Weekly Flag Challenge: New Challenges & Previous Winners

[sandpro]

FLAG CHALLENGE #259: Forget Columbus

The year is 1425 and the first ship of Zeng He's massive expedition has made landfall in the OTL's Puget Sound, USA. The settlements that follow establish the Chinese as the "Discoverers of the Americas". The Confucian teachings instilled in these early explorers lead them to value cooperation with the native tribes as opposed to conquest. This cooperation leads to the rapid modernization of America's natives. Among these modern ideas were forging, mining and construction techniques, weaponry, military tactics, farming practices, and medical advancements (viral inoculation being key). Because of this massive divergence in timelines, the late 15th century European explorers encountered exponentially different native cultures across the Americas than those of the OTL.

The task is to create a flag from this NEW New World. It can be a nation, a tribe, a city-state, a kingdom, or... whatever from 1500-Present. Allow your imagination to run wild with the possibilities of two continents where none of the OTL boundaries or governments ever existed.

Submissions Open: Now
Submissions Close: Monday, November 29th, 15:00 GMT

Please remember to review the RULES, especially concerning flag size. For an image in a single-flag entry, the shortest side must be 600 pixels or less, and the longest side must be 1200 pixels or less.

 

[sandpro]

FLAG CHALLENGE #259: Forget Columbus

The year is 1425 and the first ship of Zeng He's massive expedition has made landfall in the OTL's Puget Sound, USA. The settlements that follow establish the Chinese as the "Discoverers of the Americas". The Confucian teachings instilled in these early explorers lead them to value cooperation with the native tribes as opposed to conquest. This cooperation leads to the rapid modernization of America's natives. Among these modern ideas were forging, mining and construction techniques, weaponry, military tactics, farming practices, and medical advancements (viral inoculation being key). Because of this massive divergence in timelines, the late 15th century European explorers encountered exponentially different native cultures across the Americas than those of the OTL.

The task is to create a flag from this NEW New World. It can be a nation, a tribe, a city-state, a kingdom, or... whatever from 1500-Present. Allow your imagination to run wild with the possibilities of two continents where none of the OTL boundaries or governments ever existed.

Submissions Open: Now
Submissions Close: Monday, November 29th, 15:00 GMT

Please remember to review the RULES, especially concerning flag size. For an image in a single-flag entry, the shortest side must be 600 pixels or less, and the longest side must be 1200 pixels or less.

Deadline for submission has been extended to December 6th, 15:00 GMT.
If no other entries are submitted Born in the USSA will be the default winner.

 

[sandpro]

Poll is up

 

[Born in the USSA]

Looks like I won this round!

The Eagle Banner: The Haudenosaunee

Here's a flag for an expansive Iroquois Confederacy that forms an increasingly close alliance with a second Viking attempt at a Vinland settlement to better fortify themselves against those they consider uncivilized savages to their south and west. The Eagle Banner is a war flag combining the bald eagle common to the region, the Norse Raven Banner and the tree and wampum belt of the Belt of Hiawatha. At their height the Haudenosaunee had ironfisted control of everything from the St. Lawrence seaway to the Great Lakes.

 

[Born in the USSA]

Flag Challenge 260: Let Your Freak Flag Fly!

Have another nifty future history challenge, this one inspired by Transmetropolitan! Because the times they are a changin' and social attitudes with them your challenge is to create a pride flag for some future ethnic group or social minority. Maybe it's something too small scale or cutting edge now to have a cohesive identity to rally around or maybe it's some wacky scifi thing that can only spring up in the coming future? I leave it up to you all, but for the sake of propriety and good taste please value interesting design and backstory over some desire to shock and offend your fellow members- I don't feel most people here need to be told this but I want to make sure all the bases are covered. All that fussiness out of the way just have fun and try to give it your all!

Submissions Open: Now
Submissions Close: Monday, December 20, 10:30 PM Central Standard Time Extended to that same time Friday if there aren't at least 3 entries by Monday, with the option to extend it past the holiday if necessary

Please remember to review the RULES, especially concerning flag size. For an image in a single-flag entry, the shortest side must be 600 pixels or less, and the longest side must be 1200 pixels or less.

 

[sandpro]

CONGRATULATIONS to Born in the USSA for winning this week's challenge!
Apologies for the delay and a big thank you to BitUSSA for charging ahead with the new challenge!

