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Description
[Okay, this is a redux of my original post about the state flags of Tharsis. The old one is no longer canon, this one is now canon. I was going to not go over the lore that precedes the actual excerpts about the flags, but I figure I should try to keep updates to the lore consistent across the board, so bear with me here]

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DA INTRO
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In 1969, nobody would have believed you if you told them that in a mere 30 years, there would be 5,093,152 people (and growing) on the Red Planet by the Year of Our Lord, 1999.

Growth on Mars was nothing short of amazing, even from the earliest days. The first colony, Tesla, was founded a few hours after the Ares-1 mission successfully landed on the Red Planet on July 4 1976. The first 25 colonists arrived aboard the much larger Ares-2 a year later, in 1977, and in that time, the men of Ares-1 had remained on the Red Planet to begin preliminary work on the Tesla colony. From the beginning, the Ares Program was never intended to simply be a visit, but to be the first wave of the conquest of the Red Planet.

The Ares Program would continue to be the main American means of transport between Earth and Mars until 1982, when it was surpassed by Conestoga TSTO spacecraft, which launched from the ground to orbit, were refueled, and headed to the red planet, usually via ballistic capture, and were capable of ferrying 50-100 passengers at a time. Around 2,100 Conestogas were built by 1995, and as many as 150 were launched every year throughout the 80’s. Conestogas would remain in use until the 2040’s, but were surpassed in carrying capacity pretty early on in 1988 by proper IPV’s such as the Startrain, which was assembled and fueled in Earth orbit and could reach Mars in 100 days with VASIMIR engines and 500 passengers. In 1978, Japan became the second nation to colonize Mars, and in 1982, the European Space Agency and Commonwealth of Nations did the same. All three developed their own indigenous interplanetary transport systems and brought their own people to Mars in large numbers. The Soviet Union expressed interest in Mars early on, but given its commitments on Venus, resolved to instead focus on Mars’ Lagrange points instead, to give the USSR forward bases and ports between Earth and the riches of the asteroid belt.

Meanwhile on the Red Planet, the Martian settlers wasted no time sprucing the place up. The birth rate on Mars ended up being higher than expected, in no small part because when you’re cooped up indoors all day, it’s either sex or video games, the latter of which developed a lot faster on Mars than on Earth, if for no reason than because boredom on the Red Planet risked being fatal.

In-situ resource utilization allowed for the colonists to make use of indigenous Martian resources. To avoid the ionizing radiation of the early days, many early settlements were built in caves or in old lava tubes, with large air locks pressurizing these subterranean spaces against the outside. Others, however, made use of bricks and concrete sourced from Martian rock and regolith, mimicking Ancient Roman building techniques, combined with Space Age alloys and Lunar glass imported from offworld. As a more unorthodox technique, the Japanese colonies started growing bamboo, which ended up being alarmingly useful as a simple building material on Mars, to say nothing of its thousands of other uses, which was why bamboo cultivation spread to the other Martian colonies. Electricity would be generated chiefly from nuclear and to a lesser extent geothermal power sources - solar panels were used to augment nuclear, rather than as the mainstay of Martian power generation, and Mars was found to be rich in cheap uranium and thorium (no pesky Nixon to kill thorium research in this timeline). Under orders from a President willing to give NASA a blank check, engineers in the 70’s came up with innovative ways to build up iron- and steelworks on Mars, quickly and efficiently. Steel mills powered by nuclear reactors produced enough of the stuff for the construction of railroad networks between the largest settlements - an improvement upon the “Crimson Road” of Martian trucks on dirt paths. By 1996, the first atomic locomotive, "Salamanca II", was choo-chooing its way across the Tharsis Rise, allowing for even better resource utilization for the American colonies. In 1999, four more of these trains are now online, along with dozens of lesser silane-powered locomotives. More and more, the individual colonial rail networks are beginning to connect with one another more and more, leading the way to a globalized Martian trade system.

Groundwater was found to be more abundant than previously expected, and it didn’t take long for greenhouses using re-purposed Martian soil to pop up and provide food for the colonists, alongside vats capable of mass-producing edible green, brown and red algae. Grasshoppers, crickets, mealworms and hundreds of other insect species would end up forming the backbone of Martian cuisine, as they were the only livestock that was practical to export to the Red Planet, being tiny creatures with insignificant space and resource requirements, high potential for selective breeding, and had astonishing amounts of protein packed into their tiny, lightweight bodies, which made them a breeze to transport into Earth orbit. All of the peoples and cultures who came to Mars came up with absolutely inspired ways to integrate insects into their traditional dishes, and long after Mars has been terraformed, the humble insect will remain a famous staple of the Martian diet.

The question of terraforming was first seriously floated in the early 80’s, and a myriad of opinions formed around its efficacy. Definitive evidence of life on Mars during the Noachian Age was confirmed, and indeed, Mars it would seem was once home to some pretty complicated lifeforms. However, by the 1970's, only small microbial colonies in isolated corners of the planet remained. In the late 90's terraforming discourse however, these germs are enough for some (mostly the European settlers, not so much the Americans or the Japanese) to argue that it was not humanity’s place to drastically alter the planet. Indeed, for those who’ve been on Mars long enough (some their whole lives), the idea of changing Mars is very unappealing.

