Divergence dilemma

[MstrTal]

Ok here is my issue. I have 2 WIP's on the go and the second one being newer and less developed has hit me with a massive stumbling block.

This second WIP is set a Nuclear Post Apocalypse Dystopia. The two main elements I need to have are the theology I have been working on for the setting and the nuclear event that caused my setting to diverge from actual history. Herein lay the thrust of my issue.

The theology is based off of Country & Western music and as such there are certain pivotal songs that are needed. The problem is many are late 80s and early 90s. Now originally I was going to use the events surrounding Stanislav Petrov as the event that caused the world to fall. I.E. a different choice was made and thus the world suffered nuclear war and winter, wiping out the greater portion of the populous, covering the world in an ash cloud and turning the nations south of the equator into the 1st world by default.

The problem is the theology would not line up plausibly with the historic event or any other such event. The musical elements of the theology are extremely important as is the nuclear winter so how the heck do I meet my own criterion?

It is enough to make one want to bash their head against the wall!

Thoughts, suggestions, similar experiences so I do not feel so dumb? Anything would be helpful at this point.

 

[Abernovo]

If you're having problems with the timelines, perhaps you don't have to use the Petrov incident itself. He said that he was just the right man at the right time - keeping his head instead of pressing the button. What if a few years later, allowing you to get in some of the late 80s songs, another man wasn't the right one for the time?

Certainly some of the NATO war games in the late 80s worried some of the Soviet generals, or so the records say. It was believed at one point by Soviet planners that any invasion of the then East Germany would be preceded by war games in Europe, serving as a blind.

Alternatively, if you want just one more step of difference, what would have happened if Gorbachev had been overthrown in the Moscow coup? If the military had not been so divided and had replaced him with an old-fashioned leader? That would have (perhaps) seen the Soviet Union continuing for another few years, beset by internal divisions and the leadership even more paranoid about their security.

I'm not sure what you mean about 'theology' though, as you haven't laid out what it is in this case. Best of luck.

 

[MstrTal]

The theology is basically taking the surviving scraps of country and western songs and turning them into a religion.

I originally wanted to use the Petrov incident but have been researching alternate points along the Cold War timeline. The problem is nothing really fits and I am afraid that I may have to fabricate something whole cloth at this point. Sadly I wanted to save that for the story itself and not the back setting/world building.

Ole Gorby getting Tzar'd or JFK'd might be an interesting twist though. Especially if the assasination can be made to look like the US's fault. . .

 

[EricWard]

Hmm, I know you said you've got specific songs in mind, but I would say you could scour through some older country and western songs, since the themes have been pretty similar throughout the history of the genre.

Or, if you're dead set on using the songs you've chosen, do they have to have been recorded? Maybe they could be found just as lyrics sheets ala the Dead Sea Scrolls and taken as gospel.

But who's to say that Petrov being asleep at the switch would cause the world to end instantly? It's slim, but maybe a more gradual destruction with Petrov's failure just being the catalyst to something even bigger?

Either way, sounds like an interesting story.

 

[MstrTal]

Actually the religious aspect will be written scraps. In the scenario I have in mind a "Substantial Nuclear Winter" so the what human life does survive will be south of the equator. I plan on setting it into what I consider the "Recovery Phase" were the planet is starting to regain its equilibrium and the population is starting to recover. So something around or below 450 million people globally at the max.

Either way I need to start working on timelines. This is getting more interesting by the moment.

 

[Grinnel]

Studies have proven that the most reliable and longest lasting method of storing music is, believe it or not, vynol records.

A war happening any time now might well wipe out most modern electronic media storage with electro-magnetic pulses. Time will take care of the rest.

Digital music dies. Even surviving recordings will drop quality as they are passed on.

Records (at least, unmelted ones) and simple record players will survive. We get old country and western songs we can even play with a steel needle and a cone.

Country music is so bad to start with that it doesn't sound any worse on a broken old victrola...

 

[chrispenycate]

Vinyl records (or the earlier shellac disks mostly used for 78 rpm recordings, and made from millions of crushed bugs) wear with each playing, especially when the acoustical energy is being mechanically generated at the disk surface. The oldest known musical recordings were generated in (I believe) pre-Columbian Arizona, where a tribe decorated pots on an equivalent of a potter's wheel with a stretched thread, while singing. The thread vibrated with the sound and this was fired into the pots, not to be reproduced for some centuries. There, wasn't that a useless piece of information?

As regards scraps of country and western; be aware that, as musicians go, they are among the more litigious; any use of lyrics without written permission could lead to enthusiastic demands for finical reimbursement. This, despite the fact that practically all song lyrics of all genres, languages, styles, whatever are freely available on the Web.
Take care.