Flag Thread V

Born in the USSA

Born in the USSA

Born in the USSA said:
*Social Capitalism flag*
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Moralintern.png


Have a sequel I whipped up, a little something I extrapolated from Confederacy of North America social policy.

The Moralist International* is a nonstate aid organization headquartered in the Confederation of North America and rooted in the North American socialist tradition and in the foreign policy of former Governor-General Richard Mason commonly known as the "Mason Doctrine". Socialist activism in the CNA has always trended more toward the agrarian and utopian trends in the movement, and since the 1920s has explicitly rejected the premise of Social Capitalism as a symptom of the false state of life encouraged by urbanization and factory work. The utopian trend, meanwhile, is clearly seen in the Mason Doctrine, a program of humanitarian aid carried out by the Confederation government from 1953 to 1962. Alone among the great powers, the CNA was able to completely avoid fighting in the Global War, and the flood of guilt that followed in the aftermath of the war's end motivated Richard Mason to advocate for unconditional gifts to all war-ravaged nations as a show of contrition for not having prevented the outbreak of war in the first place. Regarded with more sober eyes as a woefully naïve proposal, the original promises of unconditional aid were walked back into an expanded aid budget coupled with tighter eligibility controls. To Mason and his followers this would prove insufficient (despite growing international resentment of the program) and after Mason's Liberal Party was ousted from power his supporters would found the Peace and Justice Party, and several philanthropists in the party would in turn join with others throughout the United Empire to form the Moralintern.

The flag of the Moralintern uses the forget-me-not and signal blue favored by socialists in the CNA, representing nature and the open sky (respectively), in contrast with the Sea Green favored by Social Capitalists and by association conflated with other urban socialists. The dove naturally represents peace, symbolism also used in Mexican President Mercator's "Offensive of the Dove" global peace initiative. The atomic symbol represents the belief by Mason and his supporters that the existence of the atomic bomb is the ultimate guarantor of world peace, since it could only sanely be used in self-defense. The Moralist International supports the spread of nuclear energy and, contrary to Mason himself, is also a supporter of the Confederation nuclear program. The International regards accusations of atomic espionage by the Mexican government to be a scurrilous fabrication, and some within the organization are even quietly debating giving the USM access to atomic secrets willingly in the interests of maintaining world peace. The Moralintern is wary of the Pacific Pact given the latter's focus on reforming rather than toppling capitalism and on urban industrialism, and the two organizations compete for global influence, the former through aid and the latter through corporate expansion.

*Yes this was inspired by Disco Elysium, why do you ask?
 
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Born in the USSA

Born in the USSA

Born in the USSA said:
*Moralintern flag*
Click to expand...
ProgressiveAlliance.png


Here's the third flag in my For Want of a Nail series, representing a reborn Mexican/German alliance that ironically finds itself in a niche similar to the Non-Aligned Movement in OTL.

While the War Without War began as a multipolar Great Power conflict similar to all the Great Games and colonial horse trading that had characterized European affairs since the Age of Discovery, the true devastation of the Global War created ripples that have resonated since the last shot was fired. The fifties were gripped by the transformation of Kramer Associates from a state of symbiosis with the United States of Mexico to the reformation of the company in the fires of Social Capitalism and the birth of the Pacific Pact. The sixties, meanwhile, saw the growth of the Moralist International from an international aid institution to a kingmaker in the expanding Confederation, rebranded the United Confederation of Britannia in the wake of the Pact-sponsored Westralian referendum. Now wary of seeing its allies peeled off one by one, a series of referendums and a whole slew of laws would follow, ultimately seeing the United Kingdom and the Australian remnant absorbed* into the newly reformed CNA government, though questions on the legality of the referendums and simmering nationalist discontent continued to linger after the ink was dry.

With Britain and her children united on one side and Kramer Associates on the other this created a scenario where Mexico and the Germanic Confederation were forced by circumstance to reforge their wartime alliance despite the earlier falling out over the Offensive of the Dove, though they were explicit that it was purely for defense. Offering themselves as a third position between "the endless handwringing of the Moralists and the economic exploitation on offer from the Social Capitalists", the so-called Progressive Alliance offered a path forward for nations to pursue their mutual defense without opening themselves up to extensive calls for internal reforms, and the various nations in the Mexican and German spheres of influence quickly joined. Despite this now much more inclusive membership the Alliance is very much the creature of the two founders, especially in the wake of the success of the long floundering Mexican atomic program.

For the flag of the Progressive Alliance I combined the diagonal bifurcation of the Mexican flag with the horizontal division of the Germanic Confederation and used all four colors involved- given the differing circumstances for German unification TTL (with Prussia defeating Austria in 1799 and creating the Confederation in the aftermath), the German flag has historically been a black and white bicolor after the colors of the House of Hohenzollern. The use of the sun symbol owes much to Mexican iconography, and as mentioned without the French Revolution sea green and later signal blue become the colors of competing strains of socialism, so red is up for grabs and I've taken a page out of @Ephraim Ben Raphael's book and made it the traditional color of conservatism. Yes it's called the Progressive Alliance, but Mercator says not to think about it too hard.

