Flag Challenge 260: Let Your Freak Flag Fly!- Voting
Have another nifty future history challenge, this one inspired by Transmetropolitan! Because the times they are a changin' and social attitudes with them your challenge is to create a pride flag for some future ethnic group or social minority. Maybe it's something too small scale or cutting edge now to have a cohesive identity to rally around or maybe it's some wacky scifi thing that can only spring up in the coming future? I leave it up to you all, but for the sake of propriety and good taste please value interesting design and backstory over some desire to shock and offend your fellow members- I don't feel most people here need to be told this but I want to make sure all the bases are covered. All that fussiness out of the way just have fun and try to give it your all!
Have another nifty future history challenge, this one inspired by Transmetropolitan! Because the times they are a changin' and social attitudes with them your challenge is to create a pride flag for some future ethnic group or social minority. Maybe it's something too small scale or cutting edge now to have a cohesive identity to rally around or maybe it's some wacky scifi thing that can only spring up in the coming future? I leave it up to you all, but for the sake of propriety and good taste please value interesting design and backstory over some desire to shock and offend your fellow members- I don't feel most people here need to be told this but I want to make sure all the bases are covered. All that fussiness out of the way just have fun and try to give it your all!
Entry 1: Neo-Orphism
"What Once Was Dead Shall Live Once More": The Rise of Neo-Orphism
Neo-Orphism is a eclectic neo-pagan movement that grew to power in the later 2020s. It's rise can be traced to the various climate accidents of the 2020s including the 2023 Gulf Coast Floods, Hurricane Lucio in 2025, and the 2028 Midwest Tornado Season. Various doomsday cults rose during this time, the Millenarianist Church of Dixie, the Sovereign Order of the Xanthic King, Gaia Liberation Army, the Atlantean Esoteric Society, the Order of Knights of the Barracks of Saint Daniel of Jerusalem and Babylon, and the Children of Thanos. Neo-Orphism was originally seen as a doomsday cult, but it eventually grew into a religion that now has a large amount of converts in the nations of Cascadia, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Spain, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Panama, and Cuba.
Theologically, Neo-Orphic adherents believe that death and rebirth are a natural part of life. To this end, follows appeal to the psychopomps (Hermes, Orpheus, Anubis, Charon, Valkyrie, and Saint Peter) to take them to the afterlife and into the Court of the Zagreus (Zagreus decides where you end up in the postressurected world, judging you for your life and deciding what you will be reborn.) and they appeal to the Gods of Death and Rebirth in his court, including Osiris, Persephone, Hades, Jesus, Dionysus, and Baldr, to appeal to Zagreus' judgement.
Neo-Orphism is actively suppressed in various nations around the world, including in the People's Republic of China, Italy, Grece, Turkey, Kurdistan, South Africa, Hungary, the United States, the Nordic Union, Greenland, the Vatican City, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Russia.
The chief "rival" of Neo-Orphism is Ragnarökism, which is a Norse Neo-Pagan religion that has most of its adherents in the Scandinavian nations and worships Baldr, Hoenir, Magni, Modi, Njord, Vidar, Vali, and Hod. It believes that the world is in a Post-Ragnarök state and the people of the world must act accordingly.
The flag of Neo-Orphism contains four colors. The Purple represents the Court of Zagreus, the Red represents the blood of those who are being reborn, the Black represents death, and the White represents life. The harp represents the psychopomps that bring the living to be reborn.
Entry 2: Natural Born Alliance
The Natural Born Alliance is a protest group calling for the banning of artificial uteruses and similar in vitro devices designed to alleviate or replace in vivo pregnancy. They are often pejoratively named "wombies" or "wombles", but prefer terms such as "wombborn", "InVivists", etc. Some extremists have taken to bombing shipments from the lunar factories, once shutting down the Kennedy Elevator for 2 weeks and causing the unacceptable deaths of 15 human, 17 gelf, and 51 robot workers. This severely hampered the political ambitions of the group; Tycho Crater, with its large robot population, has even added the group to its terrorist list.
The group has often been accused of having anti-gelf opinions, partly due to the reliance of the various gelf clans on in vitro reproduction, and anti-robot opinions due to the NBAs focus on human reproduction. These accusations are strongly denied by the current leadership however a large minority of the organisations included in the NBA also wish to ban any geneering in general as being unnatural.
The Flag
The base is a horizontal triband of black, orange, and yellow, a condensing of the original spectrum of human skin tones.
Upon the flag are two green rings, one inside the other: the symbol of the NBA representing both people within the human womb and within the Earth.
Entry 3: Lupen Pride
The year is 2362. The lunar surface was colonized by the United Nations in the late 21st century under a charter that specified the moon would be used as a research base and staging center for extra-planetary exploration. After several decades, mineral deposits vital to the production of extra-planetary propulsion were discovered below the lunar surface. With this discovery private corporations began their own settlements and the original charter was abandoned by the most powerful and influential members of the UN in a race to lay claim to these resources.
Much like the colonization on Earth, governing these settlements proved to be exceedingly challenging. By the early 2200’s no Earthly nation held power over any of the lunar settlements. Several of the privately held colonies severed ties with all but the most brutal of government regimes of Earth. These companies employed mercenaries for security and operated lunar penal colonies for those nations they were helping enrich. Unlike the penal colonies of the past on Earth there were no revolts or revolutions for basic rights and self-governance primarily because life on the lunar surface led to considerably shorter lifespans and a weaker people due to the low gravity environment. Security personnel did not suffer such deterioration since they rotated to Earth before the low gravity environment impacted them.
The people on these lunar penal colonies began referring to themselves as Lupens and developed their own cultures. They began to fly the Lupen flag and it was a symbol of deep pride. In fact, cities on Earth and Martian colonies began to see Lupen flags fly as small numbers of colonists won their freedom and traveled to Earth or Mars to live very different lives than those on the moon.
The flag consists of a black field representing the lunar sky.
The “young” waxing crescent represents birth and the “old” waning crescent represents death.
The red sand drained in the blue hourglass represents the short life of the Lupens in service to their Earthly overlords.
