We are most gratified by the interest in our previous summary of ‘the Gap’ event. The Junior Scientists League has petitioned for more information about ‘the Oops’ event, and particularly about the prehistoric musical containers at the time. We’re happy to pass on what little we do know.
First, the Oops. This is the popular name for a momentary interruption of power that took place early in the 21st century. By all accounts this was much the same power we use to cook and light our homes at night. However, back at that time, power was also used for ‘books’. What we call ‘books’ might not have had the same meaning long ago. We have images of people apparently using books that open vertically, and seem to involve some kind of touch. Perhaps the endless plagues of that time made many people feeble sighted.
It was long believed that paper had not yet been invented, until in 3044 the archaeologist Dr. Hans Polar discovered a large supply of ancient paper covered in numbers and symbols. Perhaps paper was only available for special religious purposes. Since then we have found paper stored at several places around the globe, always with unreadable quasi text.
In any case at some point in 2056, power was lost and all the books made blank. The only known contemporary record of what took place is a single word, ‘oops’ marked on a wall in charcoal. It took nearly 100 years for a unknown historian to explain in passing the loss of power and the date while eulogising a petty king of the equatorial region. This event marks the point where our pre-history crosses over into history.
While it may seem that mankind lost a great deal, it’s important to note that much of it was endlessly duplicated magical recipes and not the scientific information we store on paper today.
As for musical containers. Today we have many musical instruments – flutes, drums and xylophones are some common types. Prehistoric people also had music containers, which had different sizes and colours at different times. Digging at archaeological sites first reveals small silver discs at about the end of the 20th century. Just below these are comparatively large flexible black discs. The most numerous containers lie just underneath, these are slightly smaller and more brittle.
The only clue we have to their use is a single image:
No doubt this is a tribal leader of some sort – he wears a sign of rank around his neck and his hair is dyed with a priestly colour. More importantly he is using the large music containers and two of them are powered – possibly in the same way as prehistoric books. We think that he is making music and the pile of broken containers are ones where the music has been used up. The ones we find are like this.
A close examination of a dig site shows that all the containers seem to have been made over a short period and were used up long before the Oops. The last silver sort are poor copies of the earlier, with only one side and no black ink. This has led to most scientists agreeing that the ability to make music containers was in decline around 1970 and completely forgotten by 1990. The same seems true for paper – by the time these savages had arrived at the Oops, they had lost their skills and become decadent – that event was just the final blow to an inferior people.