*In Sobel's book as of 1971 there is talk that the UK and Australia may join the CNA, essentially making the wartime alliance between the three permanent. With my introduction of the Westralia situation I decided that would change the calculus and make such a union more likely.
 
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Born in the USSA

Born in the USSA

Ephraim Ben Raphael said:
Nice. People don't do enough with For Want of a Nail.
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Right? This little series of flags spun out of a random idea "What would a Drakia-style reappraisal do for Kramer Associates?", based on a comment I read about how KA was basically implausible enough to be an "economic Dominion of Draka" late in the book. Leaving aside the inconsistent technological development the two biggest issues I had were the aforementioned implausibility of Kramer Associates as an independent power and the lack of any sort of radical new ideology, so I killed two birds with one stone and decided to solve the Kramer issue using the one fictional ideology that Sobel created, with the other two flags and concepts kinda developing organically from the fallout. They make a pretty satisfying little trilogy but if I think enough on it I might be able to come up with a fourth in the series that moves into the aftermath of the War Without War and could hopefully reign in some of the technological inconsistency at the same time 🤔

In fact, just having written this out gave me an idea, and a little digging on the Sobel wiki should give me everything that I need to come up with a half-decent concept.
 
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Born in the USSA

Born in the USSA

Born in the USSA said:
*Progressive Alliance flag*
Click to expand...


NationalUnion.png


The history of India in the War Without War is the the story of a nation torn between worlds, between domination under the British or the Germans, and between the raging tensions in world socialism between the Moralintern and the Pacific Pact. To get to the root of this sorry state, it is important to look at the history of National Union. Despite the company's long and storied history and its incredible positive public image in the Anglosphere, there is simply no denying the fact that for most of its existence National Union was as close to the Confederation's answer to Kramer Associates that the nation was capable of producing.

Mechanized farm equipment has always had pride of place in the CNA since the first primitive steam tractor was developed in 1845, based on improvements made on the Newcomen steam engine. The rapid improvement in productivity would have an immediate and severe impact in the Southern Confederation, where the early tractors were unsuited for cotton plantations at the same time southern yeomen were able to rent or share the new devices to maximize the value of their labor. When a crash in the price of slaves saw an attempt by the wider Confederation government to end the practice these yeomen were quick to denounce the planter class who contemplated secession, comparing them unfavorably to the earlier North American rebels and accusing them of trying to trick the poor into spending their blood to maintain the plantation lifestyle. Many of the most ardent slaveholders knew a lost cause when they saw one, choosing to liquidate as many of their assets as possible and make a new life in the much friendlier Mexico. The technology would become the basis of an agricultural revolution in the CNA, and the sudden ability for small groups to productively farm large areas would have a large impact on the growth of the agrarian socialism that would in turn lead to the birth of Moralism in the twentieth century.

It was in this social tumult that Samuel Matthews would be born in the Southern Confederation. Born in the same year the tractor had been invented, Matthews was an inquisitive child, and as a young man would get a job helping to manufacture the devices. Quickly showing his aptitude, he would become shop foreman by the age of twenty, and by the age of twenty-two Matthews would establish his own shop, inspired by stories of the rapid growth of Kramer Associates- and just like that National Union was born. The invention of the locomobile would put the company on the map, and although the first generation of "horseless carriages" were ponderously slow by modern standards the invention began to attract inventors and investors from throughout the nation. Although certainly a gifted inventor, much of the company's later success was owed to Matthews' unquestionable brilliance in spotting talent and properly marketing new inventions under the broader National Union label. Quickly branching from mechanical engineering, the company would become an early innovator in the field of electrical engineering and radio in the 1880s, and would develop the first generation of vitavision by the turn of the century. Like the first locomobile it was crude, but it attracted attention and spurred innovation in the field, and all the results came with the sheen of the National Union brand.

Following Matthews' death in 1903 (during a demonstration of National Union's first prototype airmobile), the company he'd spent his life building would undergo a transition in the face of sudden public scrutiny. It would never gain the sheer market share in the CNA that Kramer Associates enjoyed in Mexico, but the company would embrace the same corporatism that had taken the world by storm with the latter's phenomenal success, quickly diversifying into a stable of related companies and spreading throughout the British Empire. This would mark the entrance of National Union into the Indian market, newly opened to competition following the dismantling of the British East India Company. Although the company had used pensions and homes in idyllic planned communities to reward employee loyalty in the wide-open CNA, the far more densely populated Dominion of India made such tactics impractical in many areas of the country, and the company would turn to Neiderhoffer's ideas for a solution, using stock options to reward employees in a way that also incentivized greater productivity. The company would grow in popularity in the Dominion, a generally well-balanced blend of carrots and sticks proving far more responsive to popular moods than the EIC had been, and it would even relocate to the country to make use of the much lower cost of labor. And then came the Global War.

