Flag Thread V

[Thande]

Flag of the People's Republic of Germany, often nicknamed "Red Prussia" (but not officially claiming continuity with Prussia) - essentially a larger East Germany.

This is based on the point that (surprisingly to my mind) quite a few of the German communists setting up East Germany actually preferred the black-white-red tricolour to the black-red-gold. I'm not sure about using the KPD star, but I wanted something a bit simpler than the complex Communist heraldric symbol used on the OTL East German flag.

 

[Me!]

Ahh..... it's good to be back

 

[Born in the USSA]

Red, Green and Black: The Bogdanovist Martian Republic

Here's another random fiction flag, in this case a flag for the Bogdanovist movement in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy. In the series Bogdanovism is a political movement that grows out of the anarchist philosophies of one of the First Hundred colonists and represents a wish to create a completely new utopian society on a virgin world. The basic red-green-blue tricolor represents the process of Martian terraforming carried out over the series*, while the classic black diagonal bifurcation represents Bogdanovism's anarchist roots. In the series one of the primary political divides is between the Reds, who want to keep Mars pristine, and the Greens, who want to terraform. As such it's a happy accident that the red and green stripes are the most prominent, while the divide coupled with the Martian arrow suggests upward social progress as society becomes entrenched on the planet and the Martian people are able to throw off the chains of Earth. Taking into account terrestrial political colors it also suggests the weighted balance between socialism, ecology and capitalism in the Martian economic system. Bogdanovism is the central force in the First Martian Revolution depicted in the first book and some alternate version of the series where it succeeds could see a flag like this become the official Martian flag. The interesting question in that instance would be the effect of corporate pressure and social conflict on the new government over the next two books, since the Second Revolution explicitly put far more effort into developing the structures of the future government ahead of time than the First Revolution did and was ultimately successful as a result.

*The tricolor is Pascal Lee's design for a real life Martian flag, itself inspired by Robinson's trilogy.

 

[Born in the USSA]

An Age of Darkness: The Children of Kali

Here's another Kim Stanley Robinson flag, this one inspired by The Ministry of the Future. In a response to an escalating cycle of climate disasters, an ecoterrorist group called the Children of Kali rises up to directly confront the root of the problem. Among other things they sink ships and down planes with drones to choke global shipping and create a fear of flying, assassinate fossil fuel executives, take financiers hostage and deliberately spread mad cow disease to eliminate the global beef trade. For the base I used a modified version of the Calcutta Flag, a proposed Indian flag from 1906.

• I changed the bottom green color to the anarcho-primitivist shade and made the sun and moon symbols red to symbolize the twin daggers of deadly heat waves and apocalyptic flooding (respectively)
• I made the central stripe black to represent "the age of darkness" and reference the original meaning of anarchist black as "the color of the starving masses", while the text is "Kali Yuga", the Hindu apocalyptic age that's since been adopted by accelerationists
• I kept the top stripe orange (since saffron represents sacrifice and religious asceticism) while the bull represents the Bull of Dharma, which symbolically only has one leg during the Kali Yuga to symbolize the decay of morality.

Although the color of each stripe has political meaning, given the roots of the group in India I deliberately avoided the classic diagonal split for ideological flags

 

[perdu42]

The shield bears the image of a bear as the founder of the Crimean Saxon settlement was one Siward Barn of Gloucester (taking "Barn" to mean bear)

Except "Barn" does not mean bear according to https://www.oldenglishtranslator.co.uk/ .

That said, I like your flag.

