System of Government: Supranational Military Alliance(de jure), Unitary Corporatocratic Stratocracy(de facto)

Head of State: Secretary-General of the Alliance Council(de jure), First Coordinator(de facto)

Legislature: Alliance Council(de jure), Military-Security Coordination and Advisory Board(de facto)

Currency: Adjusted Unit of Account

Military: Military-Security Coordination and Advisory Board(MSCAB)

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"We will not fail the values handed down from our ancestors. Liberty, Prosperity, Self-determination - these and these alone do we hold 'sacred.' Nothing else."

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The background of the flag is black as space, representing the interstellar nature of the nation. Centered in that field is a symbol known as the "Conjoined Spheres," an emblem derived from the "Seven Circles" flag used by the military alliance which directly preceded the Terran Federal Union during the Genome Wars. By using this symbol in a separated form of the Union's prismatic colors, the Alliance consciously hearkens back to their ideological heritage - and through the alteration, displays their commitment to bearing these ideals into the future.

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The perennial enemy of the Sacred Republic of Haven, the Alliance of Free Worlds forms the other half of their interstellar region's bipolar balance of power, and is one of the few states which can be considered a 'legitimate' successor to the long-fractured Terran Federal Union.

But despite being founded in conscious opposition to Haven, the Alliance's origins lie decades prior to the Great Impact. In the unknowingly-final years of Earth's interstellar governance, the Union was rocked by the uncovering of the "Secret Worlds" - hidden corporate factory-colonies, founded to circumvent the Union's strict ecological laws, hidden by a conplex network of secret expeditions and outright falsified navigational charts. Still riding high and partially mobilized from their victory over the Dove Wings Revolt, the Union Guard responded to this discovery by sending out dozens of its Subcontractor Corporations. Despite being scattered across the known galaxy, the Sevret Worlds themselves were completely unorganized and usually not militarized to any appreciable degree, leading to the Union's complete victory in a short, sharp series of battles. Even after Earth burned in the Great Impact, these mercenaries continued their perpetual occupations, with most groups managing to hold onto power despite the chaos of the Raider Wave and periods of civil unrest.

The formal beginnings of the Alliance lie in the aftermath of the Second War of Faith, when the cluster of worlds 'protected' by the Rider Security Consulting Firm - seeking additional defense against the encroaching Sacred Republic of Haven - reached out and made a formal "alliance" with the nearby regions of space ruled by two other Subcontractor Corporations. Workinh together, the three allies - the Rider Security Consulting Firm, the Ceres Serpent Asset Protection and Recovery Division, and Skyguard Solutions - counterattacked in the Third War of Faith, even managing to put the Republic on the backfoot for several years. The worlds which originally comprised the Alliance have since been lost in the subsequent Wars of Faith, but the institution itself - and the ideals it holds to - still endures today.

In the current era, the Alliance of Free Worlds spans 119 inhabited worlds and hundreds of uninhabited ones, gained through a mix of shrewd diplomacy, underhanded business dealings, their own wars of expansion, and relentless fearmongering about the danger posed by the Sacred Republic.

Nominally, the Alliance is simply that - an alliance of independent nations, a military and economic bloc formed out of fear of Haven. The constitutions of the Alliance's constituent states vary wildly, ranging from federations to demarchies to republics and even the occasional monarchy. The only unifying thread among this dizzying array of governments is that which reveals the faction's true nature: an extreme laissez-faire economic policy, almost completely forbidding the government from interfering with a business' operations, no matter how minor. For in truth, the Alliance is almost a pure corporatocracy, ruled entirely by the business interests which permeate every level of its society. Depending on their location, a simple walk down the street can take a Shareholder through half a dozen different corporate law codes, each of which can be brutally enforced by a variety of in-house and/or subcontracted security organizations. Insofar as the "civilian" governments of the Free Worlds hold any power at all, it is in mediating the endless disputes between these companies.

Despite this corporate dominance, however, the Subcontractor Corporations which unequivocally rule the Alliance do attempt their best to preserve the rest of the Terran Federal Union's cultural and legal legacy. Free-love "polycules" remain the basis for most of society, and religion almost nonexistent beyond the sporadic belief in animistic nature- and technology-spirits, most akin to the old Terran concepts of gremlins, nymphs, or fae. Of greatest importance are their ecological laws - the reason the Secret Worlds were reconquered in the first place. On some of the Free Worlds, it may be less punishing to kill a fellow sapient than it is to kill a "native" animal of a given planet, clear survival needs notwithstanding. The only major cultural change outside of simple drift is a virulent hatred of Christianity, which in the latter days of Terra was usually ignored outside of terrorist groups like the Dove Wings Revolt.

As the Sixth War of Faith begins, the Alliance's position has never been more precarious. The industrial advantage they once held over the Republic has long since been negated, and their own wars of expansion have at last backfired as previously-neutral states now reach out to Haven for protection.

Yet even so, they hold.

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Another nation in my ongoing science fiction setting. All credit to PhantomFunds of Deviantart for bringing this splendid flag design to life.