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: 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.

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: Flags of the North Atlantic Pact Organisation by Marc Pasquin

For those who have watched some of the recent videos on my channel (The Alternate Historian) you may have noticed the art of a certain Marc Pasquin. He makes some great alternate history images and today's flags are no exception:

This is the "Flags of the North Atlantic Pact Organisation". Although there isn't much of a story with the flag chart, this is obviously a reverse Cold War timeline, especially with the reference Warsaw Treaty Alliance (although wouldn't the Eastern Europe Treaty Alliance be more appropriate?). I like to think the revolution began in the United States (i.e. Back in the USSA) and the other countries adopted communism after they were "liberated" from Nazi oppression. I especially like the flag of Canada. Its like what if Canada colonized the planet in Gears of War.

No honorable mentions this week, but seriously go check out Marc's work and consider hiring him if you need to commission some alternate history graphics.

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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.