Stormtrooper

Stormtroopers, also referred to as First Order stormtroopers, or bucketheads, were elite infantry units in the military forces of the First Order. Serving as an elite branch with close ties to the First Order army, the new stormtrooper generation was composed of human conscripts taken from their families at birth, trained since childhood, and identified by serial numbers instead of personal names. This form of training, combined with years of Imperial-inspired propaganda, worked to produce an army of super-soldiers personally loyal to the First Order and its ruler, Supreme Leader Snoke. Like their predecessors, the original stormtroopers of the Galactic Empire, First Order troopers were equipped with stark white body armor; its design reminiscent of the Imperial style as well as the earlier version worn by clone troopers of the Galactic Republic. Additionally, the First Order provided its soldiers with two standard weapons: the F-11D blaster rifle, successor to the Imperial E-11 blaster rifle, and the SE-44C blaster pistol.

First Order stormtroopers were the culmination of General Brendol Hux's vision of the perfect soldier. Hux, a former Republic officer who joined the Imperial ranks after the Clone Wars, admired the combat prowess displayed by the clones that composed the Grand Army of the Republic, as well as the Knights of the Jedi Order. As a commandant in the Imperial Academy, Hux was unimpressed by the Empire's Stormtrooper Corps—its members, according to Hux, lacked the skill and discipline of their clone predecessors. He therefore concluded that stormtroopers should be trained from birth, following in the example set by clones and Jedi alike. After the Empire's defeat in the Galactic Civil War, the First Order adopted Hux's methods to create an invasion army, its purpose to conquer the galaxy.

After Brendol Hux's death, the stormtrooper training program was overseen by his son, General Armitage Hux, and Captain Phasma—both of whom served in the First Order's commanding triumvirate with Kylo Ren, the dark apprentice of Supreme Leader Snoke. By promoting ruthlessness and improvisation on the battlefield, Phasma endeavored to turn her trainees into the finest soldiers in galactic history. As a result of her methods, First Order stormtroopers were considered more dangerous than their Imperial precursors.