Weekly Flag Challenge: Discussion & Entries

Flag Challenge #170: Land of the Free
Create a flag for your own made up utopian country. This could be a country full of lush forests, a nation built around the arts, or maybe a tropical paradise country, etc. Anything goes!
Some rules to point out, however: Nothing too ASB-ish and nothing too much like any OTL flag if possible. Apart from that, the flag's symbolism, colours, proportions, etc. are entirely up to you!

Submissions Open: Now
Submissions Close: 6 August 2017
Voting Period: 6 August - 10 August 2017
Edit: Extended by 7 days.
 
Unclear if this one fits the bill tbh but could not think of anything else!

The Kingdom of Eternal Harmony


In his youth our Great Ever King discovered the Pendulum of Time; that history was forever switching between Eras of the Mickle Folk, through to Man, through to the Small Folk. Each Race being able to view a facet of the Cosmic Harmony - the Mickle see the Harmony of Stone and are great builders and metalsmiths, the Small Folk see the Harmony of Life and work fabulous gardens and menageries, Men see Harmony of the Void and can build such engines of destruction and war - and only hybrids sharing the Sight of each Race they belong, hybrids becoming great mages.
Being a hybrid of all 3 Races our Great Ever King saw the full Harmony and was discontent with the Pendulum, he sought to bring the Harmony to All. But his fellow Mages stood against him preferring to maintain their rule over those they saw as lesser and he was cast out from their company.
Our Great Ever King was able to set up our Home, the Kingdom of Eternal Harmony, as a beacon to all who sought True and Full Harmony. Many are those who come to Him and those worthy are granted Jewels of the True Light enabling them to commune with each and our Great Ever King over any distance.
We stand together as a shield against the Tyrant Mages and their deceived masses under the Banner of the One True Light:

OneTrueLight.png
 
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Kalevala

I17hMzn.png


In TTL, the 19th century Finnish national movement and the Great Migration of Finns into Northern America converged in an unexpected way into an utopist movement based on the national epic of Finland, the Kalevala. The movement was opposed to industrialization and to the domination of Swedish and Russian interests in the Grand Duchy of Finland, with emigration seen as a solution to both problems. Blessed with a competent and business-savvy leadership, the movement struck a deal with the Colony of British Columbia and established a settlement on Vancouver Island. In 1870-1900 almost 50 000 settlers joined the movement, until Vancouver Island was almost completely Finnish-speaking and entirely self-governed by the movement within the Colony of British Columbia.

In 1900, the russification policy of Finland became even harsher than in OTL. The assassination of the Russian governor-general turned into a popular uprising, which was crushed with terrifying ruthlessness by the Russian army. This more than tripled the emigration via the Kalevala movement, as the Finns sought an escape from imprisonment, torture and murder at the hands of the occupying military. The Russian authorities looked the other way, as from their perspective the movement helped to rid them of the worst troublemakers. In the decade of 1900-1910, over 300 000 Finns escaped to North America, and most of them headed to Vancouver Island.

The Kalevala movement itself was a weird mix of traditionalism and modernism. Based on the Kalevala, the movement declared that there are three honorable fields of work: forestry (metsämiehet), agriculture (maamiehet) and fishing (kalamiehet). However, the anti-industrialization stance of the movement had always been tempered by its business acumen, and soon enough sawmills, meat packing plants and shipyards arose in each of the fields. Still, the movement stuck to its strict egalitarianism and flat hierarchy, which was supported by its common culture and language and thus managed to create a strange but successful "movement-company-state".

Today, the OTL Vancouver Island is the Canadian province of Kalevala with nearly a million inhabitants. With over 80% of population Finnish-speaking, the sole official language of the province is Finnish (and Finnish is also a co-official language with English in the neighboring British Columbia, with over half a million Finnish speakers in the population on five million). The flag of Kalevala features the original symbol of the movement in the top left corner - a red shield with a golden threefold hannunvaakuna. The symbol was based on the gold and red of Finnish coat of arms, but replacing the royal symbolism with Finnish folk-symbolism, its threefold form symbolizing the three honorable fields of work. The red and white of the flag hold similar meaning, with the three red stripes echoing the threefold symbol on the shield.
 
New Eden Reserve
New Eden Reserve.png

The New Eden Reserve project is a utopian project founded on the belief that society had corrupted humanity and the only way to achieve utopia would be to cast off the shackles of civilization and return humanity to a more simply and natural existence. The projects goal was to purchase an large area of land and gate it off from all outside contact. Then about a hundred volunteers would be placed inside with only enough resources to get started. After three or four generations, the outside would would have permission to come to the reserve and see "perfect" existence of those inside setting the stage for the whole world to follow the projects example. The project's founders found serial wealthy anonymous patrons to fund their experiment, and a large fertile portion of land was purchased gated off. To ensure that there would be absolutely no outside interference it was agreed that the reserve would be given sovereignty over it self and treated as a microstate.

The flag created for the state was made to be symbolic of New Eden itself, the white field represents the innocence and purity of humanity, the blue wavy pall represents the rivers that surround New Eden, and the single pomme represents New Eden itself showing the location of the supposed Tree of Knowledge.
 
