Weekly Flag Challenge #248 voting (redo)

[Uru Hammer]

FLAG CHALLENGE #248: State of the Union

This challenge is to create the flag of a US State that does not currently exist. It could be...

• a state that was proposed, but never realized in OTL
• a state that could be added in the future
• a state that might come to exist as a result of splitting a state like Texas or California into multiple states
• a completely fictional state from an ATL

The Commonwealth of Jerusalem's Lot

In the wake of the Stuart Restoration and the return of Charles I to the throne from his exile in France, there came a question of what to do with the radical sects and political groups that had supported the Interregnum once their leaders had been hanged, drawn and quartered. The solution would be a massive wave of transportation to the North American colonies, seen as an effective way to remove these groups from proximity to power while simultaneously Anglicizing territory disputed with the French in North America. While these involuntary colonists, almost all of them various flavors of dissident Puritans, would settle almost entirely in New England by far the highest concentration would be in the territory historically known as Maine.

Within the new Puritan communities by far the strongest faction would be the group known as the Fifth Monarchists, with a radical plan to create a "heavenly society" inspired both by the age old eschatology of the Four Kingdoms of Daniel and the numerological importance of the year 1666. Establishing a radical and borderline theocratic regime on the small colony, renaming it Jerusalem's Lot in the process, the grip of the Fifth Monarchists would begin to wane after the promised year came and went without some sort of divine sign or revelation. With the fall of the Fifth Monarchists from grace other dissenting sects would exert their independence from the central authority of the colony even as its government fell under the sway of those few Leveller thought leaders that had escaped the noose in the mother country.

As time went on, this history of religious pluralism and populist governance would attract other heterodox religious groups, and while the colony was folded into Massachusetts on paper as a means of subverting the so-called "Radical Colony", locals would exercise a fair amount of autonomy throughout the eighteenth century. With the outbreak of hostilities between Britain and the colonies, 'Salem's Lot would send its own delegation separate from that of Massachusetts in the hope of finally achieving political independence. The colony would prove itself throughout the American Civil War, as the conflict would become known, overcoming an attempt to carve a loyalist province out from within its borders and expanding into the neighboring land territory of Nova Scotia, cutting the island off from the mainland. Having fought off both New Ireland and Nova Scotia, the colony's pleas would be answered, becoming the fourteenth state in 1790 as the Commonwealth of Jerusalem's Lot.

In the early republican period, the Commonwealth would prove one of the loudest voices for religious toleration and natural rights, born both of a staunchly Leveller political culture and a deep memory of the vulnerability created by religious infighting inherited from the early years of the colony, attracting groups such as the Society of Universal Friends and a variety of French and English utopian socialists. As the nineteenth century bore on, 'Salem's Lot would become a hotbed of abolitionist fervor even compared to the rest of New England, and would vehemently oppose the persecution that had driven the Latter Day Saints from New York State to Illinois. Although there were few LDS members in the state and some were opposed to his plans for compensated manumission of slaves, the Commonwealth went heavily for Smith in the 1844 election, fighting on the Union side in the resulting American Wars of Religion.

Union victory and the death of slavery would see the expansion of the Leveller ethos beyond the Commonwealth as a massive influx of European radicals driven out of the continent in reaction to the failed 1848 revolutions and the spirit of the times during the Third Great Awakening would combine to see the flowering of new religious movements, political models and intentional communities throughout the United States. In the modern day, the influence of Salem's Lot is largely seen as a positive one, having provided a longstanding bastion of religious pluralism and political freedom that has undoubtedly steered its neighbors and the nation as a whole steadily between the twin perils of the reactionary retrenchment of the old aristocratic classes and the atheistic radicalism of the Nihilist International.


What do you all think? The initial idea popped into my head today as an AHC to create a more diverse and tolerant religious and political landscape in the early US, and try and puzzle through some of the resulting knock on effects. This challenge came along and it seemed to fit nicely so here it is! It's relatively simple all told, I started with the flag of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, used the blue field from the existing Maine flag, flipped the colors of the St. George's cross to represent New England, and added a red lion to represent the Fifth Monarchists, just not the incredibly complicated one the group used historically. They're widely regarded as extreme by 'Salem's Lot nowadays but their rhetoric about creating a pure and good society worthy of God's Kingdom has lingered in the state ever since even as the concept migrated from "ironclad Puritanism" to "Leveller-inspired liberalism".