But everyone was in agreement that the radiation which Mars was bathed in constantly, was not desirable. The beginning of the end of the radiation came in 1995, when the Aegis Station was successfully placed into Mars’ L1 Lagrange point, between it and the sun. Aegis was built to provide Mars and its moons with an artificial magnetosheath, and consisted of a large heat shield, behind which a massive copper solenoid torus generated the magnetosheath. Power for the solenoid came from two dedicated modular fission reactors, which was one of the few parts that needed to be flown in from Earth; the fission reactors were replaced with a single fusion reactor in 2008. To manage the tremendous amount of built-up waste heat, Aegis was built with an impressive array of radiators. As of 1999, the impact of Aegis is already being felt, with surface radiation levels now as much as 30% lower and dropping every year, thereby enabling more expansion and attracting more people to a vast amount of free real estate on Mars.

Needless to say, the Space Boom of the late 70s to the late 90’s was a time of tremendous offworld expansion, and Mars was no exception.

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MURICA
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America was the first to open up its Martian territories to free colonization, as per President Ronald Reagan’s Martian Homestead Act of 1981. Until then, the settlements on Mars in the 1970’s were governed by the very rudimentary Territory of Tharsis, but this was replaced by the more defined Commonwealth of Tharsis as a provision of the MHA. The original Martian Homestead Act was passed by the John Glenn administration in 1979, but in popular memory it’s a Reagan thing.

Not long after America claimed the entirety of the Tharsis Rise, Valles Marineris, Cydonia and Phobos as United States territory, the new territory was already being divided up into states. On Earth, various lobbyist and special interest groups founded Provisional Governments for fourteen new states, which were formally established in 1979, but were only formalized when the Tharsis Territory became the Tharsis Commonwealth. At the time of its establishment in 1981, Tharsis was divided into fourteen states - Olympus Mons, Tempe, Valles Marineris, King, New Saigon, Laurentia, Munemori, Roosevelt, New California, Jefferson, Eisenhower, Cydonia and Shambhala on Mars, plus New Archangel on Phobos, with the capital of Tesla part of the federal District of Ares. In 1986, the rapid growth of Tharsis’ population led to the creation of three more states: Boralia, Pomaika’i and Zephyria. The eighteenth state, Reagan, was formally added to the Commonwealth in 1995, after breaking off of Laurentia.

Due to the extreme distances between Mars and Earth, the realities of interplanetary colonization made self-sufficiency all but essential. Therefore, the Tharsis Commonwealth operated as an autonomous, self-governing “sub-federation” within the larger United States, along with the Icaria Commonwealth on Mercury. As of 1999, Tharsis uses American currency, operates under the US constitution, and is under the protection of the United States Armed Forces Mars Command. The Commonwealth elects its own President and Vice President, though it also has a High Commissioner appointed by the US President in Washington to represent him on Mars, whilst Mars sends Colonial Delegates to the House of Representatives in DC.

Until 1991, however, none of these Martian states had flags. Indeed, the Commonwealth itself didn’t have a flag until 1986 - prior to then, they just used the American flag.

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DA FLAGS
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The flag of the Tharsis Commonwealth is meant to evoke the flag of United States, with its thirteen red-white stripes and thirteen stars, arranged in a circular formation to evoke the famous Betsy Ross flag of the American Revolution.

The red disk with the white chevron is a ubiquitous symbol of Mars, known as the “Shield of Ares”. The mission patch for Ares-1 featured the Red Planet with a white chevron over it, to evoke the image of a Spartan shield, and therefore the god of war, Ares. It also serves as a “gender-neutral” alternative to the traditional symbol for Mars. The Shield is surrounded by thirteen white stars, in recognition of Ares-1’s goal of landing on Mars in time for the July Fourth bicentennial. Because Ares-1 was the beginning of human history on Mars, the Shield and symbols like it are relatively common all across Mars, but especially in the American colonies. Unlike the flag of the United States, the number of stars on the Tharsian flag has remained rigid.

As for the rest of the flags shown here, as you can see, they run the gamut from very striking like New Saigon and Valles Marineris to very...American, in the case of Reagan and Boralia.

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KING
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Partially as a response to the overwhelmingly white colonization of Luna in the early and mid 70’s, the Provisional Government of King (named after Martin Luther King, Jr) was an effort backed by the NAACP and other African-American interest groups. While the project attracted colonists of many backgrounds, the bulk of the colonists who settled around the slopes of Alba Mons were of African-American descent, and King remains the blackest region of Tharsis well into the 23rd century.

The flag of King bears an image of the state’s namesake giving a speech, with the state’s name and motto, “We Shall Overcome”, and flanked by the relevant dates 1964 (the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act) and 1979 (the year the Provisional Government of King). The four stars symbolize King’s status as the fourth Provisional Government to be approved for state status.

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LAURENTIA
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Next is the flag of Laurentia. Named in honor of the first man to set foot on Mars, Robert H. Lawrence, Jr, the basic design is meant to evoke the flag of Lawrence’s home city of Chicago, Illinois, and, indeed, most of the early settlers in the state hailed from the Chicago area as well. While the flag of Chicago has four stars (one for the Great Chicago Fire, one for Fort Dearborn, one for the World’s Columbian Exhibition, and one of the 1933 Century of Progress Exhibition), this flag has a fifth, for Chicago’s greatest son, Major Lawrence.