 

[Born in the USSA]

And the winner is @TwiliAlchemist!

"What Once Was Dead Shall Live Once More": The Rise of Neo-Orphism

​

Neo-Orphism is a eclectic neo-pagan movement that grew to power in the later 2020s. It's rise can be traced to the various climate accidents of the 2020s including the 2023 Gulf Coast Floods, Hurricane Lucio in 2025, and the 2028 Midwest Tornado Season. Various doomsday cults rose during this time, the Millenarianist Church of Dixie, the Sovereign Order of the Xanthic King, Gaia Liberation Army, the Atlantean Esoteric Society, the Order of Knights of the Barracks of Saint Daniel of Jerusalem and Babylon, and the Children of Thanos. Neo-Orphism was originally seen as a doomsday cult, but it eventually grew into a religion that now has a large amount of converts in the nations of Cascadia, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Spain, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Panama, and Cuba.

Theologically, Neo-Orphic adherents believe that death and rebirth are a natural part of life. To this end, follows appeal to the psychopomps (Hermes, Orpheus, Anubis, Charon, Valkyrie, and Saint Peter) to take them to the afterlife and into the Court of the Zagreus (Zagreus decides where you end up in the postressurected world, judging you for your life and deciding what you will be reborn.) and they appeal to the Gods of Death and Rebirth in his court, including Osiris, Persephone, Hades, Jesus, Dionysus, and Baldr, to appeal to Zagreus' judgement.

Neo-Orphism is actively suppressed in various nations around the world, including in the People's Republic of China, Italy, Grece, Turkey, Kurdistan, South Africa, Hungary, the United States, the Nordic Union, Greenland, the Vatican City, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Russia.

The chief "rival" of Neo-Orphism is Ragnarökism, which is a Norse Neo-Pagan religion that has most of its adherents in the Scandinavian nations and worships Baldr, Hoenir, Magni, Modi, Njord, Vidar, Vali, and Hod. It believes that the world is in a Post-Ragnarök state and the people of the world must act accordingly.

The flag of Neo-Orphism contains four colors. The Purple represents the Court of Zagreus, the Red represents the blood of those who are being reborn, the Black represents death, and the White represents life. The harp represents the psychopomps that bring the living to be reborn.

 

[TwiliAlchemist]

FLAG CHALLENGE #261: Ad Diaspora Per Astra

"They looked back towards their city. Thousands were fleeing from the burning husk of their homeland. They only carried a holy book, their personal belongings, and their young sister. They turned and continued to run towards the nearest town. They were going to survive."

Your goal is to create a flag for a diaspora group. They can be the result of migration, exile, war, or internal restructuring (e.g. the Inca or the Soviets). It does not need to be an OTL culture or religious group. It can be any time period or setting. Please be respectful.

Submissions Open: Now
Submissions Close: Saturday, January 15th, 11:59 CST (GMT-6)

Please remember to review the RULES, especially concerning flag size. For an image in a single-flag entry, the shortest side must be 600 pixels or less, and the longest side must be 1200 pixels or less

 

[Remitonov]

FLAG CHALLENGE #261: Ad Diaspora Per Astra

"They looked back towards their city. Thousands were fleeing from the burning husk of their homeland. They only carried a holy book, their personal belongings, and their young sister. They turned and continued to run towards the nearest town. They were going to survive."

Your goal is to create a flag for a diaspora group. They can be the result of migration, exile, war, or internal restructuring (e.g. the Inca or the Soviets). It does not need to be an OTL culture or religious group. It can be any time period or setting. Please be respectful.

Submissions Open: Now
Submissions Close: Saturday, January 15th, 11:59 CST (GMT-6)

Please remember to review the RULES, especially concerning flag size. For an image in a single-flag entry, the shortest side must be 600 pixels or less, and the longest side must be 1200 pixels or less

You have my attention, but just to clarify, is it possible for the flag to represent a nation-state or subnational division created by said diaspora, such Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Russia (despite it being 99% non-Jewish by now).

 

[TwiliAlchemist]

You have my attention, but just to clarify, is it possible for the flag to represent a nation-state or subnational division created by said diaspora, such Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Russia (despite it being 99% non-Jewish by now).

Yes, this is 100% within the guidelines.