To that end I also changed the Fifth Monarchist slogan from "...will rouse..." to "...has roused...", a change made following the Commonwealth's strong abolitionist stand leading up to the American Wars of Religion, an earlier but slightly longer Civil War/Mexican-American War hybrid based on President Smith's religion as well as his support for Texas annexation and proposals to end slavery that had so fragmented the American religious landscape between Northern and Southern branches of the major protestant denominations. Made up of the territory of OTL Maine and New Brunswick, Jerusalem's Lot is an important leftward influence in the United States, held up as an example by more idealistic liberals, religious dissenters and utopian socialists across the country even as the politicians of the Commonwealth have taken a hard line against the Nihilist school of Anarchism that has spread like a cancer out of Russia ever since the 1920s. Fun fact!- Texas has been governed under Fourierist principles since its annexation, having fought with the Union against Mexico and the Christian States of America during the AWR and Illinois remains the heartland of the LDS church instead of Utah.

State of Sawaiki (Guam and Northern Marianas)

"What is in a name? A name defines who you are. Most, if not all have one at birth, granted by another, but rarely does one change it for any reason. But a name for a place is somewhat different. Names that some had used for their homes for a long time can be rewritten by others on a whim. Others do not even have one, leaving explorers from distant lands to impose it on them. Ours is no different, named after a distant queen half a world away. Even now, names are being imposed by men from distant lands, and our people lack the will to refute them, not when the price is too grave.

But a name defines us as a people, as a land, and the Chamorro had long lacked one for the state they call home. Congress may find it trivial, but to us, it means something far more. For too long, we have carried the names bestowed by others. It is time we choose our own."

- Adam Crisostomo, 1st Governor of the State of the Northern Marianas, later the State of Sawaiki (proto-Nuclear Polynesian for 'homeland).

At first glance, the state flag of Sawaiki is intended to draw parallels to the canton of the famed Betsy Ross flag, highlighting the state's ties and history with the United States. Made up of a ring of fifteen stars behind a blue field instead of the typical thirteen (representing the original Thirteen Colonies), each star represents an island or island cluster in the northern Marianas. Placed in a white field are a red crescent to the right, representing the shape of the islands' arc and its adjacent Mariana Trench. To the bottom left is the four-star version of the Southern Cross, representing the four populated islands of Saipan, Guam, Tinian and Rota. The choice of colours for the flag, more than just another borrowing from the Star-Spangled Banner, reflects the desire for peace for the islanders in reflection of its bloody history in the World Wars. In all, despite its simplistic design, every section of Sawaiki's flag is carefully chosen to reflect its storied past and geography.

US State of Selene

The American colonization of the lunar surface began in 2029 through the Artemis program. The first true colonists to the moon were labourers sent by the American Lunar Colonization Authority (ALCA) to build the final habitation site and extract the resources on the moon. In the 2040s, the first civilian colonists arrived. By July of 2069, there were enough colonists to offically declare statehood. The statehood process took 11 years to finalize as there was heavy debate about adding a new state, similar to the debates about Puerto Rico, Douglass, and Greater Idaho. The American People's Party pushed for statehood while the Democratic Coalition Party pushed for leaving the lunar territory stateless.

The design of the flag is as follows. The dark grey background represents Outer Space where the state resides. The large grey sphere represents the moon itself. The semi-circle of stars represents the 11 lunar group cities and the two stars above represent the orbiting cities of Armstrong and Aldrin. The large blue star represents the colony itself. 2076 is when the state gained statehood. "An Appeal to Heaven" is a motto that originates from the American Revolutionary War that addresses the ideas of the right of revolution in the face of tyranny. In this case, the motto gained another meaning as instead of appealing to heaven for the right to revolt, the Appeal to Heaven is from the Lunar Americans to the Terran Americans to grant them statehood. It has been noted that the original designer of the flag, Territorial Rep. Adrian Hubble (APP-GI) said that it was supposed to be "An Appeal From Heaven", but he lost the note before he sent it out, leaving it with the more historical significant motto.

The State of Selene technically has two mottos: "An Appeal to Heaven" and "One Small Step, One Giant Leap", the latter being a reference to what Neil Armstrong said when he first stepped foot on the moon and is the official motto of the state.

There is also a very large independence movement in Selene, with the Lunar National Party gaining a third of the seats in the legislature and usually winning about 18% of the popular vote in most elections. The current face of the movement is Harold Sanderson (LNP-ARM) who calls for both greater independence for Selene, but also for the creation of a lunar military to utilize against the Chinese Lunar Colony of Chang'e and the European Lunar Colony of Cynthia.

Selene is a religiously diverse nation. The largest religion in the state is Christianity (51.3%) which is further divided into Catholicism (28.5%), Orthodox (28.2%) and Protestantism (43.3%). The largest protestant denomination is the American Lunar Church, an offshoot of United Methodist Church (One of the major splits of the Methodist Church split the UMC into the Traditionalist Methodist Church after a disagreement over LGBTQ+ rights and Cybernetics). Other large religious groups include Atheism (19.4%), Islam (18.7%), Buddhism (5.5%) Neopaganism (3.1%), and various other religion groups (2.0%).