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JEFFERSON
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Jefferson’s flag reflects the two founding demographics of the state: Southerners and Chinese-Americans. The flag references the “Blue Sky, White Sun, and a Wholly Red Earth” flag of the Republic of China, and, more subtly (perhaps controversially) it references the Confederate battle flag.

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EISENHOWER
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The flag of Eisenhower draws most of its symbolism from the personal coat of arms of former US President, Dwight D. Eisenhower. The blue anvil is a reference to the president’s surname translating as “iron-hewer”, while the five stars symbolize his rank as a five-star general during World War II. The Latin phrase “Pax Per Intellectum” translates to “Peace Through Understanding”, and is a motto associated with Eisenhower’s coat of arms.

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BORALIA
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Boralia’s flag is kinda. Yeah.

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REAGAN
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The youngest Tharsian state, Reagan broke off of Olympus Mons in 1995. The capital, Moonville, was founded by members of the Unification Church, and more than half of the state’s population is made up of Korean-Americans. As for Reagan’s flag, it is...Republican.

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OLYMPUS MONS
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Next up, Olympus Mons. One of the largest states, Olympus Mons is centered around the titular mountain, and most of its colonists came from Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Utah. The Mormons it turned out were super-into colonizing Mars. Established in the calderas at the top of Olympus Mons, the sprawling settlement of New Canaan has a thriving community of Mormon transhumanists, where the virtual absence of regulations has allowed for them to get up to some really interesting developments in the realm of cybernetics and brain-computer interfaces, rapidly catching up to 2019, in 1999.

As for the flag of Olympus Mons, it’s pretty straightforward. A torch for liberty, an orange triangle for an inaccurate representation of the tallest mountain in the solar system, and in the background, white and blue rays to represent the Martian sunrise/sunset; unlike on Earth, where the sky is blue during the day and red at twilight, the sky on Mars is red during the day, and blue at twilight.

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NEW SAIGON
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The flag of New Saigon, like most of the flags here, definitely reflects the character of the people who settled the state. In the late 70’s, the Soviet Union announced its plans to assist the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in establishing the Mauvang colonies on Venus, and New Saigon was the American response. Located to the north of Valles Marineris, on the plains of Xanthe Terra, New Saigon was heavily settled by Vietnamese-Americans, South Vietnamese refugees, former ARVN personnel, US military veterans of the Vietnam War (many of whom had Vietnamese war brides and half-Vietnamese children), Montagnards, Hmong, Iu Mien and others fleeing communist persecution.

The flag of New Saigon obviously references the flag of the Republic of (South) Vietnam. The green bars on the top and bottom are meant to evoke the ribbon of the Vietnam Service Medal given to American soldiers who served in the war. The red circle represents Mars itself, and the “Captain America” star and blue circle represents New Saigon’s status within the American/Tharsian experiment; additionally, the star, circle and the three red stripes form the roundel of both the USAF and the bygone RVNAF.

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NEW CALIFORNIA
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New California was, unsurprisingly, founded by people from California, but more specifically most of the colonists hailed from the Greater Los Angeles Area, and to a lesser extent from the Bay Area/Silicon Valley. The largest settlement in the state, The Tunnels, is a maze of shafts dug into a pre-existing cave system in the Caritas Range, to the southeast of Valles Marineris, and the state has the most second-most ethnically-diverse population after Roosevelt.

As for the flag of New California, it clearly emulates the “Old California” flag. Only instead of a California grizzly astride a small green hill, this banner has a majestic California condor soaring upwards, with a red arrow behind it, evoking the upward imagery of the Shield of Ares.

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SHAMBHALA
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Shambhala spans the Tharsis Montes (Pavonis Mons, Ascraeus Mons and Arsia Mons), and was settled by large numbers of Tibetan-Americans and exiles from Tibet, Buddhist converts and New Agers from California, and rugged folks from states like Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

The flag of Shambhala features a Snow Lion (Tibetan: gangs seng ge), with five stars underneath it, to represent Shambhala’s status as the fifth Provisional Government to become a state of the Tharsis Commonwealth, and the five states from whence most of the state’s population came from. Plus some stripes to show off how American Shambhala is.

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CYDONIA
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In Overheaven’s timeline, the “Face on Mars” is sighted by Ares-1, instead of Viking 1, and it gains a reputation as “evidence” of alien civilizations on Mars much quicker. While much of Cydonia’s settlers were ordinary folks from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the Provisional Government of Cydonia also attracted lots and lots and lots of New Agers, UFO nuts, wannabe xenoarcheologists and more, drawn to the area’s purple auras and arcane ruins. Lots of weird little colonies were set up in Cydonia, lots of hucksters hawking fake alien bones and artifacts, and generally-speaking, Cydonia gained the reputation of being the “Florida of Tharsis”, moreso than Valles Marineris, which was actually colonized by Florida. Over time, some of the locals (most notably the “indigenous” Barsu people) began “rebuilding” the supposed ruins, which in essence meant making them from scratch, including the famous face, which in 2285 is visible from Martian orbit; as of 1999, ideas such as this are still merely out-there real estate pitches to encourage tourism.

The flag of Cydonia has a red pyramid with an all-seeing eye, as a callback to an iconic symbol associated with the United States, as well as to Cydonia’s folkloric reputation as the land of alien ruins and paranormal wackiness. The symbol in the lower half of the pyramid combines the keystone (a symbol of Pennsylvania) with three plows (a symbol of New Jersey). The white field stands for peace, the blue strip on the hoist is...there because it looks good. “Virtue, Peace and Liberty” is the official motto of the State of Cydonia, which is why these words are present on the flag.

