelization, by Jason Fry,

The attack on Hosnian Prime was a political power play. Armitage considers the action a necessary act of war but he was taken aback when Snoke ordered him to fire on potentially uninvolved system in lieu of just taking out the Resistance base. Like Sloane, his moral code is corrupted, but still present.

And then we have this scene of Hux refuting Ren from The Force Awakens novelization...

“Again, this map. Which for all I know may or may not even exist.”

Ren’s voice darkened to a degree that caused Phasma to take a step backward. “I do not think I care for your implication, General. You would be wise to keep such thoughts to yourself. You would be wise not to think them.”

Hux held his ground. “My duty is to fight for the First Order with every iota of information, every scrap of material, and every functioning trooper at my command. That was in the oath I took. That is the oath I have sworn to uphold.”

Yes, Hux is serving Snoke’s First Order at this point in the timeline but take a moment to consider how risky this declaration is. Kylo may have a personal interest in finding and destroying Luke but we are also aware that Snoke tasked Kylo with this mission. So Hux’s skepticism almost implies that his loyalty to the First Order is beyond his loyalty to Snoke.