State of Missouri

Brief History
Missouri was the first state to join the Union from the US portion of occupied Louisiana. Initially Free Soil, fallout from the British-US Treaty of 1831 to prevent war arising from disagreements over the division of French Louisiana - primarily the growing strengths of the (Indian) Confederacy in the north and increasing British influence in the Commonwealth of New Orleans - where both polities also agreed in principle to phase out all slave trade, led to the then state government re-imposing slavery.
Despite this Missouri was a staging ground for US militia assisting the Coloradan War of Independence that saw Tehas, Rio Grande, and New/Nuevo Mexico leave the Mexican States and form the Republic of the Colorados.
Missouri would be the 3rd state to join the Slaver Rebellion in 1854 following Federal attempts to expand abolition, an act that saw portions of the state briefly occupied by Coloradan and Confederate troops.
The state was readmitted to the Union in 1857 with little changes beyond the abolition of slavery. Even until the 1990s the State of Missouri was dominated by conservative and protectionist interests.

The Flag
The current version of the state flag was adopted in 1991 following a referendum by the newly inaugurated liberal government who sought to replace state symbols from the Slavery Era.
The winning entry retained the base diagonal stripes, themselves atypical for US designs, but dropped the State Seal. Instead it adds white stars in the base & fly corners and fleurdelys on the central stripe. The creator claimed this symbolised US Republican control over a formerly French Imperial watershed.

State of Iceland.

As part of their efforts to ensure the continuity of the American Republic, successive governments of the United States of America attempted to seize Canada, either in 1776 or 1812, at which point they succeeded in expelling the British from the Canada.

In the absence of a better place to shelter, many of the Loyalist British refugees would move to Iceland, as it was close, large and the climate was relatively similar. The overflowing government of the Kingdom of Denmark would be powerless to contain that wave of refugees, which would cause one of the greatest famines in the history of the island (even now, the period 1813 - 1816 is remembered in the State of Iceland as " the years of famine ").

Between 1813 and 1840, the island would be the scene of growing disputes between Denmark, the United States and Great Britain: Denmark demanded that it be returned, Great Britain refused to do so, and the United States wanted the British to leave as soon as possible. This long-standing conflict would eventually erupt in the Ice War of 1841.

The best that can be said about this war is that it was short: the Americans would manage to land an expeditionary force in Iceland by circumventing the Royal Navy's attempts to blockade the island (which was closer to the United States than to the British bases in Bermuda). . This force would raise the American flag in New Huron (previously known as Reykjavyk) on July 4, 1841, before proceeding to eradicate all traces of Loyalist resistance.

By the time the Americans inherited the island, which would remain in their hands by the Peace of Havana in 1842, they would find that it had a population of about 60,000 people, at least 70% Loyalists and Canadian emigrants who had settled their royals there, and the rest an oppressed and brutalized minority of Danish Icelanders, regarded as heretics deserving only of contempt by the British. Unfortunately for these people, the new American administrators would be just as cruel to them; the good lands, which the British Loyalists had confiscated from the Icelanders in their day, would be confiscated and distributed to American settlers.

At the beginning of the 1870s the new population infusion would take place: at least 10,000 African American settlers would be settled in Iceland, thus fulfilling the promise made by Lincoln to give them land. (Considering that Lincoln had been assassinated two months before the first settler ship arrived, we have no way of knowing if he agreed with this way of making his promise come true, but probably not.)

World War II and the Cold War would go a long way towards investing the Federal Government in what had hitherto been considered remote and uninteresting territory: new strategic needs meant that Iceland was the front line of battle in the North Atlantic. Huge numbers of military personnel, submarine, aircraft and missile detection and listening equipment would be deployed, and with them would come much-needed investment in infrastructure.

Today, the state of Iceland is a fiercely republican stronghold, in which only the descendants of black communities vote for the Democrats; the withdrawal of the military during the strategic withdrawal after the end of the Cold War plunged the State into an economic depression from which it is barely recovering thanks to fishing quotas. Likewise, the State confronts the political activism of the Independent Iceland Movement, led mainly by the very minority and for practical purposes completely Americanized "Icelandic-Americans"...

The flag

The flag is a black variant of the Icelandic OTL flag, referring to the Scandinavian heritage of the state and its integration into the United States. The black color represents the harsh polar night or African Americans (depending on who you ask) while the star symbolizes membership in the American Union.

