continuing on my earlier post to try and find alternates to medals, I started thinking about certain related awards like the aiguilletes (for units awards) and collars (for meritorious orders). One thing that occured to me is that you might get awards for specific groups or situations that must, by law, *not* be military type medals. A possibility is that the government might decide to give greater prestige to the military and prevent civilians from looking too much like them. In australia, for example, you have a fair few civilian organisations that wear military-type uniform (like the State Emergency Services, St.John Ambulance, Australian Volunteer Coast Guard, etc....) so what if their medals (which despite looking spiffy are often just long service medals) were easily dicernable from "the real deal" ?
A design I thought could still look "medaly" is inspired by the sceal you get on some grants and certificates as well "first prize" rosette thingies you get at some pageants. The reason for the biffurcated ribbons underneath at an angle is so they don't look like upside down millitary medals from a distance. Below are example with the medals on the right the original ones (ambulance service & medal of valour) in OTL and the left ones what they might look like ATL.