Flag Friday: Flag of Utah by coolinwithcosta

For those who don't know, when the Mormons settled what would become Utah, they proposed a new state called "Deseret". It supposedly meant "honeybee" and even today you can still see bee imagery in many of Utah's state symbols. But what if Utah went all out with the bee imagery?

This is the "Flag of Utah" by coolinwithcosta. Its an alternate design that drops the current style of the flag (which is a just a blue background with the state seal) and enlarges the beehive in the seal. I especially like the 3D perspective coolinwithcosta used. It almost looks like the beehive is rising out of the flag.

The interesting thing about this flag is that it doesn't technically have to be from an alternate history. Many have lamented, like Cody Franklin, the lazy designs some state flags have where they just slap the state seal on a solid color background. Utah can still change their flag to something more imaginative. Although it doesn't have to be this flag, it is a good start.

Honorable mentions this week goes out to "The Divine Protectorate of Righteous Korea" by Xanthoc, "New World Holy Republic" by FlyingParafin and "Flag of Norwegian territories under the occupation of fascist Great Britain" by Mirror.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, DeviantArt and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Flag Friday: Spain-ized USA Flag by 3tmp

Alternate designs for famous flags are a staple of Flag Friday and today is no exception. So without further ado, what if the United States flag was made to resemble the flag of Spain:

This is the "Spain-ized USA Flag" by 3tmp. As you can see the flag has three horizontal bands of red (top), white (double width) and blue, with the national coat of arms on the hoist side of the white band, much like the current flag of Spain. Although as of late I've come to find flags that just slap on their coat of arms to be kind of lazily designed, I still enjoy the look of it. It is such an easy template to use that almost any flag could be redesigned to look like the flag of Spain.

That said, I have no idea if there is a timeline where a flag like this would arise. Maybe America has a second Civil War that leads to a Francoist style government arising in the 20th Century. Maybe Spain has nothing to do with this flag and instead a New Netherlands still exists and united with the English-speaking colonies to form a very different union that actually based their flag design off the Dutch flag. Or maybe this is what Crimea looks like if it was colonized by Americans. (Thanks for the commentators in Reddit for the ideas.) Where do you think this flag comes from?

Honorable mention this week goes out to "Communist Columbia" by gruff.jones.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Flag Friday: Directorate Regime of China by KuboCaskett

The artistic talent found in the alternate history community isn't just used for our own divergent timelines. Occasionally we put it to use in genres outside of our favorite one. For example, check out this flag:

This is the flag of the Directorate Regime of China and was designed by KuboCaskett. I linked to his DeviantArt page because I have been criticized in the past for not doing enough to promote the authors of whose works I feature...because being one of the few people who recommends good alternate history art is not doing enough (I'm not bitter, you're bitter). So please help silence a few detractors by clicking on the link.

Anywho, the flag is from Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War by by P. W. Singer and August Cole. I haven't read the book, but given the description, it seems to be a techno-thriller about some sort of near future world war involving the USA, Russia and China. It seems interesting, so I've added to my want-to-read pile on Goodreads, but I'm hear to talk about the flag, not the book.

I actually love the look of this flag. I always enjoyed the color black in flags and the...I'm going to say "eagle"...in the center is pretty awesome and looks almost fascist in its symbolism. If it is on that part of the political spectrum, I'm going to guess China is the bad guy in Ghost Fleet. Overall an awesome flag that introduced me to a new book and allowed me to express some frustrations apparently...sorry about that.

What do you guys think of the flag and has anyone read Ghost Fleet? Let me know in the comments.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Flag Friday: Monarchist Israel by gruff.jones and Marc Pasquin

Today we have a flag created by two alternate vexillogists to showcase. It is the flag of Monarchist Israel by gruff.jones and, my channel's official title card creator, Marc Pasquin:

This was initially created by gruff.jones, but when people pointed out that it had a lot of crosses for a Jewish flag, Marc stepped in and added some Stars of David. Thus I am considering this flag a collaboration of the two guys. Otherwise there aren't many notes to go with the flag. It has the white and blue of the current flag of Israel, along with monarchist symbols like the crown.

When I initially shared this flag on Twitter, Simone Zelitch (author of Judenstaat) asked: "What on earth would a monarchist Israel look like?" Well, that is a good question. My preliminary research couldn't find any modern references to supporters of a Jewish monarchy. Perhaps such a flag would exist in a world where Zionism evolved into support not just for a Jewish state, but also for a Jewish kingdom. I mean it seemed all the gentiles in Europe had them, why not Israel?

