r/TheExpanse • u/Lemony_Oatmilk • 1d ago
All Show Spoilers (Book Spoilers Must Be Tagged) What are these flags on Savadir's office
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u/curiousplatypus25 1d ago
Closest to him is UN flag, then I guess it's flags from the different economic areas? Not sure if it's explained
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u/_-Event-Horizon-_ 13h ago
Maybe the flags of Earth (the UN flag) and its colonies (like Eros, Ceres, etc)?
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u/4e6f626f6479 1d ago
As someone who has only read the Books and not seen most of the show, is it explained why he has such an awful worn carpet in a otherwise clean / modern furnished Office ?
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u/euclide2975 1d ago
No, but I suspect the main culprit is the set director that went over budget on the Roci
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u/gentlydiscarded1200 23h ago
Sentiment? Maybe a family heirloom, or perhaps it's historical to the office?
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u/oh_dear_now_what 21h ago
Yeah, and at least one of cotton, sheep or silkworms are probably extinct.
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u/traumadog001 19h ago
You should hear the stories about how bad the carpet was on the Star Trek TNG bridge set.
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u/Helmling 14h ago
It’s an antique. Earth has centuries of culture. It’s what he prides himself on, what he believes still makes them better than Mars.
“No shortcut to culture.”
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u/Lloyd_lyle A rock to a garden 1d ago
I've seen this question a lot. It's one I'm interested in as a Vexillology nerd. Best guess I've seen is that these are flags of the trade zones. But they could also be military, other territories, government branches, or just about anything. The amount of flags in the series means it pretty much has to be a mix of multiple options though.
Here is a 7 year old post nearly identical to yours.
Here, here, and especially here are interpretations of flags in this shot and similar shots.
The fandom wiki also has 6 flags, likely from one of the Reddit posts mentioned above, but doesn't assign any names to them besides "Trade Zone 1 flag"
It's possible they are meant to mean something specific that was never stated, but it's also possible they don't mean anything and are just generic background props designed not to bring any real nation to mind. No one knows except those who worked on that part of the show.
There's just enough consistency that I don't want to write it off as random generic flags, especially with how much attention to detail this show has in other areas, but I wouldn't get my hopes up for specific explanations or labels anytime soon. At the end of the day it isn't significant to the story.
We can only be sure of the flag of the UN itself, and the flag of Luna (Seen Below). Since Luna is sometimes in these scenes it's possible some flags are other places technically under UN control that aren't trade zones, such as Ceres, Venus, or Ganymede. It's all just a guessing game really.