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ROOSEVELT
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Most of Roosevelt’s population came from New York, as evidenced by its capital, New Manhattan, which is more or less a recreation of Times Square, in a large pressurized lava tube full of TV screens and neon lights. It was debated whether the state should be named after Teddy Roosevelt (the chad who karate-chopped a canal through Panama) or FDR (the chad who kicked Hitler’s ass in a wheelchair). In the end , FDR’s mug is the one that ended up on the flag, which also features the colors of the flag of New York City and New Amsterdam which preceded it - blue, white and orange.

The flag of Roosevelt features the mug of its namesake president, FDR (some lobbied for Teddy’s face to be on the flag, but alas). Most of this state’s population came from, appropriately-enough, New York, and the colors of the flag recall the flag of New York City and of New Amsterdam which preceded it - blue, white and orange.

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TEMPE
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Next up, we have the flag of Tempe. Occupying the Tempe highlands northeast of the Tharsis Rise, Tempe was settled mostly by colonists from Ohio, and when the time came for them to adopt a flag, they decided to lean into their Buckeye State pride. The flag borrows the Ohio Buckeye symbol, surrounded by 17 stars, which represent Ohio’s status as the 17th state to enter the Union back on Earth.

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VALLES MARINERIS
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Settled predominantly by Floridians, Puerto Ricans and Cuban-Americans, Valles Marineris has my favorite flag of the bunch here. The red-yellow-green-blue is meant to evoke an infrared elevation map, which I felt was the most apropos way to represent the largest canyon in the solar system. And high above the canyon we have a dark blue sky, and the Mariner 9 probe which discovered Valles Marineris in 1971, and is the region’s namesake.

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MUNEMORI
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Located to the east of Valles Marineris, the State of Munemori spans the rugged Margaritifer Terra and was settled mostly by Texans and Japanese-Americans hailing from Hawaii and California. The state is named after Japanese-American Medal of Honor recipient, Sadao S. Munemori (1922-1945), around 45% of its population is of Japanese ancestry (44% are white Texans, 11% “other”), and almost all of its settlements named after Japanese-American Medal of Honor recipients.

The flag of Munemori is mostly a stylized version of the Texas flag, though the abundance of white and red could be thought of as a subtle reference to the Hinomaru, with stars and stripes instead of a sun. The first red star stands for the Republic of Texas, the second stands for the State of Texas, and the third red star stands for Munemori.

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POMAIKA’I
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Pōmaikaʻi was settled primarily by colonists mostly from Hawaii, but also American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Marianas Islands, as well as colonists from Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands, who, via the Compact of Free Association with the United States, were permitted to settle Tharsis.

The flag of Pōmaikaʻi reflects its strong Hawaiian heritage with the red, white and blue stripes from the Hawaiian state flag, and the double-crossed paddles which symbolize the heritage of Martian-Hawaiians as explorers and voyagers, on not one planet, but two - symbolism which resonates with the other Polynesian and Micronesian settlers. And of course, the flag features the Shield of Ares.

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ZEPHYRIA
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Up next, we have the flag of Zephyria. Located to the south of Reagan, Zephyria is very special in that most of the colonists are Native Americans. In the 1970’s, there was a bit of splinter development within the American Indian Movement which embraced the idea of space colonies as a sort of “blank slate” where they could leave the dead end of reservation life, start over, and keep their traditions alive. Most Zephyrians are of Cherokee, Pawnee, Navajo, Sioux, Choctaw, Blackfoot, Creek and Iroquois descent.

Zephyria’s flag features a thunderbird on a red disk, surrounded by a stylized dreamcatcher; originally an Ojibwe craft, the dreamcatcher became a “Pan-Indian” symbol in the 1960’s and 70’s, and variants of the thunderbird are found in the mythologies of Native American cultures all over the United States, from the Great Lakes to the Great Plains, and the Southwest to the Northeast. The flag is split in half with red and blue. Blue for Earth, red for Mars. The symbol is on the blue side, however, because Zephyrians will never forget their heritage and where they came from, even as the thunderbird looks to Mars for the future.

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NEW ARCHANGEL
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And lastly, leaving Mars, we have the flag of New Archangel. Located in Stickney Crater on Mars’ largest moon, Phobos, New Archangel is named in honor of Novo-Arkhangelsk, the old capital of Russian Alaska (now the city of Sitka, Alaska). The name is no accident, as “Stickney Base” has been settled by large numbers of Russian-Americans, and Jewish refuseniks who defected from the USSR in the 1970’s. In 1999, a chap from New Archangel named Sergey Brin is making waves with some crazy new ideas for the future of the Martian Internet.

Anyway, the flag of New Archangel uses the colors of the pre-Soviet flag of the Russian Empire (yes, the red and blue are out of order, I didn’t really have a choice), with a proud all-American bald eagle in the style of the Great Seal of the United States. The shield on the eagle’s chest depicts Saint George (officially “Mounted Figure”, in accordance with New Archangel’s secular constitution) sinking a lance into the red dragon of communism. Any resemblance to the flag of the US Virgin Islands is purely coincidental.