History of the Oklahoma Republic:
Area that is now the Oklahoma Republic was originally claimed by France as part of Louisiana and was ceded to Spain after the 7 Years' War. It remained under Spanish rule until the Spanish-American War of 1825-1827. It was annexed as part of Louisiana Territory after the war. With the statehood of Louisiana and Missouri in 1833 the territory became Unorganized Territory. Eastern part of the Republic was admitted as a part of the State of Arkansas in 1833, with the western portion only joining it in 1844 as the State of Cheyenne. Following the death of former President Andrew Jackson in 1845 the state was renamed after him. In 1888, following "the International Punitive Expedition Against Slavery" (also known as the 4th Anglo-American War) the state became a part of the Republic of Upper Louisiana along with the States of Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas as the United States of America was disbanded. Upper Louisiana joining the Union of American States in 1898 (Virginia and North Carolina being the other members) lead to Mexican government, already nervous of USA patriotism and restorationism in Upper Louisiana, first joining the International League in the 2nd League Council in Beijing 1897. In the Council Mexico had managed to confirm the next League Council in Mexico City. The 1900 Mexico City League Council agreed to carry out "the International Punitive Expedition Against the Reunification of the United States of America". Republic of Upper Louisiana was afterwards dissolved. Former States of Missouri and Kansas became the Canadian Province of Upper Louisiana. While the area of the former State of Jackson between the North and South Platte Rivers was annexed to the Canadian Province of Missouri. Eastern parts of the former State of Arkansas was annexed by the Republic of (Lower) Louisiana. Western parts of the state and remaining parts of Jackson were unified into the Oklahoma Republic.
Flag:
Flag of the State of Jackson was divided in half. The upper half having a Golden Sunburst on White with a Brown Equestrian silhouette of Andrew Jackson. The silhouette to honor the state's namesake and the sunburst for hope and a brighter future. The lower half Union Blue with the state's name, the year of admission and the year of renaming into Jackson in white.


The Upper half of the flag from the OTL flag of the city of Jacksonville, Florida.

State of Ryukyu

After the American-Japanese split of the 1960’s, which saw Japan, ruled by the Japan Socialist Party after winning the 1960 election, turn towards neutral isolationism once again, the US government took efforts to make the Ryukyu Islands, once planned to be returned to Japan, into an official part of the United States, territorially and culturally, so it can serve as the more reliable springboard for operations in Asia compared to Japan. Luckily the occupation since the end of WWII made the task somewhat easier, with US forces having transferred their personnel from mainland Japan to bolster their grip, yet there was resistance by the locals who see the US as just another imperialist power, with some taking up armed conflict to expunge them (supplied by communist powers hostile to the US no less). After decades of low intensity conflict and fierce negotiations over the future of the islands, especially over concerns of another Philipine War-esque fiasco, an agreement was made to allow US sovereignty over the region while allowing autonomy of sorts, with Japan renouncing claims over the islands in the 1980’s. Thus in the spring of 1995, the State of Ryukyu was made, becoming the official 51st state.

The design of the flag draws from the history of the Ryukyu Islands, especially during WWII (as well as the OTL flag proposal for Okinawa), with the color red obviously representing the bloodshed there. The white represents the Ryukyuans, culture and all. The blue represents the seas surrounding the islands along with the freedom the people have. The yellow represents the prosperity the state has under the US flag, with the triangular arrangement being similar to the mitsudomoe, the symbol on the flag of the Ryukyu Kingdom. And of course, the Shisa, the mythical lion dog, obviously the symbol of the Ryukuan people, of which the open mouth male type is deliberate, with its position to ward off evil, in this case, foreign aggression and domestic subversion.

The State of Humboldt

The state of Humboldt consists of what was originally northern California and southwestern Oregon. With the political upheaval of the early 21st century that led to the granting of statehood to Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico, the Democratic Party secured itself a significant majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate for the foreseeable future. This led to what many dubbed the "Fratricide Movement". National political leaders from both sides of the aisle began efforts to break up several states in order to gain more seats in Congress. From this movement Humboldt was the only new state to be created.

The movement toward Humboldt statehood was born of the efforts to create the State of Jefferson. Once statehood appeared to be headed toward reality many of the constituents in the San Francisco region began to raise concerns over the naming of the state after Thomas Jefferson. While honoring the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and the third President of the U.S. seemed appropriate, there were simply too many people uncomfortable with the fact that he was a slave owner. The name of Humboldt was offered since that was the county planned as the seat of power for the State of Jefferson. The county was named after Humboldt Bay which was named in honor of Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt, a Prussian naturalist. Alexander von Humboldt was a much more palatable namesake because of his belief in equality and liberty. The Humboldt state motto is in fact a quote taken from Humboldt's writings.

The flag was designed to intentionally harken back to previous versions of the California state flag, The red star in the upper left corner is in honor of the state from which Humboldt was born. This red star in the California Republic "Bear Flag" itself is in honor of California's "Lone Star Flag" , a white field with a single 5-pointed star upon it.
The Golden Eagle is Humboldt's state bird and it represents honesty, truth, majesty, strength, courage, and wisdom.
The red bar at the fly end is an homage to the first official " Bear Flag" of California created by Pio Pico in the mid 1800s.

Capital: Eureka
Largest city: San Francisco
Date admitted to Union: 2038
State Motto: There are no races nobler than others