The Importance Of Brendol Hux
Image Source: CultureSlate
The Force Awakens set up Armitage Hux as the Wilhuff Tarkin of the First Order, being an equal to Kylo Ren. However, Hux's role was diminished in The Last Jedi, and he was revealed to be a traitor and subsequently killed in The Rise of Skywalker. So, his end was as undignified as his childhood had been.
Armitage was the illegitimate son of Brendol Hux, who never even tried to hide his disgust for his "bastard kid" and abused the boy both physically and emotionally during his younger years.
Source: Marvel Comics
So far, Brendol Hux has only appeared once, as a hologram in a season three episode of The Mandalorian (played by Brian Gleeson, the real-life brother of Domhnall Gleeson, who portrayed Armitage in the Sequel Trilogy), but the character was featured in several books and comics of current Star Wars lore. He didn't live to see his son's rise to power in the First Order or the speech he gave on Starkiller Base shortly before the destruction of Hosnian Prime. But even though he never wielded the kind of power his son did, Brendol Hux was an important person both for the Empire and the First Order.
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A New Breed
“We can train stormtroopers from birth, as the clones and Jedi were. Over generations, through careful observation and selection, we will create an army that has all the clones’ strengths but none of their weaknesses. Stormtroopers utterly loyal to the Empire who see it as their family—because that is what it will be. I searched for officers who would understand what I proposed, and who could help me create these champions of our Empire. When I didn’t find those officers, I decided to follow my own advice—I would create them.“ –Servants of the Empire - The Secret Academy by Jason Fry
Source: starwars.com
During the Clone Wars, Hux served as a junior officer in the Grand Army of the Republic and while he believed Palpatine's lie that the Jedi were traitors who had tried to overthrow the Republic, he admired their way of taking in potential children at a very young age and training them to be loyal and faithful. At the same time, he was also fond of the Kaminoan cloning program, which created soldiers who were obedient and committed to the cause.
Serving the Empire, he realized that the regime's strategy of forcing civilians into military service only led to stormtroopers who were inferior to the former clones or the human soldiers who enlisted voluntarily during the first years of the Empire. When he became a trainer at the Imperial Academy on Arkanis, he decided that it was time to apply a new way:
Hux established the Commandant's Cadets, a secret and unofficial organization consisting of young, promising stormtroopers, who were especially loyal and ruthless. As Hux also strongly believed in the survival of the strongest, a potential new member of the Commandant's Cadets had to kill a fellow student who was regarded as being too weak.
Hux essentially operating outside the rules of the Empire led to some suspicion before the Battle of Yavin, but Gallius Rax, the de-facto leader of the remnants of the Empire after the destruction of the second Death Star still saw the potential of his training concept and decided to have him and Armitage rescued after the Rebel Alliance took over Arkanis.
Hux continued to train child soldiers, including Hux, as potential assassins for the Empire and fled with them into the Unknown Regions after the Battle of Jakku. Hux's dream of creating a new breed of soldiers, inculcated from a very young age, absolutely loyal and ruthless against those seen as weak, became finally true with the advent of the First Order Stormtroopers, although characters like Finn and Jannah showed that free will could still be stronger than indoctrination.
Bringing Back Palpatine
"Grand Admiral Thrawn's return will herald in the reemergence of our military, and provide Commandant Hux enough time to deliver on Project Necromancer." –The Mandalorian
Source: Inverse
By the time of 9 ABY, Hux was in charge of Project Necromancer after it had been moved from the Tantiss Base to the Unknown Regions. Although the exact goal and scope of the project are still not fully revealed, its main focus likely was to create a clone body that was able to contain the evil spirit of Darth Sidious, as part of the Emperor's Contingency Plan.
It is not known for how long Hux was part of Project Necromancer and he didn't live to see its completion (and ultimate failure), but it is plausible that he was at least somehow involved in the creation of Snoke, the puppet master of the First Order and a stand-in for Palpatine until the Sith could be resurrected. While Snoke killed many former Imperial leaders, he spared Hux and his son, possibly as a kind of thank-you for his part in Snoke's creation.
Making Phasma
"I am Phasma, and I am the greatest warrior of Parnassos. I will help you to find your ship." – Phasma Delilah S. Dawson
Source: starwars.com
While training stormtroopers for the First Order and rising to the rank of General, Hux appointed a promising stormtrooper named CD-0992, whom he gave the nickname "Cardinal" to run the stormtrooper training program, together with himself. As a sign of his superiority, he even allowed Cardinal to wear completely red armor instead of the typical white.
After crash-landing on the planet Parnassos, Hux got in contact with a female warrior called Phasma. She was stubborn and ruthless, and Hux saw the potential in the young woman and took her under his wings. Rising quickly through the ranks, Hux made her his bodyguard and put her in charge of the training program for teenagers and young adults, while Cardinal's responsibility was reduced to training young kids.
Phasma followed Hux's teachings of survival of the strongest but did not share his passion for loyalty as she conspired with Armitage and killed Brendol with a mysterious poison from her home planet.
Phasma was drastically underused in both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, and much of her story is told in Delilah S. Dawson's novel from 2018, she had the potential to be so much more than just a stormtrooper in chrome armor.
Although Brendol Hux's end was pitiful, with the poison dissolving his body and the First Order concealing his death by claiming that he went on a mission from which he didn't return, his beliefs and his work for the remnants of the Empire and later the First Order had an immense effect on the galaxy for years after his demise.
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Sources: Jason Fry: Servants of the Empire - The Secret Academy, Chuck Wendig: Aftermath - Empire’s End, Delilah S. Dawson: Phasma
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