Description
[Okay, this is a redux of my original post about the state flags of Tharsis. The old one is no longer canon, this one is now canon. I was going to not go over the lore that precedes the actual excerpts about the flags, but I figure I should try to keep updates to the lore consistent across the board, so bear with me here]

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DA INTRO
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In 1969, nobody would have believed you if you told them that in a mere 30 years, there would be 5,093,152 people (and growing) on the Red Planet by the Year of Our Lord, 1999.

Growth on Mars was nothing short of amazing, even from the earliest days. The first colony, Tesla, was founded a few hours after the Ares-1 mission successfully landed on the Red Planet on July 4 1976. The first 25 colonists arrived aboard the much larger Ares-2 a year later, in 1977, and in that time, the men of Ares-1 had remained on the Red Planet to begin preliminary work on the Tesla colony. From the beginning, the Ares Program was never intended to simply be a visit, but to be the first wave of the conquest of the Red Planet.

The Ares Program would continue to be the main American means of transport between Earth and Mars until 1982, when it was surpassed by Conestoga TSTO spacecraft, which launched from the ground to orbit, were refueled, and headed to the red planet, usually via ballistic capture, and were capable of ferrying 50-100 passengers at a time. Around 2,100 Conestogas were built by 1995, and as many as 150 were launched every year throughout the 80’s. Conestogas would remain in use until the 2040’s, but were surpassed in carrying capacity pretty early on in 1988 by proper IPV’s such as the Startrain, which was assembled and fueled in Earth orbit and could reach Mars in 100 days with VASIMIR engines and 500 passengers. In 1978, Japan became the second nation to colonize Mars, and in 1982, the European Space Agency and Commonwealth of Nations did the same. All three developed their own indigenous interplanetary transport systems and brought their own people to Mars in large numbers. The Soviet Union expressed interest in Mars early on, but given its commitments on Venus, resolved to instead focus on Mars’ Lagrange points instead, to give the USSR forward bases and ports between Earth and the riches of the asteroid belt.

Meanwhile on the Red Planet, the Martian settlers wasted no time sprucing the place up. The birth rate on Mars ended up being higher than expected, in no small part because when you’re cooped up indoors all day, it’s either sex or video games, the latter of which developed a lot faster on Mars than on Earth, if for no reason than because boredom on the Red Planet risked being fatal.

In-situ resource utilization allowed for the colonists to make use of indigenous Martian resources. To avoid the ionizing radiation of the early days, many early settlements were built in caves or in old lava tubes, with large air locks pressurizing these subterranean spaces against the outside. Others, however, made use of bricks and concrete sourced from Martian rock and regolith, mimicking Ancient Roman building techniques, combined with Space Age alloys and Lunar glass imported from offworld. As a more unorthodox technique, the Japanese colonies started growing bamboo, which ended up being alarmingly useful as a simple building material on Mars, to say nothing of its thousands of other uses, which was why bamboo cultivation spread to the other Martian colonies. Electricity would be generated chiefly from nuclear and to a lesser extent geothermal power sources - solar panels were used to augment nuclear, rather than as the mainstay of Martian power generation, and Mars was found to be rich in cheap uranium and thorium (no pesky Nixon to kill thorium research in this timeline). Under orders from a President willing to give NASA a blank check, engineers in the 70’s came up with innovative ways to build up iron- and steelworks on Mars, quickly and efficiently. Steel mills powered by nuclear reactors produced enough of the stuff for the construction of railroad networks between the largest settlements - an improvement upon the “Crimson Road” of Martian trucks on dirt paths. By 1996, the first atomic locomotive, "Salamanca II", was choo-chooing its way across the Tharsis Rise, allowing for even better resource utilization for the American colonies. In 1999, four more of these trains are now online, along with dozens of lesser silane-powered locomotives. More and more, the individual colonial rail networks are beginning to connect with one another more and more, leading the way to a globalized Martian trade system.

Groundwater was found to be more abundant than previously expected, and it didn’t take long for greenhouses using re-purposed Martian soil to pop up and provide food for the colonists, alongside vats capable of mass-producing edible green, brown and red algae. Grasshoppers, crickets, mealworms and hundreds of other insect species would end up forming the backbone of Martian cuisine, as they were the only livestock that was practical to export to the Red Planet, being tiny creatures with insignificant space and resource requirements, high potential for selective breeding, and had astonishing amounts of protein packed into their tiny, lightweight bodies, which made them a breeze to transport into Earth orbit. All of the peoples and cultures who came to Mars came up with absolutely inspired ways to integrate insects into their traditional dishes, and long after Mars has been terraformed, the humble insect will remain a famous staple of the Martian diet.

The question of terraforming was first seriously floated in the early 80’s, and a myriad of opinions formed around its efficacy. Definitive evidence of life on Mars during the Noachian Age was confirmed, and indeed, Mars it would seem was once home to some pretty complicated lifeforms. However, by the 1970's, only small microbial colonies in isolated corners of the planet remained. In the late 90's terraforming discourse however, these germs are enough for some (mostly the European settlers, not so much the Americans or the Japanese) to argue that it was not humanity’s place to drastically alter the planet. Indeed, for those who’ve been on Mars long enough (some their whole lives), the idea of changing Mars is very unappealing.

