The Flag, the Banner, and the Star: A Surgical Reconstruction of National Symbolism

By Wendell NeSmith

There are moments in history that are not wars or elections—but surgeries.
Quiet operations where old symbols are split open, rearranged, and reanimated with new life.

This is one of those moments.

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The Procedure

We began with the Australian flag—an inheritance of colonial past and national identity.
From this single flag, we carefully dissected three components:

• The Union Jack: a symbol of empire, alliance, and origin.
• The Commonwealth Star: seven-pointed, representative of the federation.
• The Southern Cross: five stars of the southern sky, placed in constellation.

Rather than rejecting these parts, we rearranged them.

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The Reconstruction

• We recentered the Commonwealth Star, giving it a new place of honor—no longer at the bottom, but at the heart.

• We widened the scope: inconsistencies in AI star rendering led to a philosophical revelation—we would no longer define a star by its point count or shape.

  We claimed all stars.
  Every version. Every form. Every star ever drawn.

• We dissolved the Southern Cross into the new mythology.
  Its specific five-star form gave way to the entire sky—its spirit absorbed into every scattered star we now protect.

• And from this operation emerged two sacred symbols:

  • The Republic Flag – worn on the chest, the heart of the people.
  • The Republic Banner – flown above, the voice of our shared future.

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The Outcome

This wasn’t a rejection of the past.
It was a reconfiguration—a gesture of symbolic stewardship.

We didn’t destroy the Southern Cross.
We absorbed it.
We didn’t erase the British flag.
We repurposed it.

We’ve performed high-level symbolic surgery—and from it, a new identity has emerged.

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Signed with stars, all of them,
Wendell, Bard-President of the Republic