Alternate Problems

Here's an interesting problem for writing alternate history.

It's 1990, right? The world is at war. Your Point of Divergence 1982.

So what happened between 1982 and 1990?

Working on Castro's Folly I've made a few references to Operation Just Cause, the invasion of Panama. Could that have happened in this universe.

What about a zillion other things?

How about Live Aid? Farm Aid? Sun City?

Here's a goody; did Chernobyl happen?

My general rule is to ad, not take away. For example, I had the Soviet Union give the Cubans a Kilo class sub. This is important for the plot, but never happened in real life.  But everything else that happened in the real world happened in the WW1990 universe.

One of the ideas I'm toying with is a novel to wrap up the whole universe. Set in 1992, this would be about that year's presidential election.

Now int he real world, early on it looked like President Bush was unassailable and all the Democrat heavy hitters stayed out. This cleared the path for an obscure governor from some state down south.

Is this still the case in WW1990.  Is it just Clinton in 1992? or is there someone else?

Let's see, you've got Mario Cuomo in NY (a liberal lion in his day). Fat Teddy the secretary killer in MA I suppose. Gephardt I suppose, he ran in 1988 after all. Dukakis redux? Ann Richards in Texas?

Frankly, I've found the Republican machinations far more interesting.

I think the reader will too.