Note that the concepts of “counterfactual” vs “hypothetical” kind of map to this. I tend to think of “scenario” rather than “world” as my container of imagination for these kinds of things, because “world” implies a large-scale consistency that is explicitly missing in a lot of fictional cases, and unavailable for inspection in many “real” and “semi-real (intended to be realistic, but not asserted to be actually occurring)” cases.
Note that the concepts of “counterfactual” vs “hypothetical” kind of map to this. I tend to think of “scenario” rather than “world” as my container of imagination for these kinds of things, because “world” implies a large-scale consistency that is explicitly missing in a lot of fictional cases, and unavailable for inspection in many “real” and “semi-real (intended to be realistic, but not asserted to be actually occurring)” cases.