Hello again, today I have some new flags to share, all based on one of the factions of the
Mental Omega APYR mod for RA2YR: Yuri's Epsilon Army! Or Epsilon Empire, as it was known in previous versions of Mental Omega (and which I think would still fit as a name in the current version, after Yuri successfully conquers the world).
Before we get into that, though, I must note: these are all custom designs made within the design (and overlay) limitations of Flag Maker, so these won't be at all 100% accurate to their original inspirations:
Case in point, the 'national' flag for the faction as a whole. Yuri's Emblem was difficult as all hell to try to accurately recreate as close as possible, and this was the closest I could attempt. Fun fact: Yuri's Emblem is also a tattoo on his forehead, and said tattoo and emblem are the symbols for the
Hebrew letters "yod" (י), "vav" (ו), and "resh" (ר), when you 'read' them left-to-right (even though, linguistically-speaking, Hebrew is read and written
right-to-left, meaning that when you
accurately read (translate/transliterate) it, instead of YUR as was likely originally intended by Westwood, it instead reads as ROY
).
Moving on, the next flag here is for the Epsilon PsiCorps, Yuri's original division of psychics founded when he still served under the Soviet Union. The PsiCorps were instrumental in the Soviet invasion of the United States, as they were the ones tasked with neutralizing the American nuclear arsenal before it could retaliate against the incoming Soviet forces, and their Psychic Beacons were what enabled the Soviets to effortlessly conquer vast swathes of the USA via mass mind-control. Of course, this would come back to bite the Soviets, as Yuri would later betray them to make his own bid for world domination: at the forefront would be PsiCorps and their cutting-edge psychic technology and mind-control techniques.
The design of the flag here diverges from the official version in that I went with a more blatant eye motif, and instead of that Triforce-looking symbol the MO team used, I used the Greek letter 'Psi' itself (I alternatively considered using the astrological symbol for 'Libra', in reference to PsiCorps' Hero unit with the same name, but I went with the Greek Psi in the end instead).
Next up is the most radical departure from the 'official' flag designs: the one for the Epsilon Headquarters, the primary base of operations for Epsilon, located in Antarctica. HQ (as it's commonly shortened as) is primarily tasked with the construction of Yuri's Ultimate Weapon, referred to in-game thus far as "The Tower" (which is actually, spoiler alert: the Mental Omega Device... but that should've been pretty obvious by now). Aside from that, though, HQ's other purpose is advanced-weapons research and development, most prominently in the field of genetics: the crowning jewel of their advances in genetic engineering being the monstrous supersoldier Rahn, HQ's Hero unit during field operations.
Design-wise, this is the flag that I'm
least satisfied with, as it's the
least accurate to the original design used by the MO team. Unfortunately it's all I could come up with so far, as I didn't want to go through the hassle of recreating Yuri's Emblem
again. Maybe a request for a Yuri's Emblem overlay is in order...
Anyways, the next flag is for the third and final 'official' sub-faction of the Epsilon Army, the Scorpion Cell (I say 'official' because I have one more flag to share, but I'll get to that after this). Scorpion Cell has the distinction of originally
not being part of Epsilon itself, instead being an independent terrorist organization situated in Africa, specifically Saharan Africa ranging from the Maghreb in the west to the Fertile Crescent in the east. Led by the ingenious and talented scrap-mechanic Rashidi, Scorpion Cell's original goals were to expel the Americans and the Euro Alliance from North Africa and rid the continent of their colonial and imperialist influences; to that end, when approached by Yuri for a proposal for an alliance, Rashidi accepted his offer with that condition in mind. However, Rashidi doesn't trust Yuri and believe in his vision for the world, and so has his own plans mind should there ever be a betrayal... (Spoiler alert: of course there's a betrayal at some point, this is Red Alert, what'd you expect?)
That said, Rashidi's ragtag band of terrorists turn out to be surprisingly crafty and formidable opponents to face, as despite their poor-quality weapons built from scavenged scrap, their hit-n-run swarm tactics, combined with their morally-bankrupt chemical-weapons arsenal, and Rashidi's right-hand-man and Africa's best assassin, Malver, as their Hero unit, makes Scorpion Cell a threat that punches above their weight class... mainly by hitting below the belt, with
ruthless efficiency.
Design-wise, given that the GLA from Generals has a subsidiary branch of the same name, and that the official MO flag shares the same 'scorpion tail' design of the Brotherhood of Nod, I wanted something to distinguish the Epsilon Scorpion Cell from either of them, so I added poison droplets dripping from the tip of the scorpion tail's stinger, to emphasize the Epsilon Scorpion Cell's penchant for chemical warfare... which, incidentally, the GLA also shares, now that I think about it...
Now we get to the last flag I have for today - one for an old Epsilon subfaction that existed in previous versions, but now no longer exists as of the 3.0+ version onwards: the Epsilon
Chaos Force. The Chaos Force as a concept existed back in the earliest days of Mental Omega's development, back when the mod first started out and its writing was in its infancy (which had crazy stuff like a Yuri-clone named Uri and other preteen's-first-fanfiction ideas). The Uri subfaction in the 1.2 versions later evolved into the Chaos Force subfaction the 2.0+ versions, dropping all the Uri stuff in the process; alongside Chaos Force, HQ and Scorpion Cell also debuted in the 2.0+ versions, which combined with PsiCorps (which started out as the original Yuri's Army from base-game YR) became the Epsilon Empire faction; as of Mental Omega 3.0+, however, Chaos Force was phased out, leaving only PsiCorps, HQ, and Scorpion Cell as the Epsilon's three subfactions that we are familiar with today.
In regards to Scorpion Cell's... err...
defection (spoiler alert), late in Act 2 of the current 3.3.5 storyline, I'd like to headcanon Chaos Force as Scorpion Cell's replacement in the Epsilon roster, that Yuri creates using the remnants of the Cell that his prized Proselyte managed to subdue and recapture.
That's it for today's presentation, I hope you enjoyed it! Until next time,
commander!😉