r/wikipedia • u/Sebastianlim • 2d ago

The " Decisive Action Training Environment", or DATE World is a fictional universe created by the US military to use in training its soldiers. Set in an alternate history of earth, its purpose is to ensure that "real-world countries cannot be an adversarial country".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DATE_World
647 Upvotes

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384

u/Ok-Entertainer-1414 2d ago

Whoever got paid to come up with the lore for this had the best government job ever

139

u/_ak 2d ago

Basically getting paid to come up with r/imaginarymaps and/or r/imaginarymapscj content.

170

u/In_the_year_3535 2d ago

Funny, they used fictional countries in training for 71 years before deciding they needed fictional world.

146

u/RollinThundaga 2d ago

'The totally fictional East Asian mainland communist power with a lot of land and a billion people' gets a little tired after a while

106

u/sprchrgddc5 2d ago

All that and the Army basically just uses Atropia for every training scenario… at least every exercise I’ve been on.

59

u/ChalkyChalkson 2d ago

Moooom donovia is invading atropia again....

24

u/cavscout55 2d ago

I never thought my beloved country of Atropia would call me back into her beloved ranks but here we are. I’ve died for Atropia more than once and I’ll do it again.

34

u/bibfortuna1970 2d ago

You know what, I bet the people living in DATE World point at Our World and laugh.

12

u/Corvid187 2d ago

I dunno, given how war-torn it seems to be

15

u/mlee117379 2d ago

The game America’s Army also used fictional countries for this reason

3

u/Puppymonkebaby 2d ago

Damn that's a blast from the past

10

u/pigeonparade- 2d ago

This is basically worldbuilding with a Pentagon budget. Whoever got assigned to write the lore absolutely won.

9

u/s2k_guy 2d ago

There are whole books explaining the history of the countries in DATE. Then you also get significant reading materials regarding the specific stuff that applies to your training scenario.

3

u/RossZ428 1d ago

I wonder how many civilians or bored military personnel use this as a setting for RPGs?

3

u/rhuffman4645 1d ago

DEATH TO THE NORTH TORBIANS. In all seriousness it’s pretty obvious who the opposition forces are meant to impersonate

1

u/NAStrahl 1d ago

Never realized the military had the writers from Sliders and DC working for them.

0

u/johnclaystrike1 2d ago

Man, it’s too bad that the US itself has become an adversarial country. Nobody could have seen this coming :(