Congrats to Mirror for winning Flag Challenge 170! Looking forward to the next challenge!
Kalevala

I17hMzn.png


In TTL, the 19th century Finnish national movement and the Great Migration of Finns into Northern America converged in an unexpected way into an utopist movement based on the national epic of Finland, the Kalevala. The movement was opposed to industrialization and to the domination of Swedish and Russian interests in the Grand Duchy of Finland, with emigration seen as a solution to both problems. Blessed with a competent and business-savvy leadership, the movement struck a deal with the Colony of British Columbia and established a settlement on Vancouver Island. In 1870-1900 almost 50 000 settlers joined the movement, until Vancouver Island was almost completely Finnish-speaking and entirely self-governed by the movement within the Colony of British Columbia.

In 1900, the russification policy of Finland became even harsher than in OTL. The assassination of the Russian governor-general turned into a popular uprising, which was crushed with terrifying ruthlessness by the Russian army. This more than tripled the emigration via the Kalevala movement, as the Finns sought an escape from imprisonment, torture and murder at the hands of the occupying military. The Russian authorities looked the other way, as from their perspective the movement helped to rid them of the worst troublemakers. In the decade of 1900-1910, over 300 000 Finns escaped to North America, and most of them headed to Vancouver Island.

The Kalevala movement itself was a weird mix of traditionalism and modernism. Based on the Kalevala, the movement declared that there are three honorable fields of work: forestry (metsämiehet), agriculture (maamiehet) and fishing (kalamiehet). However, the anti-industrialization stance of the movement had always been tempered by its business acumen, and soon enough sawmills, meat packing plants and shipyards arose in each of the fields. Still, the movement stuck to its strict egalitarianism and flat hierarchy, which was supported by its common culture and language and thus managed to create a strange but successful "movement-company-state".

Today, the OTL Vancouver Island is the Canadian province of Kalevala with nearly a million inhabitants. With over 80% of population Finnish-speaking, the sole official language of the province is Finnish (and Finnish is also a co-official language with English in the neighboring British Columbia, with over half a million Finnish speakers in the population on five million). The flag of Kalevala features the original symbol of the movement in the top left corner - a red shield with a golden threefold hannunvaakuna. The symbol was based on the gold and red of Finnish coat of arms, but replacing the royal symbolism with Finnish folk-symbolism, its threefold form symbolizing the three honorable fields of work. The red and white of the flag hold similar meaning, with the three red stripes echoing the threefold symbol on the shield.
 
Thank you, everyone :)

Crossposting the new challenge:

Flag Challenge #171: One Country principle

Create a flag for a small country that claims sovereignty over another, much larger country (at least ten times the size). The country should not be located in East Asia.

Submissions Open: Now
Submissions Close: 18th of August 2017
Voting Closes: 25th of August 2017
 
Everything updated to the current point. I might partake in this latest round, if I find a little time to figure out and prepare stuff.
 
WFC 171 Kingdom of Andorra (Aragon-in-Exile).png


Kingdom of Andorra (official name)
Kingdom of Aragon-in-Exile (unofficial name, internationally disputed)

----

Excerpts from an MSSE dossier [1], based on information collected by the MIEC [2] of the IDA [3]:

"The present day Kingdom of Andorra from TL-247 is a sovereign state and constitutional monarchy that lies in the central Pyrenes. Territorially and in terms of geographic location, it is largelly analogous to the "Andorra" polities seen in such timelines as TL-337, TL-118, TL-75 [4], TL-822 and TL-464. Unlike the vast majority of these examples, this Andorra is not only a monarchy, but styles itself officially as an outright kingdom. It is the smallest monarchy in TL-247's present day Europe to carry such a title. The origins of this are peculiar. From the information gathered to date, it seems the history of TL-247's Andorra diverged at some point in the late Middle Ages, possibly in the second half of the 14th or first half of the 15th century. Due to as of yet unspecified events, a power struggle of some sort errupted in the then Aragonese royal court. A group of heirs to the royal throne was ousted and forced to flee northward. Eventually, they sought shelter in the Andorran region. Realising they cannot reclaim the Aragonese throne anytime soon, they gradually consolidated their power over the local aristocracy. At some point in the second half of the 15th century or the turn of the 15th and 16th century, the exiled heirs founded a rival Aragonese dynasty in exile, ruling from Andorra, and proclaimed it a kingdom.

(...)