Although it had been made a Dominion at the turn of the century, many Indians were keenly aware that they were treated differently than the CNA or Australia, and it was only reluctantly that the Dominion allowed itself to be dragged into the brewing conflict between the United Empire and the Germanic Confederation and her allies. This would prove a mistake, seeing an ill-advised invasion of the country by the Russians in 1941. Although the occupation would only last a year, the Indians would seize the opportunity to throw of their old colonial yoke, and the Republic of India would form and immediately sign a neutrality treaty to end their participation in the conflict. The War Without War would see the Republic alone on the world stage, distrusted by the Empire that had abandoned them and completely unwilling to formally ally with the Confederation that had sanctioned the Russian invasion. The new nation was beginning to come under strain, long simmering religious and class tensions coming to the surface as accusations were lobbed that the Republican government was a thinly veiled attempt to enshrine hindutva and hereditary class privilege. And then came the Day-Trader revolt, and the birth of the Moralintern and the Progressive Alliance were not far behind.

In a newly uncertain world the Republic used these new external threats to bolster legitimacy even as it turned to the Moralintern to provide food aid while it focused resources on a nuclear program, swearing to the Confederation of Britannia all the while that it was focused entirely on energy production. 1986 would see the Madras nuclear disaster, and the world looked on in horror on their shiny National Union vitavisions as a reactor bearing the forget-me-not of the Moralist International melted into radioactive lava in the middle of a massive city. Instantly discredited, popular discontent would see the Republic overthrown in a velvet revolution, and then came the question of what would come next: the disaster had destroyed the credibility of not only the republicans but also the new generation of Indian Moralists. The Social Capitalists had another solution, and the National Union of India was born, uniting the best of Social Capitalism and Moralism together into one system and finally mending the rift that had riven the socialist world for the better part of a century and a half.

Sorry, that one was really long I know :coldsweat: but I wanted to include a bit of background to deal with that technological development issue I was talking about- I created Samuel Matthews out of whole cloth to replace Thomas Edison, who Sobel has still be born and who is some sort of science wizard that invents everything singlehandedly. Hence my fictional wunderkind taking credit for the output of his shop, and explicitly only producing the crudest earliest versions with the first generation inventions. The basis of this flag was inspired by a 1904 proposal for an Indian flag, though I replaced the original three horizontal stripes (representing religion) with two to represent the two strains of socialism. I kept the vertical purple stripe, but replaced the Orion constellation with a fairly basic National Union logo inspired by the early GE one from OTL. I also added the lotus as a pan-Indian symbol that also represents the new nation's commitment to sustainability in the wake of the Madras disaster.
 
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Born in the USSA

Born in the USSA

Of all four of my Sobel flags I think the Social Capitalism one came out the best IMO but I'm thinking over changing the hammer and torch icon to a wrench crossed with a pen as a better example of assembly line/administrative worker solidarity 🤔 What do you all think?
 
Born in the USSA

Born in the USSA

SoCap.png


Here's my second take on a Social Capitalism flag! As before the Gadsden half represents resistance to government intervention* and sea green became the early color of socialism TTL. Some quick checking on the Levellers mentioned that unlike the Diggers the former preferred communal ownership achieved only through the consent of the owners involved, so it's even better suited to a jointly owned corporate form of socialism than I originally thought, so thank goodness for happy accidents. The white represents the nonviolent path to power presented by the ideology while the pen (representing administrative workers) and the wrench (representing assembly line workers) are shown collaborating to build up the company bottom line in a "rising tide lifts all boats" ethic. Also though the Mexican flag proportions make sense given the history of the ideology TTL, the proportions irked me so I altered it to my personal preference of 5:8 x'D

*and TTL is the flag of Kramer Associates
 
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Born in the USSA

Born in the USSA

Vajraism.png


This is just a random totalitarian flag. The combination diamond-lightning bolt combo represents a vajra- traditionally symbolizing the combination of unstoppable power and invulnerability. Combined with the esoteric vril symbol it creates an arrow to symbolize top-down authority or something :coldsweat:
 
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Auseklis

Auseklis

Born in the USSA said:
Do you have one specific TL or is it an association of flags and maps with a decentralized narrative?
Click to expand...
It's part of a concept I've been working on off-site, to be published in a book series. But the idea of a four-way Cold War was too interesting to not post some of my stuff here.
 
Tomislav Addai

Tomislav Addai

1621330877500.png

A flag of New England. The five red stripes represent the five states of:
  1. Connecticut,
  2. Massachussets (includes Maine)
  3. New Hamphire,
  4. Rhode Island and Providence Plantation
  5. Vermont
 
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