Or perhaps someone who claims to be the messiah gets enough followers that he and his issue are declared the new Royal Family of Israel. Perhaps someone who knows more about Jewish history can find a better point of divergence, because I do have trouble seeing what a monarchist Israel would look like.

Honorable mention this week also goes out to Marc for his Fascist California flag.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Flag Friday: Democratic China by JonathanCrumpet

I wondering if anyone considers the existence of a democratic China being one of those what ifs up there with Operation Sea Lion. Something everyone considers ASB, even though aliens, magic nor weird science is present. Nevertheless, that is the subject we are going to talk about on today's Flag Friday:

This is "Democratic China" by Reddit user JonathanCrumpet. Right off the bat, I need to talk about the background. White flags are always hard to feature because they tend to blend into the background of the post. That being said, its still a nice flag to look it. It appears Jon was using the colors of the Flag of the Republic of China (a.k.a. Taiwan), but changed the red background to white. My guess is whatever timeline this democratic China exists in doesn't want to be associated with the red background of the People's Republic.

But what about the timeline? Well there are a few potential points of divergence. Perhaps the Republic of China was more stable in the early 20th century and thus was able to avoid the warlords and other issues. Maybe the Nationalists won the Civil War and eventually evolved into a liberal republic. Of course, this could easily be a flag from a future history, one where the People's Republic finally institutes democracy (perhaps after rising sea waters that devastate Shanghai and other major cities get blamed on the Communist Party).

What timeline do you think this flag belongs in?

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Flag Friday: Fascist Flag of Spain by gruff.jones

I don't know why, but I always learn the most while writing Flag Fridays. Before I go any further, here is today's featured flag:

This is "Fascist Flag of Spain" by gruff.jones. It is one of two variants he created, but I personally liked this one the best. It uses arrows that gruff.jones describes as: the symbol of the shield of the monarchy of Ferdinand and Isabella and subsequent Catholic monarchs, representing a united Spain and the "symbol of the heroic virtues of the race."

Of course, some of you may be wondering: wasn't Spain fascist already? Well there appears to be some ambiguity about that if Wikipedia can be believed. Francoist Spain was certainly authoritarian and right-wing, but it seems the fascists were never a dominant force in the government. Native Spanish fascism, known as Falangism, actually did use the arrow symbolism, which makes me think that in the timeline where this flag comes from, Spain is unambiguously fascist. They may even be a minor member of the Axis powers if World War II happens on schedule.

How do you think history would have played out if Spain sided with the Nazis in WWII?

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Flag Friday: Flag of the Domination of Draka by KingWillhamII

I get nostalgic about the era when I first discovered alternate history. Soc.history.what.if was slowly being replaced by AlternateHistory.com and everyone seemed to have a GeoCities page. It was during that time when I first read Ian Montgomerie's take on SM Stirling's Draka books. Trying to make those books more "plausible" is a popular past time for alternate historians, but this was the first one I ever read.

So when I heard that Lynn Davis, one of my favorite alternate cartographers, was making a map based on Ian's version, I was excited. As I write this post the map hasn't come out yet, but here is the flag that goes with it:

It was created by KingWillhamII of DeviantArt and is the flag of the Domination of Draka after it won its independence from Britain. Per the description Lynn provided: The coat of arms is Sir Francis Drake's, modified with an orange band to represent the Orange River and a dragon, the self-styled symbol of the Draka, above.

All things considered, I like the flag. The design is simple, but I do like how stylized the dragon is. More importantly, it keeps me excited for another Lynn Davis map.

What do you think of the flag?

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Flag Friday: Alternate Flag of Puerto Rico by Rubberduck3y6

A couple weeks ago I covered one of Rubberduck3y6's flags he has been making for his Alternate US Flags series. After going through the the 50 states, he has now moved on to the American territories, including Puerto Rico.

This is Rubberduck3y6's "Alternate Flag of Puerto Rico". Its very similar to the current flag of Puerto Rico, except with less stripes, no red coloring and more stars. Some of the meanings behind the symbols and colors have also changed. The white bars in the current flag stand for the republican form of government, while the single white bar in the alternate design represents the Spanish colonial period. The blue of the triangle was also meant to symbolize the coastal waters and resemble that of the flag of the United States, but in Rubberduck3y6's redesign, it just represents the Caribbean Sea.

