FLAG CHALLENGE #122: Beyond Earth
Humanity has finally managed to transcend the proverbial cradle of our genesis, and escaped to the stars. We thought we would leave earthly conflicts behind in this new world. But the long distance, and lack of Faster-than-Light travel led to the colonies having essential independence. The colonists sought to create flags of their new colonies. Your challenge is to design one of these flags
Submissions Open: Now
Submissions Close: 21:00 GMT 11th January
Voting Opens: 11th January
Voting Closes: 12th January
Humanity has finally managed to transcend the proverbial cradle of our genesis, and escaped to the stars. We thought we would leave earthly conflicts behind in this new world. But the long distance, and lack of Faster-than-Light travel led to the colonies having essential independence. The colonists sought to create flags of their new colonies. Your challenge is to design one of these flags
Submissions Open: Now
Submissions Close: 21:00 GMT 11th January
Voting Opens: 11th January
Voting Closes: 12th January
ENTRY ONE said:In response to the latest challenge (https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=10168412&postcount=356), I give you the flag of Durra.
HD 40307 g I, locally known as Durra (“pearl”, in Kurdish) or in deprecating slang by its English-speaking inhabitants as Dirt and by the Surinamese Dutch-speakers as Drek, is the sole satellite of the water-planet HD 40307 g, locally known as Demari (“stepmother”, in Kurdish), orbiting the star HD 40307, which has no familiar name other than the “Sun” in the local languages of Kurdish, English and Surinamese Dutch, had no flag for the first seventeen years after the arrival of the hibernation ark Simir in orbit around Durra.
Serious work on a flag design began approximately five years after arrival. Given that Durra has no no native life larger than the microbial other than stromatolitic pseudo-lichens and mats of pseudo-algae, a representation of native life was not considered. After much discussion, and the rejection of numerous flags based upon or derived from one or more flags and symbols associated with the origins of the colonists in Kurdistan, Australia and Surinam, and the logo of the Simir (which is, however, used in modified form as the flag of the only urban area of note on the planet, the capital district of Simirbajar), the Durran Assembly agreed upon a flag bearing a representation of Durra in relation to Demari and the Sun.
A portion of the Sun is visible at the hoist in yellow, while a quadrant of Demari lies in the lower corner of the fly in blue. Durra itself appears as a disk in the center of the flag, with the hypersaline Polar Sea showing in blue at the top of the disk, below it the narrow habitable band (the width of which is rather exaggerated in the flag) in green, and the Wereldwoestenij or “Worldwaste” desert in tan occupying the remainder.
ENTRY TWO said:A bit bland but heyho
Nyhavn aka NewHaven
Nyhavn is the Planet and Settlement of ColonyArkShip3.
It is primarily formed of people of Scandinavian descent though Irish, Baltic, and Japanese minorities exist.
Politically it can be said to be a parliamentary republic though quirks of development the Head of State Archon occasionally acts presidentially
ENTRY THREE said:
Flag of Turquoise / Flag of the Snowflake Council
The waterry, almost completely oceanic world of Turquoise was settled some two centuries ago by the crew of a lighthugger seeking to establish a new human colony in the interstellar vicinity of old established worlds, such as Zion, Fand, and of course, Yellowstone. The coalition of settlers was mostly of Inuit and Thai ethnic stock. This has remained reflected in the planet's phenotypes, society, culture and linguistics. Though seasteading on Turquoise proved challenging, the colonists flew here with the intent to stay. After ferrying supplies and materials from orbit via shuttles, they landed and gradually dismantled the lighthugger that had brought them here. The first few bases, towns and cities slowly rose above the greenish waves of the planet's near-endless seas. To this day, Turquoise is a somewhat remotely located interstellar colony, and the locals mostly keep to themselves. They are not xenophobes or complete isolationists, though - they maintain contact with passing lighthuggers and occassionally allow one or two to stop over and offer exchange of goods, technologies and the latest news in this human-settled corner of the Galaxy. However, to date, such stopovers of ultranauts can still be counted on the fingers of a single hand. The (for good and bad) most memorable and major visit occured some one hundred years ago, with the arrival of the lighthugger Pelican in Impiety into Low Turquoise Orbit.
One of Turquoise's oldest cities, Umingmaktok, is the de facto capital of the sparsely populated planet. It houses the seat of the central government, the Snowflake Council (currently under the leadership of chairman Tak Thonburi and Dr. Jotah Sivaraksa). Though the flag of the Snowflake Council and its obvious colour choices have been a symbol of the government since the first two decades of settlement, Turquoise as a colony lacked its own flag for several decades. Eventually, it was decided later in the first century after landfall that the Council's flag would simply double as the flag of the colony as a whole, due to its already established iconicity. When the crew of the Pelican dropped by for a visit roughly a century ago, they were already greeted by the fluttering of the snowflake-adorned turquoise-blue flags in the planet's light, sea-scented breeze.
