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.

Weekly Update #20

Editor's Note

No theme this week, but I do have some related posts coming up.  You will have to scroll down to the next section in the post to find out more about that.  I will be starting a new segment this week called "Meet a Sidewinder", which will feature stories about people from alternate timelines who inhabit our own reality!  Sounds unbelievable, huh?  Well you will just have to wait to find out more.

Korsgaard and Kier both promise more posts in the future and as you may have heard, War Blogger has promised to share some his novel reviews with this blog, which is awesome.

Remember that you still have time to enter The Oral History of Doomsday Contest.  We have one entry so far and he is going to win by default unless you send in your submission.  Send all entries to ahwupdate at gmail dot com.

Meanwhile, we got our first reader from Uruguay.  Welcome!

And now the news...

Digital Science Fiction

Thanks to Korsgaard, I recently discovered a book series titled Digital Science Fiction.  It is quarterly collection of original science fiction short stories from professional writers and storytellers. Every Digital Science Fiction Anthology is published electronically for Amazon Kindle and Smashwords. They are also available in regular print versions approximately three weeks after the digital publication date. 

Pressure Suite, the third anthology in the series, is relevant to our blog because it will include an alternate history short story.  That story is called "Coil Gun" and it is written by Matt Quinn.  According to Digital Science Fiction's President Michael Wills, "Coil Gun" will be the series' first alternate history and has described Matt as "a great asset to our book series...both in terms of his story contribution and his efforts in promoting our label."  Anyone looking for more information on "Coil Gun" can check out Matt's blog here.

Korsgaard and I will be providing more information to you about this story.  I will be interviewing Matt and Korsgaard will be posting a review of the story this week.  So stay tuned for more information.  Also if anyone is interested in being the second person to publish an alternate history with Digital Science Fiction, Michael informs me that they are still accepting submissions for the fifth anthology.

More on a World Without 9/11

Thank you to Korsgaard and Henry Martin for their comments on my counterfactual essay on a world without 9/11.  Yes I think it is safe to say that in a world where the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon never happened, the political career of Barack Obama would have been very different and he would likely never have been nominated over Hillary Clinton in the 2010 presidential elections.

It looks like, however, that I was not the only one inspired by the ten year anniversary of 9/11 to write an alternate history about it.  Moeed Yusuf at the International Herald Tribune and Faheem Haider at the Foreign Policy Association both wrote intriguing articles about how the history of Afghanistan and Central Asia would progress without 9/11.  This is in contrast to the slide show Alternate History No 9/11 that has the United States being invaded by China in the near future.  Perhaps you should avoid watching that implausible piece of garbage and check out instead Osama by Israeli science fiction author Lavie Tidhar.  You can see a review of it here.

If someone can help me figure out where I can purchase said book, that would be great.

Coming Soon: The Domination

Domination, the omnibus volume containing the first three books of the Draka series, will be released as an ebook by Baen Dec 2011.  The Draka series is S. M. Stirling's controversial alternate history about the Loyalists from the American Revolution settling in South Africa instead of Canada.  They go on to create the Domination of Draka, a slave owning superpower that makes Apartheid South Africa look like Care-a-lot.  What is even more horrifying is that at one point you find yourself rooting for the Nazis to win!

Links to the Multiverse

Articles

The Complete History of Time Paradoxes by Charlie Jane Anders and Gordon Jackson, at io9.

Counterfactual States of America: On Parallel Worlds and Longing for the Law by Paul K. Saint-Amour at Post 45.

Interviews

Interview with Sidewise nominee Jay Lake at Locus.

Book

Review of 1632 by Eric Flint at Avallanath.

Review of The Big Switch by Harry Turtledove at lunarhunk.

Video Games

Review of Resistance 3 at Complex.

Media

Photos from the DragonCon 2011 Alternate History Track