The flag itself is a simple redesign, but I do like it. It moves the current flag away from its resemblance to the American flag, which people who would like to see Puerto Rico as independent state might like.

What do you think of the flag?

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Top 5 Posts from July 2016

Most viewed map from July 2016.

So July wasn't one my best months in terms of page views, probably because I took a whole week off from blogging in the middle of it, but we still had some amazing articles. Check them out below.

1) Why Are Alternate History Adaptations So Poorly Made? by Josh Weiss.

2) Flag Friday: Concept Flags for Hearts of Iron 4 by Rock by Matt Mitrovich.

3) Anime Review: Full Metal Panic! by Sam McDonald.

4) The Alphabet of Alternate History: C by Dale Cozort.

5) Map Monday: Greater Lebanon by Simon Regan by Matt Mitrovich.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Flag Friday: People's Republic of Japan by FlyingParafin

Communist flags and alternate designs for the flag of Japan do come up a lot in Flag Friday...but I am pretty sure this is the first time the flag I am featuring today combines both of those occurences.

This is the flag of the People's Republic of Japan created by FlyingParafin for AlternateCountries1234567's timeline where Japan is invaded by the Soviet Union. This is actually the first version of the flag as FlyingParafin made other versions of it based on AlternateCountries suggestions, but I liked this one the best. Its simple and not as busy as the later versions.

What is most interesting about this map was FlyingParafin's overall idea for this flag. He said: "I wanted to make a communist flag that wasn't just lazy or uninspired, as most flag makers would have just slapped on a hammer and sickle/some stars and call it a day." That is a good point and its a belief I have seen among other alternate vexillologists. In fact when you do start to compare Communist symbolism, you do start to notice a lot of repeating themes (hammer/sickle, red background, black bars, red/gold star, etc.). Maybe the Soviets and their allies lost the Cold War due to lack of creativity?

What are your thoughts on communist flags?

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Flag Friday: Alternate TX Flag by Rubberduck3y6

In case you guys don't follow the Flag Thread at AlternateHistory.com, one alternate vexillologist who has caught my eye is Rubberduck3y6. Although I have featured his maps before (here and here), this is the first time I am featuring any of his flags. He has a long running series called "Alternate US Flags" where he redesigns the flags of the American states and while I have featured almost all of them on social media, none have stuck out enough to make it on Flag Friday...until now.

This is what I am calling the "Alternate TX Flag" and as you can probably guess, it is a redesign of the flag of Texas. Let me just say that I love this flag. Its like someone took Captain America's shield and made a flag out of it. It screams America in a bold and bright way, which is probably why its the flag of Texas actually.

I could explain what it all means, but I think its best you hear it straight from Rubberduck3y6: The flag is dominated by the famous Lone Star of Texas which gives the state its nickname of the "Lone Star State", contained within a blue disc to symbolise the motto from the obverse of the state seal, "One and Indivisible". The six white stripes represent the six nations which have controlled all or part of Texas (France, Spain, Mexico, independent Texas, the Confederacy and the United States) and also suggest two outstretched hands recalling the state motto of "Friendship" and a possible meaning of the name Texas, which is believed to mean "friends" in the Caddo language. The red and white stripes also recall the flag of the United States.

By the way, if you click on the link in the paragraph just below the flag, you can also see Rubberduck3y6's redesigns for Tennessee, Utah, Vermont and Virginia.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Flag Friday: Free Land of North Greenland by trejiokla

Flag Friday is where I learn the most about obscure history. For example, did you know there was once a North Greenland? It was a colony of Denmark–Norway (later just Denmark) before being united with South Greenland. The important question is: how could you make an alternate history involving them?

This is the "Flag of the Free Land of North Greenland" by trejiokla (or it could be "New Greenland", which was referenced in the file name). Since it was provided by trejiokla in the Request Maps/Flags Here thread when Peyton requested a flag for his "NS nation, Free Land of -North Greenland-, a Democratic Socialist Norwegian nation". I assume by "NS" that Peyton means NationStates.

I guess I could track down the imagined history behind this entity...but I prefer speculating on my own. A part of me likes to think that if Norway wasn't forced to leave its union with Denmark and instead did so voluntarily later on, it may have earned a part of Greenland. Then again it is the "Free Land" of North Greenland, so they probably didn't hold onto it for long in that timeline.