 

[TwiliAlchemist]

FLAG CHALLENGE #261: Ad Diaspora Per Astra

"They looked back towards their city. Thousands were fleeing from the burning husk of their homeland. They only carried a holy book, their personal belongings, and their young sister. They turned and continued to run towards the nearest town. They were going to survive."

Your goal is to create a flag for a diaspora group. They can be the result of migration, exile, war, or internal restructuring (e.g. the Inca or the Soviets). It does not need to be an OTL culture or religious group. It can be any time period or setting. Please be respectful.

Submissions Open: Now
Submissions Close: Saturday, January 15th, 11:59 CST (GMT-6)

Please remember to review the RULES, especially concerning flag size. For an image in a single-flag entry, the shortest side must be 600 pixels or less, and the longest side must be 1200 pixels or less

Since no one has submitted anything by the date, I will extend it until Friday January 21st, 11:59 CST (GMT-6).

 

[TwiliAlchemist]

Polling thread is up

FLAG CHALLENGE #261: Ad Diaspora Per Astra

The goal for this flag challenge was to create a flag for a diaspora group. They can be the result of migration, exile, war, or internal restructuring (e.g. the Inca or the Soviets).

 

[TwiliAlchemist]

Congratulations to @Born in the USSA for winning by a single vote.

 

[Born in the USSA]

Flag Challenge 262: Say You Want A Revolution!

Inspired by some talk about politics and ideology in the AH tropes thread I wanted to do another challenge about my favorite topic of all time, weird politics and revolutions! In the interest of diverse results I've split this challenge into a few steps:

1. Pick any ideology from the Could Have Been ideology thread (keep in mind a lot of them aren't threadmarked!)
2. Declare your choice in the discussion thread to claim it. If someone's already claimed your choice you'll have to pick another, there are plenty of strange ones to choose from.
3. Create a flag for a revolutionary nation that adopts your chosen ideology. Set it in the past/present/future, whatever works, as long as it's consistent with the development and history of the ideology in question.

Submissions Open: Now
Submissions Close: Friday, February 14, 10:30 PM Central Standard Time To be extended as necessary

Please remember to review the RULES, especially concerning flag size. For an image in a single-flag entry, the shortest side must be 600 pixels or less, and the longest side must be 1200 pixels or less.

 

[Born in the USSA]

I put up a link in the discussion thread to the ideologies without thread marks as well.

Unrelated,@TwiliAlchemist would you be able to quote the entrant that got me the win in your congratulatory post? That way people reading the thread can see all the winning flags without wading through the discussions and entries thread.

 

[Born in the USSA]

To those who didn't catch it in the discussion thread the new deadline for my challenge is Wednesday February 23 at 10:30 PM CST

 

[Born in the USSA]

@UrbanNight wins this one!

Holy Kingdom of Italy

The creation of Catholic Action by Pope Pius X as an act against intransigent innovators, and against modernism in general and socialism and anarchism in particular, began a course to ultimately to restore Papal authority in Italy. The organisation was founded on four aspects: obedience to the Pope, education based on Catholic study, living according to the principles of Catholicism, and a widespread commitment to charity towards the weakest and the poorest. It was this last aspect that would prove to be the most popular with the Italian peoples during the Great Depression.

The Great Depression led to a period of turmoil, the Red Years, in which communists, socialists, anarchists, and revolutionary nationalists fought with the Royal Italian Army for control of the destiny of Italy. Catholic Action's opposition to materialism, which was seen as one of the primary causes of the Great Depression, allowed it to become the leading party of government in the 1925 general election. With this new power, the government nationalised various banks' holdings and enacted numerous financial system reforms.

The Lateran Treaties of 1929 agreed that the Leonine City and all other church properties would be recognised as a separate state from the Kingdom of Italy, though the Pope could and would continue to act within Italy through Catholic Action. The indemnity paid to the Holy See, for the Italian seizure of the Papal states, took the form of 3,225,000 lire per annum (from the Law of Guarantees upon which parts of the Lateran Treaties were based), plus monies or properties of equivalent value for those 59 years since the Capture of Rome with interest. The greater part of these indemnities took the form of various nationalised holdings taken from the banks. Per the Lateran Treaties, these new church properties would not have extraterritorial status within Italy, but would have exemption from expropriation and taxes.