 

[Born in the USSA]

Over the Rainbow- The Freak Left and the NPP

What if we got Acid Communism before we got Capitalist Realism? I was inspired to make this by my musings over in this thread about trying to make the hippies a major political force. In something of a later-stage Reds! scenario I decided the best way to do that was to remove the tendency toward leftist splintering (or at least have cooler heads prevail) while the Manson family accidentally poisons themselves before any murders and the Vietnam War just keeps getting worse, producing a situation where the Democrats and Republicans are different flavors of cold warrior conservatives by 1972 and a political coalition organized around electing Shirley Chisholm as an Independent candidate coheres into a solid party bringing together the SDS, Fred Hampton's Rainbow Coalition, Hunter S. Thompson's Freak Power, the Yippies and the political arm of the People's Temple. The new National Progressive Party becomes the only game in town on the political left as bourgeois liberals and moderates in the other parties either fade to irrelevance, go along to get along or become radicalized over the course of the seventies.

The core ideology of the NPP is grounded in a leftist synthesis colloquially called the Freak Left, crafted by Noam Chomsky and Terence McKenna after a lengthy correspondence sparked by a chance meeting at an airport in 1971 and bringing together the organizational focus and rational outlook of the New Left with the mystical attitudes and emphasis on personal experimentation and self-discovery offered by the Freak scene. The Party has wings ranging from pacifism of the flower children to the radicalism of the Revolutionary Youth Movement and organizationally strikes a balance between the focus on direct democracy embodied by the early SDS and the more centralized and hierarchical Rainbow coalition, opting for a horizontal approach to decentralized organizing to limit the damage of government attacks on the group. Did the group's formation make Hoover drop dead of a heart attack? No, but it's been great for propaganda. The flag of the NPP combines symbols of the three largest factions during the '72 campaign, combining a rainbow for the Coalition, a clenched fist for the SDS and a peyote button for Freak Power. As for the rainbow itself the Pride Flag wasn't invented until '78 so it gets butterflied, leading to the LGBT scene retaining a pink triangle that was in use before then and thus to the pink stripe on the finished flag.

 

[Keperry]

Flag for a Narodnik or Socialist-Revolutionary led Russian People's Republic:

 

[Born in the USSA]

Flag for a Narodnik or Socialist-Revolutionary led Russian People's Republic:

View attachment 676127

I'm into it!

 

[Keperry]

I'm into it!

Thanks!

In that vein, here's another agrarian-socialist flag, for a Zapatista (the original kind) Mexico:

("Land and liberty", "the land belongs to those who work it")

 

[Comte de Dordogne]

I recently made a map of an independent Carniola, with associated timeline. I felt an itch to keep working on stuff associated with that, so I made/assembled a bunch of flags set in the same timeline. This is not an exhaustive graphic, just the first 40 that I finished.

Where can we consult this timeline?
The Holy Roman Empire with the coat of arms of the kings of France makes me eye.

 

[Born in the USSA]

Blue (Gray) Mars- The Republic of New Athens

Here's a one off, inspired by a random idea for a Red Mars-style rebellion set in Turtledove's A World of Difference. In the novel the planet Mars is replaced with a larger planet named Minerva in honor of the bright flashes of light that occur when sunlight penetrates the planet's thick cloud cover. Despite this literally cosmic divergence history remains only cosmetically changed until the 1960s, where an accelerating space race to reach Minerva demonstrates the existence of native life when a (materially) stone age (socially) feudal lord smashes the Viking 1 lander with a spear. The novel itself takes place in 1989 and essentially involves a proxy war between a US-supported feudal society and a Soviet-backed early capitalist one, all while the Cold War has been heating up back home*. Aside from the political differences one of the major conflicts of the novel is the fact that Minervan reproduction is always fatal for the females.

The Republic of New Athens was the inevitable result of the Omalo-Skarmar war as the Americans and Soviets both escalated programs of setting up "research bases" on the planet, another sign of the increasing belligerence between the superpowers throughout the nineties and into the new millenium. By 2020 the human population of the planet was into the hundreds of thousands even as the seeds of first contact rippled outward among the Minervans, with changes in politics, medicine and materials science introduced by the newcomers radically and drastically reshaped entire societies. Intensely aware of the effects of their presence many of the researchers, regardless of Earthbound allegiance, began to see the escalating conflict over influence on the planet to be grievously harmful to the Minervan people and so they quietly began collaborating across the lines. Secret meetings were held as political officers were quietly sidelined and orders conveniently ignored by both sides, eventually culminating in 2026 with the public declaration of the Republic of New Athens as a confederation made up of all but the most isolated and ideological installations. In response to the almost certainty of war back home both sides of the Minervan proxy war had gone native. The RNA flag uses the Athena symbol, with blue-gray to represent the planet itself, bronze to symbolize defense, and turquoise to symbolize wisdom.**