But everyone was in agreement that the radiation which Mars was bathed in constantly, was not desirable. The beginning of the end of the radiation came in 1995, when the Aegis Station was successfully placed into Mars’ L1 Lagrange point, between it and the sun. Aegis was built to provide Mars and its moons with an artificial magnetosheath, and consisted of a large heat shield, behind which a massive copper solenoid torus generated the magnetosheath. Power for the solenoid came from two dedicated modular fission reactors, which was one of the few parts that needed to be flown in from Earth; the fission reactors were replaced with a single fusion reactor in 2008. To manage the tremendous amount of built-up waste heat, Aegis was built with an impressive array of radiators. As of 1999, the impact of Aegis is already being felt, with surface radiation levels now as much as 30% lower and dropping every year, thereby enabling more expansion and attracting more people to a vast amount of free real estate on Mars.

Needless to say, the Space Boom of the late 70s to the late 90’s was a time of tremendous offworld expansion, and Mars was no exception.

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MURICA
======

America was the first to open up its Martian territories to free colonization, as per President Ronald Reagan’s Martian Homestead Act of 1981. Until then, the settlements on Mars in the 1970’s were governed by the very rudimentary Territory of Tharsis, but this was replaced by the more defined Commonwealth of Tharsis as a provision of the MHA. The original Martian Homestead Act was passed by the John Glenn administration in 1979, but in popular memory it’s a Reagan thing.

Not long after America claimed the entirety of the Tharsis Rise, Valles Marineris, Cydonia and Phobos as United States territory, the new territory was already being divided up into states. On Earth, various lobbyist and special interest groups founded Provisional Governments for fourteen new states, which were formally established in 1979, but were only formalized when the Tharsis Territory became the Tharsis Commonwealth. At the time of its establishment in 1981, Tharsis was divided into fourteen states - Olympus Mons, Tempe, Valles Marineris, King, New Saigon, Laurentia, Munemori, Roosevelt, New California, Jefferson, Eisenhower, Cydonia and Shambhala on Mars, plus New Archangel on Phobos, with the capital of Tesla part of the federal District of Ares. In 1986, the rapid growth of Tharsis’ population led to the creation of three more states: Boralia, Pomaika’i and Zephyria. The eighteenth state, Reagan, was formally added to the Commonwealth in 1995, after breaking off of Laurentia.

Due to the extreme distances between Mars and Earth, the realities of interplanetary colonization made self-sufficiency all but essential. Therefore, the Tharsis Commonwealth operated as an autonomous, self-governing “sub-federation” within the larger United States, along with the Icaria Commonwealth on Mercury. As of 1999, Tharsis uses American currency, operates under the US constitution, and is under the protection of the United States Armed Forces Mars Command. The Commonwealth elects its own President and Vice President, though it also has a High Commissioner appointed by the US President in Washington to represent him on Mars, whilst Mars sends Colonial Delegates to the House of Representatives in DC.

Until 1991, however, none of these Martian states had flags. Indeed, the Commonwealth itself didn’t have a flag until 1986 - prior to then, they just used the American flag.

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DA FLAGS
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The flag of the Tharsis Commonwealth is meant to evoke the flag of United States, with its thirteen red-white stripes and thirteen stars, arranged in a circular formation to evoke the famous Betsy Ross flag of the American Revolution.

The red disk with the white chevron is a ubiquitous symbol of Mars, known as the “Shield of Ares”. The mission patch for Ares-1 featured the Red Planet with a white chevron over it, to evoke the image of a Spartan shield, and therefore the god of war, Ares. It also serves as a “gender-neutral” alternative to the traditional symbol for Mars. The Shield is surrounded by thirteen white stars, in recognition of Ares-1’s goal of landing on Mars in time for the July Fourth bicentennial. Because Ares-1 was the beginning of human history on Mars, the Shield and symbols like it are relatively common all across Mars, but especially in the American colonies. Unlike the flag of the United States, the number of stars on the Tharsian flag has remained rigid.

As for the rest of the flags shown here, as you can see, they run the gamut from very striking like New Saigon and Valles Marineris to very...American, in the case of Reagan and Boralia.

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KING
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Partially as a response to the overwhelmingly white colonization of Luna in the early and mid 70’s, the Provisional Government of King (named after Martin Luther King, Jr) was an effort backed by the NAACP and other African-American interest groups. While the project attracted colonists of many backgrounds, the bulk of the colonists who settled around the slopes of Alba Mons were of African-American descent, and King remains the blackest region of Tharsis well into the 23rd century.

The flag of King bears an image of the state’s namesake giving a speech, with the state’s name and motto, “We Shall Overcome”, and flanked by the relevant dates 1964 (the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act) and 1979 (the year the Provisional Government of King). The four stars symbolize King’s status as the fourth Provisional Government to be approved for state status.

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LAURENTIA
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Next is the flag of Laurentia. Named in honor of the first man to set foot on Mars, Robert H. Lawrence, Jr, the basic design is meant to evoke the flag of Lawrence’s home city of Chicago, Illinois, and, indeed, most of the early settlers in the state hailed from the Chicago area as well. While the flag of Chicago has four stars (one for the Great Chicago Fire, one for Fort Dearborn, one for the World’s Columbian Exhibition, and one of the 1933 Century of Progress Exhibition), this flag has a fifth, for Chicago’s greatest son, Major Lawrence.

