ST Rise of the First Order Timeline (based on the films)

The opening crawl tells us in The Force Awakens that the First Order rose from the ashes of the Empire in Luke Skywalker's absence. However, we know that Finn was taken from his parents as a young child.

This is enuogh to raise some interesting questions about the First Order's emergence in the New Republic era. I know there are books about the process, and maybe they are good, but I always like to build what I can from the movies as a canon unto themselves.

What are some of your thoughts about the timeline and the details of the rise of the First Order? Does the information in the film suggest that Ben Solo's fall to the Dark Side helped it advance significantly or do you think it was Luke's exile as such that created a vacuum for them to do that? Or are these questions inseparable?

I wouldn't mind hearing from people who have read the "new EU" novels but am most interested in what saga film fans think in their own interpretation.

 

Based on the Aftermath novels, the First Order was "born" when a bunch of Imperials fled into the Unknown Regions after the Battle of Jakku.

Based on Complete Locations, they would have eventually found Ilum (which was already the site of a lot of Imperial experimentation with kyber crystal superweaponry), and the Starkiller Base project was set in motion. These Unknown Regions Imperials will carve out a huge swathe of territory there in secret.

All that's about 28 or so years before TFA. Finn would have been inducted into the Stormtrooper training programme as a baby, a few years after that.

By Bloodline, around 6 years before TFA (and roughly concurrently with Ben Solo's fall) the First Order's plans have progressed considerably - they've infiltrated the Centrist factions of the Republic, and set in motion the events that will lead to the New Republic schisming. A small section of the New Republic will break away, start calling themselves the First Order, and draw boundaries between themselves and the New Republic.

The next 6 years will be dominated by diplomatic tensions between the First Order and the New Republic. The fact that the First Order is much more powerful than its apparent size would appear, since so much of its territory is really in the Unknown Regions, will not be apparent at first, but will slowly become clear to the Resistance.

By the time of the Resistance TV series, the New Republic will have become increasingly alarmed, with its military lending increasing support to the Resistance in secret (while still publicly disavowing support for them). Kazuda is initially a New Republic pilot - but he's already being chased by First Order pilots in the first episode of the show, set 6 months before TFA - when he's on a Resistance-supporting mission. After that mission, he joins the Resistance proper.

 

I'm willing to explore the novels' rough outline, although I do not take it as canon. But where in all this does Luke lose Ben and the rest of his students? When does he go into exile, allowing the First Order to rise like a floatation device cut from its sandbag?

 

That wasn't the First Order. That was very naughty boys/girls

 

If we're simply going by the movies alone I would place the burning of Luke's temple around maybe 5 years prior to TFA/TLJ, Kylo seems close to the age he is in TFA in the flashback.

 

The TROS visual dictionary has a very clear and explicit timeline and additional information that bridge together the information provided by the movies along with the hints that were revealed in books. But I understand that you're curious about what the movies alone tell us. I can tell you that the visual dictionary does not contradict anything hinted at by the movies or the books. It all does work together, but the movies and the filmmakers, I believe, have a more streamlined and less complicated view of what happened. That means they took more freedoms toward the end, and so the the expanded materials will likely need to go through some gymnastics to make it all work out.

But here's my view of the movie-only history of the First Order, based partially on how the filmmakers also described it, but mostly avoiding expanded material details:

The Battle of Endor ends with the death of the Sith, the destruction of the Death Star, and a crippling defeat for the Imperial fleet. This defeat results in the galaxy rising against the Empire and joining the Rebellion, which grows in power and becomes the New Republic. After a year of intense galactic warfare, the Empire is finally defeated at the apocalyptic Battle of Jakku.

The New Republic starts to slowly rebuild the galaxy, and a period of peace begins. Han and Leia marry, and their son, Ben, is born not long afterward. With the Force in balance and no new darkness threatening the galaxy, Luke Skywalker goes out in search of the lost history of the Jedi and the Force, with the intention of eventually starting a new generation of Jedi.

Meanwhile, the surviving Imperial fleet jumps into the Unknown Regions rather than face justice. This region of space is dangerous and nearly impossible to navigate, and the fleet is almost lost. The galaxy at large presumes them destroyed. But they encounter an older Imperial force who have access to secret bases and shipyards that the Empire had established years earlier. With their help and leadership, as well as with the help of a war profiteering elite in the main galaxy, the Imperial remnant begins to rebuild its forces. They conquer worlds out in the wilds and harvest them for resources and recruits. The First Order is born.

But the heart of the First Order was that older Imperial force that saved the fleet. Their origin is not revealed to the First Order, but we know that these are the servants of the Sith, whose forces survived the fall of the Empire by escaping to the secret Sith capital of Exegol. There, Emperor Palpatine is resurrected through dark science and unnatural Sith magic. He begins to plot the resurgence of a new Sith Empire through the creation of the First Order and the Final Order. The Sith had returned, but were too weak to face their enemies openly. Their eventual return would need to be shrouded in secret so they could avoid being destroyed by the last Jedi and the New Republic. So the Emperor ruled and led his vanguard, the First Order, through his pawn, a servant created through the dark side, Snoke.

