The planet Vulcan
Vulcan is the first major planetary body from the sun, and it is a pretty ‘cool’ place. The planet is tidally locked to the sun, with a lava ocean known as Mare Pandoris facing the sun. It has a small atmosphere of choking hot carbon dioxide, along with some rock vapor. Yes, rock vapor, and this tends to rain as boiling hot rocks on the far side of the planet. The sun also squeezes Vulcan to immense degrees, causing volcanoes (no pun intended) to erupt regularly. Despite being a literal hell, Vulcan is home to immense resources beyond imagining, having massive amounts of diamonds, gold, platinum and many other goodies, making Vulcan worth the challenge to mine. Vulcan is a little bigger than Earth, at around 14,476 km, but is twice as massive. It zips around the sun having an orbit of only 25 days, and it lies 0.147 AU from the star that tortures it.
Vulcan was colonized by Germanic Europeans, Mercurians and Selenites. Its culture really values toughness and respect, due to its climate and the fact that it was subjugated by Mercury for a couple centuries. Vulcani people are very short and stocky, as the immense gravity of the planet squeezes their figures, and they eventually began to see themselves as manifestations of dwarves. The planet has a population of around 94 million (there are about 43 million more in orbit), a far cry from Mercury’s six billion and Earth’s 21 billion. Vulcan is still an inhospitable and deadly place, but it has recently wiped out the last of the Mercurian presence in its area and has established an alliance with the Martians.
The flag
Vulcan’s flag is essentially a roundel in a black field, sort of acting as a visual representation of the planet from space. Not only does the black in the flag represent space, but it also represents the dark struggles the people of Vulcan have been through. The red outline on the circle stands for Vulcan’s ‘overworld’, as well as the blood shed to get to the yellow circle, which represents freedom, the ‘underworld’ (where most people live) and the lava ocean Mare Pandorae.
Major nations of Vulcan
The
Kingdom of Muspelheim is a strange elected hive-mind run ‘monarchy’, made out of colonists hailing from Germany, Scandinavia and the Netherlands. It is the largest nation on Vulcan in terms of both economic power and population, and is home to the strongest military on the planet, producing some of the best soldiers in the system. Muspelheim is very deep into the dwarven-like culture of Vulcan, with its people sporting immense beards and collecting axes. It is mainly atheist in terms of religion, with decent Christian and Neopagan minorities. It speaks Muspelisk as its official language, a creole of many Germanic languages.
The flag of Muspelheim features a Scandinavian rune which represents the dimension it was named after.
The
Kingdom of Ishun is descended from Mercurians (who arrived before Mercury got its claws on Vulcan), mainly hailing from the former Chinese and Middle Eastern colonies there. It was named after a Mesopotamian fire god, but uses a lot of Chinese imagery, not to mention a little bit of Muspelheimer culture here and there. Ishun is the second largest nation by population, with the third largest economy. Most Ishunren people follow a strange Confucist variety of Islam (in true Mercurian fashion) but speak Chinese and Arabic with little mixture.
Ishun’s flag shows a Ouroboros of a Chinese dragon around the Chinese symbol ‘Lu’ for prosperity. The people are well aware of how evil it looks and joke about it a lot.
Aetna is the third largest nation by population, with the second strongest economy. It is a former Selenite (from Earth’s moon, which is a rather different place ITTL) colony, with people mainly hailing from the American settlements. Aetna is an American styled democracy, and it’s people, while just as harsh and stocky, are not too fond of the dwarven look that most Vulcanis like. The nation is located next to Aetna mons, the tallest mountain on Vulcan. Aetna is mainly Christian and speaks Senglish (Selenite English, the lingua franca of the solar system).
Aetna’s flag isn't too descriptive, the colors are taken from Vulcan’s flag and the mountain stands for Aetna Mons.
The
Orbital Freeholds are basically all the habitats in Vulcan’s Hill sphere, of which there are 46 major ones and more than 500 minor ones. Most of the habitats are of Mercurian descent, as they were installed during Mercury’s rule over Vulcan. They serve as important trade nodes, due to the fact that Vulcan is on average the closest planet to everything else in the system. Currently, the freeholds are on the decline, and 7 major habitats were recently decommissioned due to the Mercurians leaving for their homeworld.
The big circle on the flag represents Vulcan, the inner ring represents the minor habitats and the dots represent the big habitats. The yellow field stands for the sun.
The
Pandora Territory encompasses all of Mare Pandorae, the enormous Lava ocean at the sunward side of Vulcan. Not many people live there, and those who do live on several tungsten rigs built on diamond mining sites. It is probably the deadliest place on the planet, due to the sheer death rate among workers here. Its population comes from all over the planet.
The flag of Pandora is simple, with Vulcan’s flag to the side and the yellow field, representing Mare Pandorae taking up most of the flag.
Cacustad is the capital of Vulcan, a former mining town turned revolutionary center. It was named after the fire breathing monster Cacus, who was slain by Hercules. Cacustad is currently the fifth largest city on Vulcan, and its underground is home to the Confederal Assembly.
The flag represents fire bursting out of a mound, with Vulcan’s color scheme attached to it.