This was seen by the socialists and communists as a move to transfer power from a newer, modern authority, the business class, to an older, traditional authority, the Catholic Church. Thus they launched the Red March, an attempted coup d'état to put the Socialist Party into government, after the 1930 general election placed them as the largest party and potentially capable of forming a viable coalition government. The resultant flight of Victor Emmanuel III to Naples so shortly after the murder of his son Umberto, Prince of Piedmont, in Paris the year before, caused a crisis in government as the socialists and communists held parts of Rome and threatened to enter the Leonine City to remove the Pope as well. This crisis was ended when Prince Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Aosta, the Undefeated Duke, rallied the Royal Italian Army and veterans of his Undefeated Army, the former Italian Third Army, to bloodily retake the city, supported at times by the Pontifical Swiss Guard, Noble Guard, Palatine Guard, and Papal Gendermerie Corps.

The death of Victor Emmanuel III in 1931 and his succession by Emmanuel Philibert as King of Italy, marked a new stage in Italian politics, as the new king was more involved in the day-to-day business of government and worked closely with the Pope and by extension Catholic Action to create a new system based on Maurrasian Integralism. The core tenets of Integralism were: exclusion of Protestants, Jews, Freemasons, foreigners, and all other held to be intrinsically non-Italian; balance respect for local cultural particularities with the interests of the state and the monarchy; achieve social order through the Catholic Church as a source of moral authority and cultural unity. This was underlined by Emmanuel Philibert's coronation with the Iron Crown of Lombardy by the Pope in Milan, as with the Kings of Italy within the Holy Roman Empire; a new state would be created - once again, Holy; once again, Roman; and once again, an Empire.

 

[UrbanNight]

Flag Challenge #263: The Rus, but which Rus?

Inspired by a recent resurgence of interest in the flag of the Novgorod Republic, your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is:

Design a flag for a Rus' or East Slavic state that is NOT a successor state of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, Tsardom of Muscovy, Russian Empire, Soviet Union, or Russian Federation, but can be/have been a break-away state from any of these.

Submissions Close: 23:59 GMT 14th March

Please remember to review the RULES, especially concerning flag size. For an image in a single-flag entry, the shortest side must be 600 pixels or less, and the longest side must be 1200 pixels or less.

 

[UrbanNight]

Congratulations to @Transparent Blue for winning this round!

Okay, I banged something out quickly.

Dalian Special Administrative Region
中華人民共和國大连市特別行政區
Специальный административный район Дальний

>be Stalin
>have brilliant idea
>occupy Dalian in 1945 after Japan surrenders
>write it in Treaty of San Francisco so we never have to leave
>after all, it was originally Russian city
>pull a Kaliningrad and expel Japanese and Chinese "collaborators"
>replace with ethnic Russians to ensure loyalty
>Dalniy ASSR becomes massive Soviet naval base and warm water port
>use as base to support CCP to win Chinese Civil War
>use as base to support DPRK to win Korean Unification War
>everyone pats me on the back for clever strategic decision
>Chinese workers start to outnumber Russians
>China and Korea write Soviet support out of official history
>other Communist countries call me imperialist hypocrite and side with China
>asian countries boycott Moscow Olympics
>ethnic riots every month between Chinese and Russians
>other separatists getting inspiration
>have to give to China under international pressure
>at least my historical legacy will live on
>China renames Stalin Road to Mao Zedong Road out of spite

feelsbadman.jpg

(IOTL, Dalian was originally founded as one of China's foreign concessions to Russia, called Dalniy ("far away"). It was later lost to the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War. After the surrender of Japan, the Soviets occupied it again from 1945 to 1955, naming a major road after Stalin. The POD is that they decide not to leave.)

 

[Transparent Blue]

Flag Challenge #264: Virgin vs. Chad
Inspired by the popular meme, design TWO alternate history flags for a place; one must be a wimpy/boring/normal version of the place (the "Virgin" version) and the other must be an audacious/impressive/absurd version of the SAME place (the "Chad" version).

Requirements:

• The title of the entry must be in the format "The Virgin [name of wimpy version] vs. The Chad [name of audacious version]"
• The write-up must be two bullet point lists, one for each version.
• You can interpret "wimpy", "boring", "normal", "audacious", "impressive" and "absurd" any way you want. You can also be ironic about it.

Submissions Close: 06:00 GMT 29th March

Please remember to review the RULES, especially concerning flag size. For each image in a multiple-flag entry, the shortest side must be 400 pixels or less, and the longest side must be 600 pixels or less.