The flag itself, meanwhile, is a cool Nordic style flag and I like the use of polar bear. A cool flag for a cool part of the planet.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Flag Friday: Concept Flags for Hearts of Iron 4 by Rock

I've been bad about doing Flag Friday, but I got a nice back log of flags to cover now so I should never be hurting for content in the future. With that being said, lets look at some flags.

These are "Concept Flags for Hearts of Iron 4" (a name I made up because one wasn't given) by Rock. For those who don't know, Hearts of Iron is a grand strategy game series from Paradox where you control the fate of a nation during the time of World War II. I played both the first and second installments a lot, until my career and this blog meant I had less time to commit to it. To be fair I was a bigger Total War fan, but I still enjoyed the games Paradox  produced.

There really isn't a story behind these flags. Rock makes it clear he made them for fun, but I still think they are well designed flags, with a different one for each form of government the three nations have. The fact that he went with Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, however, deserves to be noticed. So many alternate historians spend so much time in Europe or North America, that its nice to see someone get creative with another part of the world. Kudos.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Flag Friday: Gloriana by Jeff Provine

Guest post by Jeff Provine.

The flag of Gloriana, the twenty-third state in the Union. Its green field represents the sprawling green lands of the state, ranging from the Mississippi to the Red River with numerous bayous. The eagle of course represents the United States, part of Aaron Burr’s fervent patriotism after his trial for treason. It is shown without talons, instead hanging proud, strong, and free with a loud cry of its authority. The script below is part of a quote from Aaron Burr’s grandfather, famed theologian and preacher Jonathan Edwards, “Resolution One: I will live for God. Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will.”

As Hellfire turns out, of course, Burr left off that first part for a reason.

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Jeff Provine is a cartoonist, author, and professor in Oklahoma.  His blog This Day in Alternate History takes important events on a date and explores how they might've gone differently.  More of his work may be found at www.jeffprovine.com.

Flag Friday: Rising Sungary by Euthyon

There seems to be a fad to redesign flags using the Japanese Rising Sun flag. First we saw the "US Imperial Naval Ensign" by Hellerick, then there was the "Flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and Japan" by Reesetelford9 and then there is this:

This is "Rising Sungary" by Euthyon (I'm assuming the pun was intended) and it features Hungary's coat of arms and the colors of its flag, but it includes the rays we all know and love from the Rising Sun flag. Euthyon mentioned in the comments that this was inspired by another flag with a similar design created by NothingDotCom. Admittedly I like this flag better since the colors aren't as hard on the eyes. All and all a good flag.

Is there, however, a story? No, not really. This is definitely mash up of existing flags and not something meant to go with a specific timeline. Still I remember in the long, long ago reading an odd timeline where the Bolsheviks lose the Russian Civil War and Russia collapses into smaller states. Slowly but surely Japan expands across the former territory of Russia with their hordes of Chinese conscripts before invading Europe. Can't remember the name of the story, but I could sort of see this flag being used by a Hungarian puppet state of Japan.

Which timeline do you think this flag belongs to?

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Flag Friday: Confederate Cuba flags

I am doing things a little different today because the flag I originally planned to feature inspired me to write about more than one flag and allowed me some shameless self-promotion. First, lets take a look at the flag in question:

This is the "Combination of Rebel and Cuban flags" by Kylorin, which I founding in the Vexillology sub-reddit. As you can probably guess from the title, it combines elements of the Cuban flag and the Confederate flag. Some in the comments section pointed out that Kylorin used different shades of blue and red, but otherwise I have no issues with the flag. This is, however, more of a redesign and not an original flag, so there is no story...but could it have come from a timeline where Cuba was a state of the Confederacy?

This is Marc Pasquin's own combination of Rebel and Cuban flags which he described as being "more symbolic and a lot less plausible." He made two other flags like it (here and here), but that is the one I went with when I created the original title card for Trope Talk: Confederate Cuba. Admittedly I edited it to add text on it and Marc later corrected my amateurish attempt at creating a title card:

As you can see, Marc made the white lines thinner and added a star to the red field. All in all it is a prettier title card and one I am happy to host on my channel.