*Including the US and USSR getting into dogfights over Lebanon and Gorbachev's suspiciously convenient stroke before he could reform anything 🤔
**Turquoise was also the color of the Nullifier Party, and I thought it fitting to use for a revolution predicated almost entirely on just ignoring orders from an increasingly unreasonable Earth.

 

[Gryffinson]

Flag of the Kingdom of Brabant, officially adopted after it's independence from the Kingdom of France in 1717.
(Part of a timeline I've been thinking about - I might make a fully fledged scenario if I find the time and the motivation)

 

[LNSS]

A socialist/anarchist flag of no country in particular.

black represents anarchism, red represents socialism, the gear represents industrial workers, the wheat represents farmers, the globe represents internationalism, and the compass represents intellectuals and technical workers

 

[Born in the USSA]

A socialist/anarchist flag of no country in particular.

View attachment 677248

black represents anarchism, red represents socialism, the gear represents industrial workers, the wheat represents farmers, the globe represents internationalism, and the compass represents intellectuals and technical workers

This looks very nice! It's actually a perfect segue to an alternate trend in ideological flag design that came to me after a chat with @Mitridates the Great about the Technocracy movement.

Oh, my point was, from the outside, Technate USA didn't look too different from the classic Fascist USA (black flags, rampant authoritarianism, worship of machinery and industrial power, centralized planned economy, absence of free market, free press and free opinion, persecution of "inefficient or irrational" values and ideas, use of politically charged jargon to designate the undesirables and justify their extermination by the regime, etc) ... so it may seem that it is fascist ( even if that's not the intention of the author or the characters).

Besides that in many cases the Technate ends up in a cold war against the USSR, or against a coalition of "non-technocratic nations", which sounds like exactly what a fascist America would do: wasting efforts, time and resources in maintaining an eternal political and military conflict to try to conquer the world.

I knew Huey Long had a certain fame, but I didn't think he was influential enough to lead change on his own; I attributed this fame simply to the people's taste for reducing great political and social movements to the person who appears as the most visible face of these movements. I think it's something to do with the Big Man Theory.

First of all it's gray flags 😂 Second I'd argue that Technocratic worship of progress and industrialism was at its root focused on the ability of those things to provide a more abundant (better is a subjective term) life for the people. This is in marked contrast to Futurism and Fascism, where those things took on a pyschosexual dimension based on dominance, speed and power. As to the rest I'd say that's just the grab bag of authoritarian traits, with someone more personable than Scott at the helm there's no reason all those traits become definite, aside from the planned economy and a firm and absolute policy of laïcete

I've never actually seen a Technate/Soviet Cold War 🤔 I'd argue in the near term its far more likely for isolationism to win out while they bring the rest of North America into the fold. After that it's anyone's game, though I've argued before that the fact that Technates by definition require large geographic areas which would almost certainly cross artificial colonial borders would make the European colonial powers the natural enemy in that scenario rather than the USSR. A Japan that embraced Technocracy would be a natural ally and the USSR would likely be viewed as a Technate in the making if only they could abandon class war for class-collaborationism.

On the contrary, I'd argue that given the deep currents of populism in the South and Midwest combined with the ravages of the Dust Bowl and the Depression I think if he could strong arm through a mandate he'd be able to get quite a bit done. It'd be at the head of a mass base and in conjunction with a collection of ideologues and fellow travelers but it's certainly possible. Whatever you think of his alarming tendency to centralize power and micromanage he was exceptionally clever and knew what his constituencies genuinely needed. I'd recommend an excellent wikibox TL called A Perfect Democracy if you haven't read it!

