XR-8548

I. BEGINNINGS
XR-8548 was a standard infantryman in the First Order Stormtrooper corps. A very promising candidate from a young age due to his far-above-average physical strength and endurance, he managed to pass through training easily on physical merit alone. He was not inclined towards thinking critically during combat, but his sheer power seemed to make up for his strategic shortcomings, at least in simulation scenarios.

He would have managed to make it pretty far in his career as a stormtrooper if not for one aspect of his personality that he could not seem to shake; XR was a gentle, empathetic man at heart, and despite his best attempts to repress his concern for others, it constantly ate at his subconscious. For a while he considered specializing as a field medic, but when he realized he was not bright enough to request further medical training than what was standard, the young XR was resigned to his future as an infantryman, feeling that if all he did was follow orders, he would be okay.

II. THE BREAKDOWN
This repression eventually caught up to him. Alone in a barracks hall, he was overcome with a wave of panic and hopelessness. He felt that no matter what he did, his actions served entirely to proliferate suffering, not to "establish peace". There was no escape from the First Order --- there was no reason to escape from the First Order, he was told --- and he wanted to do something, anything to at the very least slightly damage the organization before his assumed inevitable death out on a battlefield.

He found his break when he was approached by a lieutenant who had seen his emotional breakdown while passing. The lieutenant was planning on going off-base in order to sell vital First Order information to Resistance informants. XR took a small communications device from the lieutenant and was told to alert him of any seek-and-destroy missions sent out to hunt him down. With that, the lieutenant slipped away into the night, presumed dead for weeks until intel caught up.

III. PLANS MADE
XR felt that the best way to keep the lieutenant informed was to volunteer for the now-scheduled manhunt as a backup trooper to Sergeant Ashwill and AN-6311, the two specialists already assigned. Falsely assuming that XR was incapable of doing anything out of line, his superiors agreed to let him join in, marking his first actual combat mission.

Unfortunately, XR was not as mentally prepared as he thought he was, initially rattled by the presence of a ED-1059, a stormtrooper he had known since childhood, and further unsettled when he learned that one of the specialists was a member of the elite Judicial Corps -- a glorified executioner.

IV. SET IN MOTION
The four-trooper strike team was then shuttled off to the desolate ice planet where the rogue lieutenant had been hiding. Under the guise of speaking to and comforting the equally-stressed ED, XR used his small communications device to relay messages to the lieutenant, telling him to prepare for landing and giving him estimates on arrival times. XR's communications got through, with the lieutenant fleeing to an auxiliary post right before the ship landed on the frozen world.

The strike team soon left the ship, with XR and ED heading out first to scout the area. XR told ED to branch off from him under the guise of "maximizing search ability," but in reality he wanted to be alone while checking to see if the lieutenant had gone. Just as planned, the lieutenant had hidden elsewhere, though he was unable to leave the planet due to First Order watch ships surrounding the airspace.

While XR was gone, AN told Ashwill that he had concerns about XR's behavior, and that it would be best to detain him for the remainder of the mission. Ashwill agreed, allowing AN to confront XR and place him under cautionary arrest.

V. INEVITABILITY
XR, without thinking, drew his weapon on AN, and before realizing what he had done, AN had aggressively attacked him with an electrified weapon in order to incapacitate him.

XR was then officially under arrest for attempted treason. AN had a feeling that XR knew things that were not known to the others, so he and Cyrus dragged him back into the ship for interrogation.

AN offered XR a deal: reveal any information he had and die quickly and painlessly, or say nothing and face whatever punishment would come back on base. When XR asked what would happen if he refused to give the correct intel, AN mentioned that any inaccurate information would result in the punishment of ED. In that moment, XR's lofty ideals washed away, preferring now to prevent any suffering to one o the people he knew than continue on with the fight. He revealed the location of the hidden bunker, and died with a single blaster shot to his head.