Chapter 7: First Order Operations in the Known Galaxy
Though the First Order’s primary strength lies hidden in the Unknown Regions, it maintains an extensive network of operations throughout the known galaxy. These activities are carefully designed to advance First Order interests while avoiding detection by the New Republic, which remains willfully ignorant of the threat growing beyond its borders.
Intelligence gathering is among the most important of these operations. First Order agents have infiltrated governments, corporations, and military organizations across the galaxy, from the corridors of the Senate on Hosnian Prime to backwater outposts in the Outer Rim. These agents report on Republic military deployments, political developments, economic trends, and any other information that might prove useful to First Order planners. Some operate under deep cover, living ordinary lives while transmitting encrypted reports to their handlers. Others move through the criminal underworld, where questions are rarely asked and loyalties are easily bought.
Recruitment is another critical function. The First Order is always seeking new personnel—officers, technicians, pilots, and ordinary soldiers who are dissatisfied with the Republic or nostalgic for Imperial rule. Recruiters identify promising candidates through subtle means, testing their ideological sympathies before making any direct approach. Those who prove receptive are offered passage to the Unknown Regions, where they join the growing ranks of the First Order military. Those who refuse, or who seem likely to report the contact to authorities, are dealt with quietly.
Piracy and raiding operations serve multiple purposes. They acquire resources that the First Order needs but cannot easily produce—rare materials, advanced technology, slaves for labor battalions. They also destabilize regions of the galaxy, making the Republic appear weak and ineffective while fostering resentment among populations that feel abandoned by their government. Many pirates operating in the Outer Rim are actually First Order auxiliaries, their activities coordinated by handlers who ensure their raids serve strategic objectives.
Assassination and sabotage round out the First Order’s portfolio of covert operations. Individuals who pose a threat to First Order interests—journalists investigating rumors from the Unknown Regions, military officers who take those rumors seriously, politicians who advocate for stronger border defenses—sometimes meet unfortunate ends. Equipment malfunctions. Ships disappear in hyperspace. Convenient accidents claim lives. None of these incidents are ever traced to the First Order, but their cumulative effect is to remove obstacles and silence voices that might otherwise have rallied opposition to the threat that is coming.