As I've said several times in other threads I absolutely adore unusual ideologies and the use of political color symbolism in flags. Schools of Anarchism are the easiest, as long as the flag is diagonally bisected and the lower-right half is black you can use basically any other political color and be in business. Long story short I got to thinking about the fate of Technocracy in a world that was more successful- given that the entire focus is on a managerial elite controlling the levers of power it's about as far from Anarchism as you can get. The flag for Agorism is gray over black and it occurred to me that in a world where Technocracy succeeds and becomes essentially the face of bureaucratic statism you could see a mirror of the anarchist trend for schools of technocracy with a gray upper-left and the lower-right some other politically motivated color choice. As a fairly basic example, "techno-communism"* would be gray over red and "techno-capitalism"** would be gray over yellow. What do you all think? I know its not a post of a flag but this seemed the best place to organize my thoughts about the idea.

*Authoritarian state socialism
**Cyberpunk

 

[Mitridates the Great]

This looks very nice! It's actually a perfect segue to an alternate trend in ideological flag design that came to me after a chat with @Mitridates the Great about the Technocracy movement.

As I've said several times in other threads I absolutely adore unusual ideologies and the use of political color symbolism in flags. Schools of Anarchism are the easiest, as long as the flag is diagonally bisected and the lower-right half is black you can use basically any other political color and be in business. Long story short I got to thinking about the fate of Technocracy in a world that was more successful- given that the entire focus is on a managerial elite controlling the levers of power it's about as far from Anarchism as you can get. The flag for Agorism is gray over black and it occurred to me that in a world where Technocracy succeeds and becomes essentially the face of bureaucratic statism you could see a mirror of the anarchist trend for schools of technocracy with a gray upper-left and the lower-right some other politically motivated color choice. As a fairly basic example, "techno-communism"* would be gray over red and "techno-capitalism"** would be gray over yellow. What do you all think? I know its not a post of a flag but this seemed the best place to organize my thoughts about the idea.

*Authoritarian state socialism
**Cyberpunk

I'm not sure that Cyberpunk is exactly what you want to describe as techno-capitalism.

This is because, as you yourself pointed out, a Technate involves a certain degree of centralization and planning of the economy. It also seems to imply a certain degree of collaboration between the companies and the government, something more similar to the Japanese zaibatsu than what we currently have (only in this case the government rules the companies and not the other way around as with the zaibatsu).

While in practically all instances of Cyberpunk (Cyberpunk 2077, Jennifer Governmemt, Neuromancer, Blade Runner, etc.) the situation has more in common with anarcho-capitalism: huge corporations running free without any kind of control, cooperation or planning... and no one has the slightest interest in stopping them, being the only function of the State to go behind to "clean up the mess" (that is, if they have not subcontracted that service to another corporation).

As for using the color gray, it would probably take off in a world where all other colors are already taken.

(Usually the times I saw the "techno-fascists" theme it was strongly implied that the Technato was replacing fascism as the "authoritarian ideology that everyone hates and is good to fight." This even if the author tried to convince you of how good was the Tecnate)

I vaguely remember seeing in the map thread at least one that described that situation I mentioned (American Technate vs Non-Technocratic Nations), I should look it up when I can.

 

[Born in the USSA]

I'm not sure that Cyberpunk is exactly what you want to describe as techno-capitalism.

This is because, as you yourself pointed out, a Technate involves a certain degree of centralization and planning of the economy. It also seems to imply a certain degree of collaboration between the companies and the government, something more similar to the Japanese zaibatsu than what we currently have (only in this case the government rules the companies and not the other way around as with the zaibatsu).