Over the next few decades, Palpatine and Snoke haunt the young Ben Solo from the shadows, knowing he would one day be a force as powerful as his grandfather, and slowly work to ensure his fall to the dark side. Ben Solo's growing darkness led Leia to reach out to Luke, who decides to start training his nephew to help curb that darkness, and so he begins to also train a new generation of Jedi. But things do not get better for Ben, and as he grows stronger, the fears instilled by Ben's demonic oppressors eventually lead to a confrontation between him and Luke.

I believe that confrontation marks the return of an imbalance in the Force. All is confusion, clouded by the Sith. Ben thinks he killed his master, and is confronted by the other Jedi students. This results in the death of some of the Jedi, the destruction of the temple, and the fall of Ben Solo. Ben flees and eventually joins up with the marauding Knights of Ren, becoming Kylo Ren. The fate of the other Jedi is unknown, but Luke Skywalker survives, and, knowing that he failed his family and the Force, he goes into exile. He believes that trying to bring back the Jedi was a mistake and that he may have made matters worse by helping Ben in his journey to power.

As Kylo Ren, Ben eventually meets up with the voice who had haunted him and promised him power over the years, in the person of Supreme Leader Snoke. He is revealed as the ruler of a growing force, with enough might to conquer the galaxy and bring Ben the glory that only his grandfather had achieved. He embraces his darkness and the promise of power inherent in his bloodline. Kylo Ren serves the First Order by leading its soldiers to conquest in the outer reaches of the galaxy, helping them amass greater power and serving as a leader as they begin to set their sights on the galaxy at large. This is about half a decade before the events of The Force Awakens.

With Luke out of the picture, the Sith's plan proceeds as foreseen, and their vanguard, the First Order, begins its gradual march on the galaxy. They are not seen as a threat at first by the New Republic, because they are still hiding their full force. Leia sees them as a threat though, and becomes a political pariah in her attempt to rouse the New Republic to action. But she begins the secretly funded Resistance in an attempt to nip the problem in the bud, as she sees it. And so the years prior to TFA are marked by minor skirmishes between the Resistance and the growing First Order, with the full threat that they represent hidden from most of the galaxy, and even from themselves.
​

Sorry for the long post. Like I said, I tried to avoid information disclosed by books. Most of this is from the movies alone, but some of it is also informed by the intentions the filmmakers revealed in interviews, or from the context of later and previous films.

 

Great stuff Sauron_18, and probably the only thing that could be off to me is that I think Kylo took a bit longer to get integrated into the First Order. He is still treated as an interloper by Hux in The Force Awakens, tolerated solely because Supreme Leader Snoke requires the brass to put up with him.

It's a digression maybe but I find it interesting how Kylo Ren's personal decisions often end up compromising First Order plans and priorities--a parallel to what happened with his role model Darth Vader. I always thought on some level a part of him admired Vader's defeat of the Emperor even though it involved a face turn to the light side. That is part of why I think the light tempts him in his darkened perceptions and viewpoint--part of him wants to overthrow Snoke and the first order because that would be grand and important, and make him just as heroic as his grandfather. But when the moment comes he is still too enamored of power and the opportunity to rule that he can't let go of this and fully turn back. He also still wants to control Rey and control their relationship. That's why he can't go the distance at this point, and her refusal to give in to him sets him off and makes him worse. But this is temporary, because I think finding the phantom dice (evidence that Luke had spoken to his mother, and a memory of his father) inspired regret. So he reached out to Rey who obviously gave him the cold shoulder as was only right. So now he was completely and totally alone. We can see here too in that moment that Hux is no true ally. Hux is ready to undermine him when the moment comes.

Since I'm on the topic, I wanted to note that the three moments of force bridging in TROS happen when one or the other in the dyad is in Kylo's meditation room in the presence of Vader's helmet. It appears that Ren is able to re-open the bridge just a little by using it as a talisman early on in the film. But when he does so he is also haunted by a memory of Han Solo. It's all interesting stuff and fun to take apart and examine.

Thanks again for your full and thoughtful response.

 

Well since we're going by movies only, Poe states that Chewbacca is 250 years old in TROS. If you take this line at face value and not Poe simply rounding up Chewie's age then that means that there is a 40-45 year timeskip between the OT and ST (if you go only by the movies and ignore the books). That means that it might've taken the FO four decades to rise to power. That's my movie only head canon atleast.

 

Poe's being imprecise. I mean, I never assumed Chewbacca was *exactly* 200 years old at the time of the original film.

 

I like the ST, but I’m dissatisfied wirh not knowing about the rise of the FO
and Snoke. But then we had to wait for the PT to learn about Palpatine and the Empire.

 

The problem is that there is no more room for saga films in between six and seven. So they were burdened with telling a story where the downfall takes place between episodes. I don't think that ruins the ST but it does weaken it as a saga element and it makes the joining of the final trilogy to the first two a little ungainly. Flashbacks and dialogue had to do the heavy lifting. Granted the challenge inherent to that, I think they did OK. Within the problem they had to create some mystery about Kylo Ren and Snoke while having the characters (sort of) know what they were up against. I think it's a bit awkward when people accurately point out that the Emperor was still very mysterious at the end of Episode Six, as a parallel, because at least then we knew episodes I-III would potentially remove the mystery. Here it has to be constructed from fan imagination or filled in by sources outside the saga that to my mind are doomed to be inferior. The strength of the saga should be within the films, so this is part of the weakness built into the final trilogy. Again though, granted this weakness I think they did OK.

 

Interesting question and good answers. I wonder if the Final Order predates the First Order or vice versa.