Flag Thread IV
- Thread starter Pragmatic Progressive
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keeping with the British Commonwealth flags here's one for Tibet as a colony
"My fellow Americans:
Ten million years ago, the earth was destroyed. Through the aggression of militant fascism, and the unchecked expansion of international communism, devastation of apocalyptic proportions swept over the earth. Though many decried it as the end of the world, the American spirit is not so easily crushed. Through Faith, Family, and Industry, we took to the stars, conquering the savages of Venus in the name of civilization!
And now, awoken from our slumber, the time has come: the light of democracy has gone out across the Earth. It is our holy burden to return to the earth, Bible in the right hand, Constitution in the left, and return the principles that made our nation great to the peoples of the United States. We shall not rest until liberty has been restored from pole to pole, from sea to shining sea.
God bless you, and god bless the United States of America."
-Excerpt from the State of the Union address of President John Nixon McCarthy upon awakening from cryostasis.
Hapsburg
Banned
Four centuries separated from the trauma of the American Civil War, the imagery of the quintessential "rebels" gets appropriated by the first interstellar secessionists. Though to be fair, they adopt American and Chinese revolutionary imagery as well (it's just not as heavily depicted in the flags here, aside from the PRO/PCO). I conceived of the Orion colonies' demographics as initially a mix of American, French, and Chinese settlers, and carrying with them the traditions and revolutionary heritage of those cultures. For instance, a major predecessor of the Republic of Orion is a revolutionary militia, the Eridanus Free Forces (think like ETA or the IRA in space); they primarily utilise(d) socialist insignia, and used Maoist guerrilla warfare tactics.
Y'all probably know this already but:
Entries and queries in the Entries/Discussion Thread please.
Hapsburg
Banned
Case in point, the flag for the Eridanus Free Forces.
In 2303, poverty-stricken colonists on Epsilon Eridani rioted in protest of heavy taxes to subsidize their access to air and water. The police response to the riots led to some of the protesters to organize revolutionary cells, who launched an insurrection a few months after the initial riots. Coinciding with similar revolts in the Tau Ceti system, these insurrectionist cells waged war against the Terran Federation before also being crushed by military action after about seven years of asymmetric warfare. The survivors of these conflicts inspired and mentored later radicals who, in the late 2330s, rose up as the Eridanus Free Forces.
Adopting the theories and tactics of Maoist "People's War" and its permutations in the Lunarian and Martian revolutions of the 22nd century, the EFF adhered to a communist doctrine of guerrilla struggle, anti-colonialism, and popular democracy that, like Maoism, emphasized the agricultural worker as an integral part of socialist revolution. This was less than fruitful in attracting the support of most farmers, who simply wanted to get on with rebuilding and survival in the aftermath of the Eridanus Uprising and the Tau Ceti Conflicts. Instead, the EFF initially attracted urban intellectuals, but this proved a flawed strategy as they were unequipped to survive and struggle in the wilderness, and often held paternalist views of the very people they claimed to be fighting to liberate, which further alienated the rural workers. An internal struggle sidelined the intellectual elite in favor of a new cadre of rural revolutionaries by 2342. With their colonial insurrection thus far unsuccessful, the EFF began a campaign of terrorist bombings culminating in the 2345 bombing of the UN Building in New York, the headquarters of the Terran Federal Parliament.
This kicked off a fifteen-year war across the Orion Arm colonies, and the EFF grew exponentially; over time, its dedication of socialist revolution transformed into the broader struggle for colonial independence and democracy. It came to have powerful, clandestine financial backers in the Orion business and political elite, who either saw the EFF as an opportunistic tool, or secretly believed in the EFF cause but were unwilling to openly declare war on Terra. A second bombing in 2369, this time of the Colonial Bureau building in Nairobi, set the stage for the crisis that would lead to Terran crackdown on colonial governments, and then to the unilateral declaration of independence by the Orion Arm colonies.
In 2377, the EFF would negotiate its disarmament and integration into the Orion Army as the 3rd Eridanus Brigade. After the war, a cleaned-up version of the flag (without words, but retaining the white bar, hammer-and-sickle, and constellation) would be used as the emblem of the Orionese Communist Party.
