Never Was Magazine (Posts tagged Worldbuilding)

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What If Turkey Had Entered World War II?

What if Turkey had entered World War 2?

If you look at a map of Europe and the Middle East, you’ll probably notice that two countries could have given Hitler access to North Africa and the Middle East without too much of a water jaunt. At the west end of the Mediterranean, Spain could have given him access to Morocco and then to the rest of North Africa. On the east end, Turkey could have given him easy access to the Middle East, then…


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Second World War Worldbuilding

What If France Had Started World War II?

What if France had started World War 2?

It is hard to imagine France starting World War II. Its entire military strategy, including the construction of the formidable Maginot Line, was premised on fighting a defensive war. The only people who ever envisaged 1930s France as the aggressor were Nazi propagandists, and I doubt even they believed what they wrote.

To make the scenario remotely plausible, we probably need to start by…


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Second World War Worldbuilding

Anglo-Dutch Union

Anglo-Dutch Union: Merging the United Kingdom and the Netherlands

The year is 2039. Princess Catharina-Amalia, heir to the Dutch throne, has married Prince George of Wales, nine years her junior, creating a personal union between the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Two ambitious prime ministers propose to go further: unifying the kingdoms on the North Sea, thus making it possible for Britain to reenter the European Union by the backdoor.

It may seem…


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Worldbuilding

What If John F. Kennedy Had Lived?

What if JFK had lived?

John Jacqueline Kennedy

Alternate histories about John F. Kennedy’s assassination range from liberal fantasies, in which the Vietnam War didn’t escalate and Kennedy harmonizes race relations in the United States, to — less commonly — conservative fantasies, in which JFK establishes a Catholic dynasty that rules America forever.

Most books fall somewhere in between.

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Alternate History How-To Worldbuilding

How to Turn the Cold War Hot

Mistakes, miscalculations, American aggression or Soviet desperation. This is how you make World War III happen.

DEFCON scene

Most World War III fiction wasn’t written as alternate history. During the Cold War, many authors and filmmakers imagined how East and West might end up in a (nuclear) war. Because the two sides never did, these stories have become counterfactual.

A Third World War was seldom portrayed as the outcome of outright American or Soviet aggression. More often, the war happened as a result of…

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Alternate History How-To Cold War Third World War Worldbuilding

What If World War II Never Happened?

Hitler is killed. Wendell Willkie wins the 1940 US presidential election. Imagining a world in which World War II didn’t happen

Stefan Prohaczka artwork

After two worldbuilding series in which World War II ended worse than it did — one in which the war never ended and another in which the Axis won — let’s try a more optimistic scenario: a world in which World War II never happened.

Here we’ll take our cues from the Indiana Jones movies, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) and the art of Marcos Ceia and Stefan Prohaczka.

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Decodence Worldbuilding