Flag Challenge #276: Vichy Earth
Create a flag for Earth, which has become a client state of alien invaders.
Create a flag for Earth, which has become a client state of alien invaders.
Entry 1 said:Earth State
When the xenoi came, humanity resisted. But divided and mildly technologically outmatched humanity was eventually subdued. The xenoi set up an orbital weapons system to enforce their authority. Wile the xenoi did posses faster-than-light travel Earth was still distant and it too a long time get their. So they allowed a collaborator government to rule Earth in their name.
The delta symbols is not a xenos symbol, but they did not have any symbol that looked good to human eyes. So the Delta was used as it was a symbol that the humans already associated with outer space. The symbol on the fly represents a unified Earth.
Secretly, the reversed canton design is uncommon among human flags, it is meant to represent a upside-down flag, a sign of distress.
Entry 2 said:Earth - Fef Colonization Administration
The Fef were literally little green men.
At least on the outside.
Inside the Fef are a combination of nanotech and organic biologic systems from a high gravity world near the center of the Milky Way. The Fef had been created as tools by the Meer over 200 million earth years ago to escape the growing maelstrom of the ever increasing singularity at the center of the galaxy. The Fef had been sent ahead to find and prepare worlds for the Meer to temporally live on until the next suitable system was found. While the Fef were spreading throughout the galaxy the Meer would eventually go extinct as they came to rely on their machines to do the thinking more and more.
The Fef meanwhile began to evolve themselves while still retaining their core programming of saving the Meer. Finding more and more habitable worlds with sentient and sapient life, the Fef altered their initial mission to also rescue and expand those races throughout the galaxy. Whether they wanted to or not.
As some of these races fought against the Fef’s forced deportations and colonizations to other worlds, the Fef came to the conclusion that those species were not suitable for saving. The decision was made to lock these species to their home planets until the Maelstrom caught up to those portions of the galaxy.
That brings us to Earth.
At first, humans were both fearful and awed by the Fef. When we were offered another planet some nations took the chance at heading to the stars. But others, realizing that they would only be shuttled to planets and not out exploring and claiming worlds for themselves eventually struck at the Fef. The war took over 50 Earth years, but the Fef either destroyed those humans or imprisoned the humans back on Earth.
Some of the Fef have come to the conclusion that not all humans fought and should be given another chance at rescue from the Maelstrom. So, Earth is on probation now. Depending on the behavior, intelligence, and civility some humans may be saved and recolonized on a planet further out on the Orion Arm of the Milky Way.
Flag: The Fef created flags, statutes, sound Idolism, and other symbols on many of the home worlds of the imprisoned planets for their respective sapient to have a symbol to attain the new planets initially offered them. In the case of Earth, the wide use of flags as national/tribal symbols was decided as the best way to give hope to those humans worthy of recolonization. The flag itself is based off of Fef/Meer cosmological measurement for travel within the Milky Way. The six pointed star with the white spot is an ancient symbol of the Meer home world. The locations of the dots throughout the flag are the positional coordinates of the Sol system in the Milky Way.
Entry 3 said:Erdan-3 Autonomous Unincorporated Territory.
When first contact occurred in 2024, humans had expected that their first contact would be with a Star Trek-style scout ship. Namely, composed of scientists and explorers from an altruistic and pacifist race that would have nothing but the most peaceful intentions towards other intelligent species that they found beyond the stars.
How wrong they were.
First contact would be with an automated probe from the Cyrania Hegemon, which would enter the solar system and begin scanning for bodies present. The only reason it was detected would be because one of the rockets that were part of That Afrikaner's attempts to travel to Mars would detect it. Naturally, those who received the message on Earth would take it as a mechanical failure (recordings record unflattering comments from ground control about the sobriety of the rocket pilots), so nothing would be done until the probe was detected on approach to Earth.
It was never known if it was the United States or Russia, and it does not matter too much: the fact would be that, as it approached Earth, the probe would be hit and destroyed with anti-satellite weapons. This event would be highly celebrated as a great deed on the part of humanity, as well as a watershed event in which they had saved the human species from "evil aliens". Another hypothesis suggests that the probe was actually shot down because it was mistaken for a spy satellite of a rival nation state.
What the humans did not expect was that, before dying, the probe would have the opportunity to send a distress signal to its home world...
The best that can be said for the subsequent War of Conquest of Erdan by Cyrania is that it was brief. Humanity, which counted the Space Shuttle and the Buran as its greatest achievements in aerospace engineering, and sending people to the Moon as the furthest distance a human being had been sent... was not prepared to face the sudden arrival of heavy fleets of ships of all types and sizes, which would arrive in a matter of weeks thanks to their powerful Phase Jump Engine technology, and the construction of powerful teleportation rings in Lunar Orbit. (Called "Hypergates", "Supergates" or other names, depending on which sci-fi franchise the humans were fans of)
After the dust settled on the graves of billions of humans, the Imperial administration found itself with the unenviable task of managing the mess the humans were making of the planet. Partly because the structure already existed, partly to stick a finger in the eye of the humans who had ignored it when they were still free, it was decided to build a planetary local government using the remnants of the old United Nations.
The Home Rule Government (self-government because it is not considered fully integrated into the Empire) would be given the name the planet had been given on Cyranian maps: "Erdan-3". In contrast to the old UN, the organization is heavily centralized from top to bottom and the "States" are as autonomous as the French provinces could be (virtually nothing). The main reason the "States" structure has been retained was because it was practical, even if larger States have been divided into multiple smaller States for ease of administration.
It is expected that when the minimum standards in science, technology, development and sanitation are reached, the Unincorporated Territory will become directly annexed by the Hegemon, although this is not expected to happen for at least the next 200 years.
(The flag uses the old United Nations emblem in gold on black, a combination more to the liking of the new lords. The blue cross comes from the Russian Navy flag, but using white instead of black. The eight stars come from the flag of the Azores Islands.)