Foundations
Zaenderism did not begin as Zaenderism. It began as Richterism, created in October 2018 by Aleczaender as a reaction to disloyalty and disobedience inside the groups he had built or served in as an officer: arguments in raids from men who wanted credit, defeatists and shitposters who put themselves before the cause, and men who called themselves loyal in public and doubted the group behind closed doors. Richterism, in his own words, was not love. It was a tool to bring wealth and a weapon to destroy the enemy.
Richterism worked while he led it and broke the moment he stepped away. Its definition was too simple, obey the leader, so within a year of his retirement others were reshaping it in their own image. One variant, Illiumism under Arxilium, went as far as to claim Arxilium as founder. That is the lesson the creed draws: an idea that can be bent by whoever holds power will be bent, and the eight-year legacy it carried was changed within months.
Out of that collapse and the three-year Octavian Civil War that followed came Aleczaenderism, the term coined by ErickRichterian and shortened by Aleczaender himself to Zaenderism: a Richterism that follows only his ways and his rules. The creed's founding thought is unity behind one man. If all people walk as one person they are stronger; if they all pull in one direction the rock moves; and the fearless leader who makes that unity real is Aleczaender.
Zaenderism therefore centres itself purely on Aleczaender as the individual, not on any dynasty or group. There are no variants, no schisms, no alternatives. A man who is not in commitment to the Zaenderist Thought has betrayed the foundation and is to be ousted. Its politics are radical, not centrist: revolutionary reactionaries, autocratic populists, statist capitalists. Its answer to what it has survived is the creed's own two words: GOD DID.
The Richterists were betrayed before Octavium existed, and the creed remembers each time. In the spring of 2020 the Imperial Japan project was seized from Aleczaender by his own Grand Marshal, ShunrokuTaishiro; the Richterists left, built the Revolutionary Korean Superstate, and OswaldChauvelen, the new Grand Marshal, beat Shunroku in the field while Imperial Japan collapsed. They were expelled from the Confederation of the Rhine by HorstKerovech and the Kerovech dynasty for growing too strong; Octavia, founded in 2021, outgrew the Kerovechs, whose legacy lies buried. The Struggle's lesson: every betrayal has ended with the betrayer gone and the Richterists larger than before.
The Imperium of Octavium is the state that this creed serves. Its Imperial Period ran from 28 April to 6 July 2025 under Oszaender as functional second in command, when Octavium grew by more than 2,800 men and peaked at some two hundred at events on Madrid. It was seized from Aleczaender in the coup the house calls the July 6 Trial: a tribunal of five, Tony_ThePro, Howard_Rosenberg, Adam, Lordist and Paterick, under Leutgard and the Stalemated community, with Paterick a double agent planted by the Leader himself. The Zaenderists left Octavium in protest; Leutgard's Teutonnia waged its war of attrition, the Reactionary Period; and the Second Octavian Civil War, fought against the Teutonnian-Kalevos alignment and later against Leutgardism, ended with Aleczaender restored as Emperaetor. The motto since, WE WILL NEVER FORGET JULY 6, is a warning kept alive on purpose, and 6 July is kept as Liberation Day. The Struggle names the two ideologies: Revolutionary Aleczaenderism, loyalty to one man; and Oligarchial Leutgardism, loyalty to a state divided among cliques, which the Struggle calls the weaker for its lack of one purpose.
The Emperaetor of the Imperium and the Great Leader of Zaenderism are the same man, Aleczaender, whom the house also calls the Eternal Caudillo. Beneath him the Imperator, RaynardzHorrigan, commands the Imperium's forces. Keep the state and the creed separate in your head; every Octavian owes loyalty to both. The anthem is Forever Loyal We Shall Be. The Zaenderist Struggle, the short book every dedicated Zaenderist reads, was written by Oszaender in 2025 and teaches the Leader's own euphemism from the Richter Imperium: loyalty is a weapon.
The Imperium's ladder runs Provincial, Patrician, Octavian (full standing), Octavian Staff, Octavian Command, the elected Octavian Senator, Octavian Leadership, the Graend Council, and at the summit the Emperaetor. The state stands on three branches: the Army defends Octavium with the Armored, Gendarmeric, Shock, Teutonnian-Volunteers, Velites, Regulars and Marines Divisions; the Legion enforces the law with the Guard, Inquisition, Police, Vanguard, Order and Inspectorate Cohorts; the Regime administers, with the Ministries, Administrative, Judicial, External, Enterprise and Enlightenment. Every branch, division and cohort carries its own emblem, and a Zaenderist knows each of them on sight: the Imperium's, Zaenderism's own, the Army's, the Legion's, the Regime's, and every division's and cohort's. Study them in the Archive before you sit.
You will be asked, in this Academy and in the field, to state your allegiance clearly and without hesitation. The answer is not a slogan. It is the whole of Phase I in one sentence: loyalty to Aleczaender, the Great Leader, and to the Imperium of Octavium under him.
The spoken parts are marked on conviction as much as on content. To reach the highest grade you must speak as a true believer speaks: with full force and feeling, in character, the way a state broadcaster proclaims the creed to the nation, never flat and never mumbled. Recite, declare your loyalty, and give your opinion of the Leader as though the whole Imperium is listening. A correct answer said without conviction does not earn the top mark.
THE EMBLEMS, ON SIGHT
The examination shows an emblem and asks whose it is. Every one it can show is here, by branch: the state and the creed, the three branches, the Army's divisions and the Legion's cohorts. Learn them until you know each without reading its name.
The practice questions of this phase open when you stand in it. Nothing of a later phase's examination is shown before its time.