Based on the intel-gathering and secret surveys conducted by our research teams, it is clear that the present day Kingdom of Andorra finds itself in a controversial position within European and international politics. To date, the local ruling family refuses to admit the loss of the original Aragonese monarchy to a rival dynasty. It considers the current successor to medieval Aragon to be "merely a pretender" and "a complete fraud, with no leg to stand on politically". The small kingdom's national government and modern political establishment has been willingly and tacitly in long-term support of the ruling family's position. The Andorran public have continued to be supportive as well. Indeed, some have noted that a large part of modern Andorran political identity is built on perpetual irredentism towards the much larger, original Aragon. Despite this irredentism posing no immediate danger nowadays - the last attempts at military reconquest of "the stolen homeland" having occured in the early 17th century, ending in fiasco - the notion that Aragon Proper still awaits the return of its rightful rulers is alive and well. Nothing is as emblematic of the Andorran stubbornness towards letting go of the claim to Aragon, as the decades-long international dispute over Andorra's name. The Andorran royals insist that Andorra is, and always shall be, "The Kingdom of Aragon-in-Exile", and should keep using that term as its official name. The government of the current iteration of Aragon and most countries worldwide think otherwise, insisting on the kingdom using "The Kingdom of Andorra" as its official, de iure name. In recent decades, the Andorran government had caved into pressure by the international community, and accepted a compromise solution: The Kingdom of Andorra it is... but the royal family can keep insisting, in private, that what they rule is Aragon-in-Exile.

(...)

The pettiness of the international dispute over Andorra's name has become so legendary and visible in the contemporary global media of TL-247, that it has spawned several works of popular culture lampooning the phenomennon. One of the most famous, written in TL-247's mid-1970s by Catalan playwright Vicenç Espina, was the satirical play 'Aragorn: The Return of the King'. [5] In the play, a fictional, caricatured ruler from Andorra, obsessed with retaking Aragon - to the point of giving himself the childish, onomatopoeic name Aragorn - concocts a convoluted plan to blackmail the European and international community into acknowledging his claim to Aragon, and allowing its annexation to Ando... erm, that is, 'Aragon-in-Exile'. The play was successfully adapted into a film. Said film adaptation has been banned from projection in Andorra by its Ministry of Culture, which rated the story as 'irresponsibly inciting'."


Notes:
[1] - Multiverse Sociopolitical Survey Expedition
[2] - Multiverse Institute Exploration Corps
[3] - InterDimensional Alliance (a sort of multiversal UN/NATO)
[4] - OTL
[5] - The play is rather farcical, and somewhat similar to OTL's The Mouse that Roared.
 
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Tasmanian Socialist Republic (flag small).png


The Tasmanian Socialist Republic
The Tasmanian Socialist Republic is the last remnant of Communist Australia. After the Soviet conquest of the continent, a puppet state was created, and run similarly to the rest of the USSR. Between 1985 and 1996, the entire continent was ruled from Moscow.
In 1996, the NATO forces were able to retake the Australian mainland, but the fortifications on Tasmania enabled it to hold out.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 2002, Tasmania was one of the few communist nations left in the world. Since then, they have attempted to attack Australia twice and failed both times.

Even today, The Tasmanian Socialist Republic lays claim to all of the former territory of the USSR.
 
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The Blessed Kingdom
BlessedRealm1.png


Situated on the islands of Valetta and Gozo are the last remnants of the Blessed Realm, the residence of Alberto III King of Jerusalem, Sicily, the Arberine, Sardinia, and Carthaginia, Duke of Naxos, Grandmaster of the Knights of Solomon, Lord of the Tyrrhene, Defender of the Faith.
The Realm has its origins in the purchase of Sicily by Richard of Cornwall from Pope Innocent IV, securing it by feat of arms and marrying his son Henry to Isabella Conradina the Hohenstaufen Queen of Jerusalem (and claimant to Sicily).
Despite claims of an origin in St Piran's Flag, and vice versa, the flag appears to have its basis in the simplification of Henry I's arms of argent cross patty on gold with a black border containing 12 bezants. A banner in the Gelre Roll shows a golded edged cross on black, where the cross does not stride the full field - a square or greek cross..
During the Valona dynasty 2 flags/banners come in to use - one the plain argent and gold cross on black, the other with 4 golden crowns for the royal command.
With the accession of the Duke of Carthage, Grandmaster of the Knights of Solomon, the current flag appears - a white cross bordered in gold upon a black field strewn with argent crosses.
 
Frankish Empire (Andorra)
Imperi Franc (Andorra)
Andorran Oriflamme Flag.png

Located in the Pyrenees the little country unofficially known as Andorra has made a bold claim ever since the fall of the Holy Roman Emperor and other European monarchs. It claims almost all the territories controlled by the Republics of France, Germany and Italy, as it does not recognize the legitimacy of those republican governments. The base for the countries claim is that most of that territory was once controlled by Emperor Charlemagne, the same person who according to legend founded that realm the country currently possesses. At current no one takes Andorra's claim seriously the little country hardly has the ability to enforce anything. Most other countries view Andorra as a relic of the past not worth the effort to remove as it should fade into history soon.
 
An issue unrelated to the current round...

Some of the winning flags are already missing at this point, due to either a failure of external hosting, or some other issue with showing the image. Worry not. Luckily, already last year in January, I collected all the winning flags while there was still time. (I think the only one I've been completely unable to retrieve was Aesirknight's, from round 2.) I'm updating the collection further at this very moment, for safe keeping.

The question is: Should we upload the winning flags to a separate thread or to the wiki, just to prevent them from disappearing in the future ? Personally, I'd be in favour of either of the two options. And I'm all ears. I'd like to know what you think about this plan.
 
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