In 2303, poverty-stricken colonists on Epsilon Eridani rioted in protest of heavy taxes to subsidize their access to air and water. The police response to the riots led to some of the protesters to organize revolutionary cells, who launched an insurrection a few months after the initial riots. Coinciding with similar revolts in the Tau Ceti system, these insurrectionist cells waged war against the Terran Federation before also being crushed by military action after about seven years of asymmetric warfare. The survivors of these conflicts inspired and mentored later radicals who, in the late 2330s, rose up as the Eridanus Free Forces.
Adopting the theories and tactics of Maoist "People's War" and its permutations in the Lunarian and Martian revolutions of the 22nd century, the EFF adhered to a communist doctrine of guerrilla struggle, anti-colonialism, and popular democracy that, like Maoism, emphasized the agricultural worker as an integral part of socialist revolution. This was less than fruitful in attracting the support of most farmers, who simply wanted to get on with rebuilding and survival in the aftermath of the Eridanus Uprising and the Tau Ceti Conflicts. Instead, the EFF initially attracted urban intellectuals, but this proved a flawed strategy as they were unequipped to survive and struggle in the wilderness, and often held paternalist views of the very people they claimed to be fighting to liberate, which further alienated the rural workers. An internal struggle sidelined the intellectual elite in favor of a new cadre of rural revolutionaries by 2342. With their colonial insurrection thus far unsuccessful, the EFF began a campaign of terrorist bombings culminating in the 2345 bombing of the UN Building in New York, the headquarters of the Terran Federal Parliament.
This kicked off a fifteen-year war across the Orion Arm colonies, and the EFF grew exponentially; over time, its dedication of socialist revolution transformed into the broader struggle for colonial independence and democracy. It came to have powerful, clandestine financial backers in the Orion business and political elite, who either saw the EFF as an opportunistic tool, or secretly believed in the EFF cause but were unwilling to openly declare war on Terra. A second bombing in 2369, this time of the Colonial Bureau building in Nairobi, set the stage for the crisis that would lead to Terran crackdown on colonial governments, and then to the unilateral declaration of independence by the Orion Arm colonies.
In 2377, the EFF would negotiate its disarmament and integration into the Orion Army as the 3rd Eridanus Brigade. After the war, a cleaned-up version of the flag (without words, but retaining the white bar, hammer-and-sickle, and constellation) would be used as the emblem of the Orionese Communist Party.
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Hapsburg
Banned
Yes, the star system about 10.5 light years away from Earth; in my setting, it's one of the first star systems colonized in the 2260s. Specifically, Epsilon Eridani b.
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Wouldn't that be Epsilon Eridani b II (or III, IV, or whatever), since Epsilon Eridani b is a gas giant? Although even then, Epsilon Eridani b is not in the habitable zone, meaning you'd need to build habitats around it or on/around its moons, and that means it would be better to build a habitat closer to Epsilon Eridani itself due to the increased solar power.
Hapsburg
Banned
The ground settlements would be on its moons, yes, though its orbital habitats are also growing. But more important to your question: the Trust Territory that administers them is organised on the planetary basis, and includes Aegir and all of its moons and orbital space (meaning it has also has authority over atmospheric mining operations on the gas giant itself).
Based on our assumptions about Earth and our present knowledge of exoplanets, yes.
Now, in a meta sense, some of the decisions I'm making are for the sake of good drama. We don't know a lot of things for certain, so I'm filling in the blanks with things that I think are plausible, even if unlikely, if that makes for a good story.
In an in-universe sense, it's just that our assumptions from three hundred years ago (i.e. our current knowledge-base) is being challenged by 24th century discoveries. In this case (in this setting), despite not being in Earth-normal habitable zone, Aegir possesses two large moons that are readily habitable with an indigenous ecology, though one is basically antarctic in its conditions; the others are either borderline habitable with limited microbial ecologies, or are barren rocky moons.
Dorozhand
Banned
That first one is one of the most aesthetically pleasing flags I've seen on the thread.
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