So why did I show three Confederate Cuba flags? Because there's more than one way to skin a cat. Despite the fact that all three flags have similar elements, they still have their differences. Thus when designing flags, even when you are intentionally combining two specific flags, there are still ways to get creative and I applaud that.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Flag Friday: Communistic Norway by AHNorther71

Soviet style flags can be ugly sometimes, but they still have a lot of potential in the alternate history community. I see a lot of people making communist flags for historically capitalist nations, like Norway:

This is "Communistic Norway" by AHNorther71. There are actually two versions of this flag. The one you see above and one where the white and blue stripes are straight. Personally I liked the wavy lines, hence why I am featuring it today on Flag Friday. Anyway, here is the description of the flag of AHNorther71: "The anchor and the branches are bound together to represents the unification between labourers of the sea and land. The star represents unity and progression." I am assuming the blue represents the ocean and the white could be...mountains, snow, the purity of the proletariat...I don't know, you decide.

The question we need to answer now is why would Norway become a Communist state? Norway did have a socialist economy post WWII, but established closer ties with the United States and other western nations. Perhaps America sinks back into isolation following the end of the war and Norway has no choice but to court the Soviets and eventually reforms themselves in the process. Perhaps the German plan to use Norway as the last bastion of the Third Reich is carried out and the Soviets advanced further into Norway to finally defeat the Nazis. This could have left Norway a part of the Warsaw Pact in the alternate Cold War.

What do you think?

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Top 5 Posts from April 2016

Months tend to fly by when you get older. Hard to believe its already time for another Top 5 posts from last month.

1) Flag Friday: Flags of the North Atlantic Pact Organisation by Marc Pasquin by Matt Mitrovich.

2) Map Monday: A Green Cold War (2020) by Bruce Munro by Matt Mitrovich.

3) Southlander: When the Sickle Reaped the Ashes of America by Daniel Larson.

4) Map Monday: The Kingdom of Great Britain (in the Guiana) by Birdperson by Matt Mitrovich.

5) Lets Look At the Alternate History of Homefront: The Revolution by Matt Mitrovich.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Flag Friday: Tri-Color Flag of Argentina by CelticSky17

Today's flag is one I liked, hence why I shared it on social media earlier this week. It turned out you guys liked it as well if the analytics Facebook and Twitter provided me are correct. Yet when I realized that I would probably have to write a post on this flag, I was stumped about what to write about. So there is going to be less alternate history and more traditional history in today's Flag Friday.

Above is the "Tri-Color Flag of Argentina" by CelticSky17, which features a tri-color design based on the French flag, the blue and sun from our timeline's flag of Argentina and the yellow from the flag of Spain. Simple, but effective way of showing an alternate history. But what exactly could the point of divergence be?

I'm not going to lie, I don't know much about the history of Argentina. To be fair, not many alternate historians do either, hence why you don't see many alternate histories featuring it or another nation in South America. Nevertheless, that is not an excuse to learn and I can say at the very least that I did learn something while writing today's post.

For example, did you know that French Argentines make up 17% of the total population of Argentina? Or that France's invasion of Spain during the Napoleonic Wars indirectly caused the Argentine War of Independence? Of course, relations between Argentina and France have not always been good. Twice France blockaded Buenos Aries to naval commerce (in 1838 and again in 1845).

Perhaps if France intervened more directly in the Argentine Civil Wars, one of the victorious factions may have adopted such a tri-color design as the one CelticSky17 made as a show of gratitude. Then again I am not knowledgeable enough to make such a guess, but if you know something of Argentinian history, please share your scenario for how such a flag could come about in the comments.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Flag Friday: Royal Standard of Spain under the Hohenzollerns by Ramones1986

My birthday is on the same day as the start of the Franco-Prussian War. It is a historical coincidence that I always found fascinating, even if unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Nevertheless, its probably why I found this flag interesting:

This is the "Royal Standard of Spain under the Hohenzollerns" by Flag Friday alum, Ramones1986. Now for those who don't know, one of the causes of the Franco-Prussian War was Spain offering the Spanish Crown to Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollern. Although Leopold declined the offer in our timeline, it still caused tensions between France and Prussia to increase and eventually led to war being declared. Perhaps in hindsight, Leopold may have accepted the offer knowing that war was inevitable.

There isn't too many changes from the current Royal Standard of Spain, besides the coat of arms of the king in the center being changed to reflect the Hohenzollern colors. Simple changes really, but effective. Still one wonders what a Spain with direct ties to the ruling house of Germany would be like in this alternate timeline...

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.