While in practically all instances of Cyberpunk (Cyberpunk 2077, Jennifer Governmemt, Neuromancer, Blade Runner, etc.) the situation has more in common with anarcho-capitalism: huge corporations running free without any kind of control, cooperation or planning... and no one has the slightest interest in stopping them, being the only function of the State to go behind to "clean up the mess" (that is, if they have not subcontracted that service to another corporation).

As for using the color gray, it would probably take off in a world where all other colors are already taken.

(Usually the times I saw the "techno-fascists" theme it was strongly implied that the Technato was replacing fascism as the "authoritarian ideology that everyone hates and is good to fight." This even if the author tried to convince you of how good was the Tecnate)

I vaguely remember seeing in the map thread at least one that described that situation I mentioned (American Technate vs Non-Technocratic Nations), I should look it up when I can.

I'd counter that cyberpunk is a perfect example of techno-capitalism (in this specific "Technocracy as vague shorthand for managerial statism" example) because the corporations are enormous, crowd out all small-scale competition and act in conjunction with the government. It's usually from a position of corporate strength over the state in those instances but the rule of society by a technically-literate elite at the head of a vast and regimented hierarchy fits in this more generalized take on Technocracy as the dark mirror to anarchism. As for gray as the specific Technocratic ideology color it's what the movement used OTL.

 

[IronDacia2004]

Hey guys, I made this flag a while back and wanted to share it.

The Free Territory of Sweden (Sverige Fria Territorium) was a short lived anarchist confederation in Northern Sweden, mainly around the Pajala Municipality. It was formed by left-wing anarchists who were a part of the revolt led by the Swedish United Democratic Front (SUDF). As the SUDF crumbled they split off and formed the Free Territory of Sweden, a Maknovian-style Anarchist Confederation. However, they were not able to survive more than a few months as they were crushed by the Government and by other splinter factions.

The Free Territory was not able to decide upon a flag, so there are no official design or specifications. This flag was made by a soldier of the Free Territory. The flag was seemingly hand made by the soldier. The flag is black with a small yellow strip and a small blue strip sewn onto the fly side of the flag. On the black field is a hand-drawn skull biting down on and breaking a line of chains, the skull and chains were drawn with white paint. Above and below the skull are the words "Död till alla som står i vägen för att bryta våra kedjor". The words seem to be stencilled in and translate into English as "Death to all those who stand in the way of breaking our chains". The flag is clearly inspired by the flag of Maknovia/Free Territory, as Nester Makno was the figure that most of the Free Territory of Sweden was able to agree upon as a model to look up to.

Hope this is a good first post.

 

[Born in the USSA]

"... and the Skies are Gray": Technocratic Disciplines

Based on my idea mentioned above I decided to whip up this flag graphic from a timeline where Technocracy succeeded and became the lazy shorthand buzzword for statism and autocracy. In the dark mirror to Anarchism the so-called "Technocratic Disciplines" are diagonally bisected with gray in the upper-left and different ideologically-charged colors in the lower-right. I modified a picture on the "Outline of Anarchism" page on Wikipedia to get the basic format and I came up with distorted takes on some of the more notable subdivisions of Anarchism to come up with my Disciplines. Not exactly on the mark with modern sensibilities (I'm looking at you Queer Technocracy) but keep in mind this is a world with about a century of distinct social divergence.

 

[lionjedi1215]

Flag of the 3rd French Empire
Government: Fascist Dictatorship

 

[Born in the USSA]

Exterminate All Rational Thought: The Politics of Interzone

Interzone, the notorious North African freeport, weeping sore on the belly of the Mediterranean, is held captive by a political system as frenetic and violent as the city's lucrative drug trade.

The Liquefactionists seek political power through the extermination of all non-party members, to be followed by an internal civil war in the aftermath.

The Divisionists seek political power through the creation (and subsequent disguising) of clones. There's a good deal of paranoia that some party members are not in fact disguised clones, and competition is rampant between the largest clone genelines.

The Senders seek power through the elimination of individuality through the implanting of radio receivers to directly channel the thoughts of party leaders. Which party leader will ultimately consolidate this control is an open question.