General Hux

"Today is the end of the Republic! The end of a regime that acquiesces to disorder! At this very moment in a system far from here, the New Republic lies to the galaxy while secretly supporting the treachery of the loathsome Resistance! This fierce machine which you have built, upon which we stand will bring an end to the Senate, to their cherished fleet! ALL REMAINING SYSTEMS WILL BOW TO THE FIRST ORDER!!! AND WILL REMEMBER THIS AS THE LAST DAY OF THE REPUBLIC!!!"

- General Hux's speech to the assembled First Order.

General Armitage Hux is the secondary antagonist in the 7th installment of the Star Wars franchise, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, behind Kylo Ren and Supreme Leader Snoke, and will be either the main or secondary antagonist of it's upcoming 2017 sequel. He is a high-ranking member of the First Order, acting as a military leader in the organisation and the top commander of the Starkiller Base before its destruction. He is bent on having the First Order conquer the galaxy.

He was portrayed by the Irish actor, Domhnall Gleeson, who also portrayed Clan Techie in Dredd.

Past
Born in the dying days of the Galactic Empire, through military prowess General Armitage Hux managed to become a high-ranking figure in the First Order. General Hux is the military commander of Starkiller Base, and is thus essentially responsible for both maintaining the superweapon as well as the various stormtroopers (which have been conditioned from birth to follow orders as opposed to being cloned) in its control. Captain Phasma answers directly to him and Kylo Ren. One of the highest-ranking members of the First Order, Hux is directly next to Supreme Leader Snoke's apprentice Kylo Ren in rank and takes orders directly from the Supreme Leader.

An unfeeling sociopath who believes in absolute power, Hux is eerily reminiscent of the Galactic Empire's former Grand Moff Tarkin. Hux makes it his duty to utterly crush the New Republic using the power of Starkiller Base, a planet-sized superweapon capable of harvesting energy from the sun to fire a weapon capable of destroying entire star systems, something Hux willingly proves he is willing to do upon firing on the Hosnian system.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Hux is a prominent antagonist in the film, who, despite his mutually-powerful ranking, often argues with Kylo Ren and takes orders directly from Supreme Leader Snoke.

After Kylo Ren interrogates Poe Dameron and finds out that the map leading to Luke Skywalker is with the droid BB-8 on Jakku, he tells Hux and leaves it to the general to send troops to Jakku and retrieve the droid. When Dameron escapes from the First Order with help from the deserting stormtrooper Finn, Hux is alerted. After Ren has arrived on the Star Destroyer's bridge, Hux briefs him on the situation, also telling him that Dameron had help from the inside. Ren immediately knows Finn to be the culprit and tells Hux so. Hux later calls Phasma, the captain of Finn's unit, to him to be informed about the deserter.

After Hux has sent his troops to Jakku, Ren asks him whether he is confident in the capability of his soliders. Hux replies that he won't have his methods questioned by Ren. Ren implies that he is not as confident as Hux, stating that a clone army would be more efficient than Hux' soldiers, who are indoctrinated to the Order at birth. Hux then coldly warns Ren to not let his personal interests interfere with Orders from the Supreme Leader.

After Finn, now accompanied by Rey, has escaped Jakku with BB-8, the First Order is informed. Hux and Ren are called before the Supreme Leader, where Hux claims full responsibility for the failure. He tells Snoke that he thinks it would be time to destroy the Republic, because its government is supporting the Resistance. As the Republic's destruction would make the Resistance vulnerable, Snoke tells Hux to oversee the preparations. He then dismisses Hux and after victoriously glancing at Ren, Hux leaves the room.

Hux's defining moment in the film is when he makes a rallying speech to the stormtroopers about the capability of Starkiller Base and the destruction it will bring to the Republic. As ordered by Snoke, Hux commands Starkiller Base to fire a beam directly into the Hosnian system, causing it to split and obliterate several planets within the system, including that housing the New Republic's capital.

After Ren captured Rey but failed to extract information from her, Ren and Hux are again called before Snoke. When Snoke asks whether BB-8 has already been obtained. Hux responds that Ren deemed the droid irrelevant after he captured Rey and stopped the search for it. Knowing that the droid would soon fall into the Resistance's hands, which would ultimately lead to a new generation of Jedi, Snoke tells Hux to prepare for Starkiller Base to destroy the the planet D'Qar, where the main base of the Resistance is located. However, the shield generators of Starkiller Base are deactivated by Finn, Han Solo and Chewbacca and the resistance destroys Starkiller Base. Hux scrambles to escape the exploding planet, and before its ultimate destruction, Hux is ordered by Snoke to evacuate the Base as well as to bring Kylo Ren to him to complete his training.

Trivia

 * As noted above, Hux's character seems to directly reference Grand Moff Tarkin's; the scene in which he has Starkiller Base destroy the Hosnian system is similar to the scene where Tarkin has the Death Star destroy Alderaan. However, Tarkin had just destroyed one planet while Hux destroyed a system containing several planets, making Hux's crime even far more horrendous than Tarkin's.
 * Hux's speech to the Stormtroopers is an analogy of Nazi Germany. This is most significant where the Stormtroopers all raise their arm up in the air with a fist to him, which is a reference to the Nazi salute.
 * Hux is described in production to be a character more overtly evil than Kylo Ren. In several respects, this is true; Kylo Ren is shown to be chaotic, delusional, secretly afraid, and having been conditioned to the dark side by his master Snoke. Hux, by contrast, lacks empathy to the extent where he is perfectly willing to kill hundreds of billions of innocent lives to assert the First Order's power. Character-wise, Hux and Ren are polar opposites; while Kylo Ren is conflicted, prone to chaos, sympathetic, and operates on a more personal scale, Hux is more precise, collected, and certain of himself, completely devoid of Kylo Ren's sympathy, and operates on a scale even beyond that of Tarkin's.