Andermani Empire

The Anderman Empire is a fictional star nation in the Honorverse.

Overview
The Empire is a technologically advanced medium power. Its population is predominantly ethnic Chinese with German culture and German as the official language. The Empire's homeworld is New Potsdam.

A popular nickname for a native of the Andermani Empire is "Andy" (plural "Andies").

History
Potsdam was originally a world settled by ethnic Chinese colonists known as Kuan Yin, after the Chinese goddess of mercy. The name was bitterly ironic, as the colony was doomed by an indigenous bacteria that devoured voraciously every lifeform that had Terran chlorophyll. Entire crops were ruined, and the colony was teetering at the edge of extinction when a mercenary by the name of Gustav Anderman seized the planet, around the year 1600 post-Diaspora.

An efficient administrator, Anderman and his men quickly put themselves to solve Kuan Yin's plight. He brought microbiologists and genetic engineers to the planet, and these scientists succeeded in developing strains of Terran vegetation immune to local bacteria, and twenty Terran years after Anderman's invasion, the planet was capable of feeding itself. The locals were so grateful to Anderman that had no trouble whatsoever in accepting him as Emperor Gustav I of the Anderman Empire, and embraced German culture and language as if it was their own, even changing Kuan Yin's name to Potsdam.

By the time of Anderman's death, his Empire ruled over six solar systems and continued to expand throughout the following centuries. Gustav Anderman's descendants, the Anderman Dynasty, have ruled over the Empire ever since, and proved to be extremely capable, despite a tendency for eccentricity among some emperors. For example Gustav Anderman himself, who believed himself to be the reincarnation of Frederick the Great, even running around in period costumes of Frederick's time. Or Gustav VI, who tried to appoint his prized rose bush as Chancellor of the Empire (an action which caused his own removal from the throne, without much complaint). Or Gustav VI's older sister, who took over the throne from the competing hands of Gustav's cousins by using a legal fiction that allowed her to proclaim herself a man, bypassing the Imperial Charter's mandated male heir-only line of succession (it certainly helped "Gustav VII" that "he" had previously taken control of the Imperial Navy's Home Fleet). Gustav VII is considered the best ruler the Empire ever had.

Government and Politics
The Andermani Empire is a constitutional monarchy headed by an Emperor. A document known as the Imperial Charter serves as the Empire's constitution; among other things, the Charter regulates the succession to the Imperial Throne. Ever since the foundation of the Empire, the Imperial throne has been in the hands of the House of Anderman.

The Emperor personally wields an important amount of power, and the Andermani distrust for republican forms is widely known. Despite this, the Emperor does not have absolute power, and the existence of the office of Chancellor has been mentioned; the Chancellor of the Andermani Empire may be analogous to, for example, the Prime Minister of the Star Kingdom of Manticore, however, unlike its Manticoran counterpart, the appointment of a Chancellor is exclusively up to the Emperor.

There has also been mention of an "Imperial Council". The powers and attributions of this Council are still unknown, but it has been mentioned that the Council played an important role during the succession crisis following the overthrow of Emperor Gustav VI.

The current leader of the Andermani Empire is Emperor Gustav XI. Some members of the Andermani Imperial family mentioned so far in the novels are Crown Prince Huang Anderman and Grand Admiral Chien-lu Anderman, who holds the nobiliary title of Herzog von Rabenstrange (for the record, Herzog is german for Duke).

Military
The Empire's space force is the Imperial Andermani Navy. The Navy is the Empire's primary means of power projection, as well as being responsible for "peacekeeping" operations which usually result in the annexation of new systems to the Empire. The Navy also maintains Imperial presence in regions of space which the Empire considers to be its area of influence.

The Empire's ground force is the Imperial Andermani Army. In addition to its role of ground combat and defense, the Army also provides ground troops for service onboard the ships of the Imperial Navy, as the Andermani Empire has no separate Marine Corps. (This, however, is at odds with a reference in War of Honor to a long-serving Lieutenant Colonel of the Andermani Marines; it could nevertheless refer to the shipboard troops of the Army). A famous unit of the Imperial Army is the Totenkopf Hussars Regiment, which serves as the Emperor's personal guard; some members of the Imperial family which serve in the military (such as Grand Admiral Rabenstrange) can, with the Emperor's permission, be assigned troops of the Totenkopf Hussars.

Foreign Affairs
The Andermani Empire is an expansionist power, but its rulers have been wise enough to grant a considerable degree of autonomy to their conquered subjects, thus preventing uprisings and rebellions. Perhaps due to Gustav Anderman's mercenary profession, the Empire he founded has a tradition of intervening in other nations' affairs only when there was something in it for them. The guiding principle of Andermani diplomacy and foreign relations is Realpolitik. The Empire's primary expansionist interest has long been the chaos-ridden Silesian Confederacy.

The Empire has long been distrustful of Haven, both due to its republican form of government (which the Empire views as inherently unstable) and to its expansionist drive, as the Empire feared that, after dealing with Manticore, both Silesia and the Empire would be the future targets of the People's Republic. Even though relations between the Empire and the resurrected Republic of Haven have been uneventful, the Empire has joined Manticore in its renewed war with Haven.

Manticore and the Empire are trading partners and are usually in good terms with each other. Silesia, however, has been a major bone of contention between both nations, which almost led to a war once. There are also factions in the Imperial government and the Imperial Navy which favor an anti-Manticore foreign policy. The nation of Silesia was partitioned between the Andermani and the Manticorans, a necessary move to secure the Empire's participation in the new war with Haven.