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JEFFERSON
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Jefferson’s flag reflects the two founding demographics of the state: Southerners and Chinese-Americans. The flag references the “Blue Sky, White Sun, and a Wholly Red Earth” flag of the Republic of China, and, more subtly (perhaps controversially) it references the Confederate battle flag.

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EISENHOWER
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The flag of Eisenhower draws most of its symbolism from the personal coat of arms of former US President, Dwight D. Eisenhower. The blue anvil is a reference to the president’s surname translating as “iron-hewer”, while the five stars symbolize his rank as a five-star general during World War II. The Latin phrase “Pax Per Intellectum” translates to “Peace Through Understanding”, and is a motto associated with Eisenhower’s coat of arms.

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BORALIA
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Boralia’s flag is kinda. Yeah.

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REAGAN
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The youngest Tharsian state, Reagan broke off of Olympus Mons in 1995. The capital, Moonville, was founded by members of the Unification Church, and more than half of the state’s population is made up of Korean-Americans. As for Reagan’s flag, it is...Republican.

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OLYMPUS MONS
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Next up, Olympus Mons. One of the largest states, Olympus Mons is centered around the titular mountain, and most of its colonists came from Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Utah. The Mormons it turned out were super-into colonizing Mars. Established in the calderas at the top of Olympus Mons, the sprawling settlement of New Canaan has a thriving community of Mormon transhumanists, where the virtual absence of regulations has allowed for them to get up to some really interesting developments in the realm of cybernetics and brain-computer interfaces, rapidly catching up to 2019, in 1999.

As for the flag of Olympus Mons, it’s pretty straightforward. A torch for liberty, an orange triangle for an inaccurate representation of the tallest mountain in the solar system, and in the background, white and blue rays to represent the Martian sunrise/sunset; unlike on Earth, where the sky is blue during the day and red at twilight, the sky on Mars is red during the day, and blue at twilight.

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NEW SAIGON
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The flag of New Saigon, like most of the flags here, definitely reflects the character of the people who settled the state. In the late 70’s, the Soviet Union announced its plans to assist the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in establishing the Mauvang colonies on Venus, and New Saigon was the American response. Located to the north of Valles Marineris, on the plains of Xanthe Terra, New Saigon was heavily settled by Vietnamese-Americans, South Vietnamese refugees, former ARVN personnel, US military veterans of the Vietnam War (many of whom had Vietnamese war brides and half-Vietnamese children), Montagnards, Hmong, Iu Mien and others fleeing communist persecution.

The flag of New Saigon obviously references the flag of the Republic of (South) Vietnam. The green bars on the top and bottom are meant to evoke the ribbon of the Vietnam Service Medal given to American soldiers who served in the war. The red circle represents Mars itself, and the “Captain America” star and blue circle represents New Saigon’s status within the American/Tharsian experiment; additionally, the star, circle and the three red stripes form the roundel of both the USAF and the bygone RVNAF.

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NEW CALIFORNIA
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New California was, unsurprisingly, founded by people from California, but more specifically most of the colonists hailed from the Greater Los Angeles Area, and to a lesser extent from the Bay Area/Silicon Valley. The largest settlement in the state, The Tunnels, is a maze of shafts dug into a pre-existing cave system in the Caritas Range, to the southeast of Valles Marineris, and the state has the most second-most ethnically-diverse population after Roosevelt.

As for the flag of New California, it clearly emulates the “Old California” flag. Only instead of a California grizzly astride a small green hill, this banner has a majestic California condor soaring upwards, with a red arrow behind it, evoking the upward imagery of the Shield of Ares.

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SHAMBHALA
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Shambhala spans the Tharsis Montes (Pavonis Mons, Ascraeus Mons and Arsia Mons), and was settled by large numbers of Tibetan-Americans and exiles from Tibet, Buddhist converts and New Agers from California, and rugged folks from states like Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

The flag of Shambhala features a Snow Lion (Tibetan: gangs seng ge), with five stars underneath it, to represent Shambhala’s status as the fifth Provisional Government to become a state of the Tharsis Commonwealth, and the five states from whence most of the state’s population came from. Plus some stripes to show off how American Shambhala is.

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CYDONIA
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In Overheaven’s timeline, the “Face on Mars” is sighted by Ares-1, instead of Viking 1, and it gains a reputation as “evidence” of alien civilizations on Mars much quicker. While much of Cydonia’s settlers were ordinary folks from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the Provisional Government of Cydonia also attracted lots and lots and lots of New Agers, UFO nuts, wannabe xenoarcheologists and more, drawn to the area’s purple auras and arcane ruins. Lots of weird little colonies were set up in Cydonia, lots of hucksters hawking fake alien bones and artifacts, and generally-speaking, Cydonia gained the reputation of being the “Florida of Tharsis”, moreso than Valles Marineris, which was actually colonized by Florida. Over time, some of the locals (most notably the “indigenous” Barsu people) began “rebuilding” the supposed ruins, which in essence meant making them from scratch, including the famous face, which in 2285 is visible from Martian orbit; as of 1999, ideas such as this are still merely out-there real estate pitches to encourage tourism.

The flag of Cydonia has a red pyramid with an all-seeing eye, as a callback to an iconic symbol associated with the United States, as well as to Cydonia’s folkloric reputation as the land of alien ruins and paranormal wackiness. The symbol in the lower half of the pyramid combines the keystone (a symbol of Pennsylvania) with three plows (a symbol of New Jersey). The white field stands for peace, the blue strip on the hoist is...there because it looks good. “Virtue, Peace and Liberty” is the official motto of the State of Cydonia, which is why these words are present on the flag.

