snoke was an artificial being created by darth sidious and his sith eternal cult on exegol prior to palpatine's rise as the emperor of the galactic empire. after palpatine's death and the fall of the empire, snoke emerged as an enigmatic figure who became the supreme leader of the first order and seduced kylo ren to the dark side, training him to become his apprentice. snoke first appeares in "" (2015), where he orders ren and the rest of the first order to find a map that will lead them to luke skywalker, the last remaining jedi; snoke had corrupted kylo into murdering luke's jedi order, causing luke to exile himself. snoke senses an "awakening" in the force, in the form of the scavenger rey, the secret granddaughter of palpatine, who forms a unique force dyad with ren. after ren is defeated by rey in a lightsaber duel and the resistance destroy starkiller base, snoke orders general hux to bring ren to him, to complete his training.