evilchumlee
Well-known member
I want to preface this with please let's go with the spirit of the question. Answers like "That's impossible, couldn't happen." are not constructive here. I'm working on a story idea and I need this to happen.
This thread really isn't so much about *HOW* it happens. It's about what the world looks like *AFTER* this happens.
Here's the starting point. By alternate timeline, timey-wimey reasons,The US, Germany, and USSR all develop the atomic bomb simultaneously in 1945. I don't care about it couldn't, wouldn't, didn't, or how... it just did. That's what happened. There's a short exchange, each nation drops a bomb or two (It doesn't REALLY matter exactly where, but I think US still bombs Japan, Germany bombs London, and the USSR bombs a German city that's not Berlin, for reasons.)
This is an alternate timeline, Germany was not already losing by this time. By this timelines 1945, we're going to assume each nation held a rough estimation of their "peak" territory by the end of the war. The Allies, Germany, USSR and Japan are still going strong, no end of the war in sight.
With the bombs dropped and now a looming threat to everyone, an armistice is signed. Nobody is particularly happy about it, but it got everyone to the table and by and large, everyone agreed to a white peace of sorts. The war just... stops. Everyone keeps what they have, and they agree to stop fighting so more cities don't get wiped off the map.
Obviously, everyone is not just a big happy global family, so there's a massive cold war in place of the hot world war.
Given all this happening, what nations still exist and what does the world look like? A caveat here is that nations can still face any internal issues they have, and future wars can still potentially break out, but figure they would probably be closer to the real-world cold war, with proxy wars. However, well into the modern times and beyond, the US, Soviet Union, some flavor of German Reich, and Imperial Japan must still exist as world powers.
Anything else doesn't need to stay stagnant. Borders can change, although outright wars between the major powers are probably not a thing. Internal politics can change, the actual nations themselves don't have be exactly the same as they were in the real world or remain exactly as they were in WW2, but they need to be "officially" maybe the term is still those four nations. For example like, I don't know, The German Reich will still be "Nazi", but exactly WHAT that means can evolve. The USSR will always be the USSR, but perhaps they become closer to real-world China in their application of "communism", and are sort of communism-in-name-only. These are just ideas being tossed out, i'm curious what people do with this setting.
It's also not a secret, the world i'm trying to build is basically Space World War Two, but I want it to be less allegorical and more straight up Space World War Two in a world where WW2 didn't end in a victory or defeat for anyone (well, not "anyone", no defeat for the 4 major powers). THAT part isn't really important or what i'm looking for. I'm having trouble with some of the backstory, "how we got here" from the end of the war to around the modern day.
NOTE: This absolutely doesn't need to be a "hard history" world. This is a world that 100% works on story-rules. It's complete and total fantasy wearing a wrapper of historical fiction.
This thread really isn't so much about *HOW* it happens. It's about what the world looks like *AFTER* this happens.
Here's the starting point. By alternate timeline, timey-wimey reasons,The US, Germany, and USSR all develop the atomic bomb simultaneously in 1945. I don't care about it couldn't, wouldn't, didn't, or how... it just did. That's what happened. There's a short exchange, each nation drops a bomb or two (It doesn't REALLY matter exactly where, but I think US still bombs Japan, Germany bombs London, and the USSR bombs a German city that's not Berlin, for reasons.)
This is an alternate timeline, Germany was not already losing by this time. By this timelines 1945, we're going to assume each nation held a rough estimation of their "peak" territory by the end of the war. The Allies, Germany, USSR and Japan are still going strong, no end of the war in sight.
With the bombs dropped and now a looming threat to everyone, an armistice is signed. Nobody is particularly happy about it, but it got everyone to the table and by and large, everyone agreed to a white peace of sorts. The war just... stops. Everyone keeps what they have, and they agree to stop fighting so more cities don't get wiped off the map.
Obviously, everyone is not just a big happy global family, so there's a massive cold war in place of the hot world war.
Given all this happening, what nations still exist and what does the world look like? A caveat here is that nations can still face any internal issues they have, and future wars can still potentially break out, but figure they would probably be closer to the real-world cold war, with proxy wars. However, well into the modern times and beyond, the US, Soviet Union, some flavor of German Reich, and Imperial Japan must still exist as world powers.
Anything else doesn't need to stay stagnant. Borders can change, although outright wars between the major powers are probably not a thing. Internal politics can change, the actual nations themselves don't have be exactly the same as they were in the real world or remain exactly as they were in WW2, but they need to be "officially" maybe the term is still those four nations. For example like, I don't know, The German Reich will still be "Nazi", but exactly WHAT that means can evolve. The USSR will always be the USSR, but perhaps they become closer to real-world China in their application of "communism", and are sort of communism-in-name-only. These are just ideas being tossed out, i'm curious what people do with this setting.
It's also not a secret, the world i'm trying to build is basically Space World War Two, but I want it to be less allegorical and more straight up Space World War Two in a world where WW2 didn't end in a victory or defeat for anyone (well, not "anyone", no defeat for the 4 major powers). THAT part isn't really important or what i'm looking for. I'm having trouble with some of the backstory, "how we got here" from the end of the war to around the modern day.
NOTE: This absolutely doesn't need to be a "hard history" world. This is a world that 100% works on story-rules. It's complete and total fantasy wearing a wrapper of historical fiction.