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ROOSEVELT
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Most of Roosevelt’s population came from New York, as evidenced by its capital, New Manhattan, which is more or less a recreation of Times Square, in a large pressurized lava tube full of TV screens and neon lights. It was debated whether the state should be named after Teddy Roosevelt (the chad who karate-chopped a canal through Panama) or FDR (the chad who kicked Hitler’s ass in a wheelchair). In the end , FDR’s mug is the one that ended up on the flag, which also features the colors of the flag of New York City and New Amsterdam which preceded it - blue, white and orange.

The flag of Roosevelt features the mug of its namesake president, FDR (some lobbied for Teddy’s face to be on the flag, but alas). Most of this state’s population came from, appropriately-enough, New York, and the colors of the flag recall the flag of New York City and of New Amsterdam which preceded it - blue, white and orange.

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TEMPE
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Next up, we have the flag of Tempe. Occupying the Tempe highlands northeast of the Tharsis Rise, Tempe was settled mostly by colonists from Ohio, and when the time came for them to adopt a flag, they decided to lean into their Buckeye State pride. The flag borrows the Ohio Buckeye symbol, surrounded by 17 stars, which represent Ohio’s status as the 17th state to enter the Union back on Earth.

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VALLES MARINERIS
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Settled predominantly by Floridians, Puerto Ricans and Cuban-Americans, Valles Marineris has my favorite flag of the bunch here. The red-yellow-green-blue is meant to evoke an infrared elevation map, which I felt was the most apropos way to represent the largest canyon in the solar system. And high above the canyon we have a dark blue sky, and the Mariner 9 probe which discovered Valles Marineris in 1971, and is the region’s namesake.

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MUNEMORI
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Located to the east of Valles Marineris, the State of Munemori spans the rugged Margaritifer Terra and was settled mostly by Texans and Japanese-Americans hailing from Hawaii and California. The state is named after Japanese-American Medal of Honor recipient, Sadao S. Munemori (1922-1945), around 45% of its population is of Japanese ancestry (44% are white Texans, 11% “other”), and almost all of its settlements named after Japanese-American Medal of Honor recipients.

The flag of Munemori is mostly a stylized version of the Texas flag, though the abundance of white and red could be thought of as a subtle reference to the Hinomaru, with stars and stripes instead of a sun. The first red star stands for the Republic of Texas, the second stands for the State of Texas, and the third red star stands for Munemori.

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POMAIKA’I
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Pōmaikaʻi was settled primarily by colonists mostly from Hawaii, but also American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Marianas Islands, as well as colonists from Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands, who, via the Compact of Free Association with the United States, were permitted to settle Tharsis.

The flag of Pōmaikaʻi reflects its strong Hawaiian heritage with the red, white and blue stripes from the Hawaiian state flag, and the double-crossed paddles which symbolize the heritage of Martian-Hawaiians as explorers and voyagers, on not one planet, but two - symbolism which resonates with the other Polynesian and Micronesian settlers. And of course, the flag features the Shield of Ares.

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ZEPHYRIA
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Up next, we have the flag of Zephyria. Located to the south of Reagan, Zephyria is very special in that most of the colonists are Native Americans. In the 1970’s, there was a bit of splinter development within the American Indian Movement which embraced the idea of space colonies as a sort of “blank slate” where they could leave the dead end of reservation life, start over, and keep their traditions alive. Most Zephyrians are of Cherokee, Pawnee, Navajo, Sioux, Choctaw, Blackfoot, Creek and Iroquois descent.

Zephyria’s flag features a thunderbird on a red disk, surrounded by a stylized dreamcatcher; originally an Ojibwe craft, the dreamcatcher became a “Pan-Indian” symbol in the 1960’s and 70’s, and variants of the thunderbird are found in the mythologies of Native American cultures all over the United States, from the Great Lakes to the Great Plains, and the Southwest to the Northeast. The flag is split in half with red and blue. Blue for Earth, red for Mars. The symbol is on the blue side, however, because Zephyrians will never forget their heritage and where they came from, even as the thunderbird looks to Mars for the future.

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NEW ARCHANGEL
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And lastly, leaving Mars, we have the flag of New Archangel. Located in Stickney Crater on Mars’ largest moon, Phobos, New Archangel is named in honor of Novo-Arkhangelsk, the old capital of Russian Alaska (now the city of Sitka, Alaska). The name is no accident, as “Stickney Base” has been settled by large numbers of Russian-Americans, and Jewish refuseniks who defected from the USSR in the 1970’s. In 1999, a chap from New Archangel named Sergey Brin is making waves with some crazy new ideas for the future of the Martian Internet.

Anyway, the flag of New Archangel uses the colors of the pre-Soviet flag of the Russian Empire (yes, the red and blue are out of order, I didn’t really have a choice), with a proud all-American bald eagle in the style of the Great Seal of the United States. The shield on the eagle’s chest depicts Saint George (officially “Mounted Figure”, in accordance with New Archangel’s secular constitution) sinking a lance into the red dragon of communism. Any resemblance to the flag of the US Virgin Islands is purely coincidental.