The Aztec Empire resisted European invasion and used prisoners and reverse-engineering to gain the secrets of...

How do you feel about settings like GI Joe or Fallout then? X-Men?

X-Men doesn't alter anything except for the existence of mutants and everyone being written by comic book writers. It's also in the Marvel universe, which is a total clusterfuck to begin with. Fallout picks a theme and runs with it, and it doesn't go so far as to damage the suspension of disbelief in my opinion. I honestly didn't know GI Joe had a setting. I never watched it or had any of the action figures.

Maybe it's because it's late, but this prompt just seems poorly thought out, or one of those things that just exists to create a gimmick without a lot of thought for the surrounding setting. Though, I'm sure with enough fluffing out it could probably work because Fallout is also pretty much that.

I remember the last time you started this thread, and how pretty much fucking everyone commented on the sheer ridiculous amount of handwaving and GM fiat it would take to make this scenario happen.

>This book.
A racist book (yeah, papuan are master race, and european determinism to boot) than use a very old and very out of favor view of it (geography determinism in english I think, not native speaker sorry), the doesn't know a shit about anything outside geography and even then flawed as fuck. Why do you americans keep pushing this shit in your unis, making you even dumber is beyond me, but the worse is you guys export that.

The north Americans suffered the same fate, but it took 300 years of genocide until they were truly reduced from 100% to 3%.
Frankly there was a lot of collusion going on from the very start in central America. Otherwise, Cortez's troops would've aimlessly plundered for a while and then tried to erect their own fiefdom somewhere on the continent in order to escape the king's justice.

I've seen American academics ridicule Jared Diamond, so don't blame all of them for that hack. My favourite put-down against him is that 1997 was the year he was determined to get a best-seller, releasing both Guns and the surprisingly less famous "Why Is Sex Fun?"

Go home Sunset Invasion, you're drunk.

Mass human sacrifices and wars for slaves pissed off their neighbors. Aztec Empire was about to fall, Spaniards speed up the process. It couldn't survive for the long time and control new territories without abandoning human sacrificies. This would require complete change of their society and replacement of its elite, priests and warriors, and their cultural values. To suceed they had to abandon their culture and everything you associate with Aztecs.

>It couldn't survive for the long time and control new territories without abandoning human sacrificies.

You srsly claiming that their human sacrifices were unusual and unique in the region?

Holy shit this isn't an RTS where you can "reverse engineer" technology and unlock new units, you have no idea what metallurgy is and why the Mesoamericans never developed a strong metallurgical tradition.

But let's entertain the notion shall we? The Aztec would not dominate because the Aztec would shortly collapse after fighting off the Spanish because now their client-states have equal tech supplemented by interested European powers. Mesoamerica will become a hotbed of warring countries puppeted by Europeans for their own ends.

There was no North American Genocide. There is more native American, genetically speaking, in the US than there was in 1650.

No, he's saying the Aztec did it at a scale and callousness that saw constant rebellion that led to their collapse by Cortez.

The Flower Wars were brutal human extraction operations even the natives found intolerable. The Aztec themselves were exiles after their founder literally skinned his bride and wore her skin to the celebration.

...

>skinned his bride and wore her skin
Now that's edgy. Amazing how nation of boy fucking mass murdering cannibals managed to survive for decades.

>How does its religion, which is based around feeding the sun with sacrifices, change with the knowledge that our sun isn't special and wouldn't be destroyed if they stop?

I don't know about that. People tend to perform some pretty complex mental gymnastics just to defend their respective faiths. Such a civilization might indeed convince itself that the sun is a unique and special entity among all the star systems in the universe, and would destroy / shun any scientific findings that suggest the sun is no more unique in its composition than any other.

>Fallout doesn't require suspension of disbelief
>basic text-only computers take up entire desks but a device with the same capabilities as a smart watch can somehow fit on the wrist
>no development of transistors but somehow have mobile, wireless, fully sentient AI
>society stops developing after the 50's and stays there for 117 years
>society stops developing after the 50's and racism and sexism are virtually non-existent, even in vaults that have retained the culture through the 200 years of isolation
>Literally laser guns are invented before transistors

>"Your sun is just like any other"
>"nu-uh, ours has a god in it"

I can see this working

wait, so... saying that geography is the main reason for one societys success over another is ...racist?

>Their fate was sealed by foreign diseases such a smallpox.
So the spaniards spread the disease and then gets rekt. The americas suffer plague for a long long time and the next time europeans show up the natives are all immune.

>welcomed as gods

American education right there, folks. Fucking nothing.

Didn't they invent the transistor shortly before the war? I believe the Pip Boy uses much more advanced computing technology than most everything else, aside from the supercomputers and AI.

Crusader Kings 2 - Sunset Invasion

OP's hypothetical situation ends with Aztecs in space and you're getting butt-flustered over metallurgy?

I was under the impression that the key tech difference was the transistor not being invented so they went with nuclear tech instead

>A collapsing state with on-going rebellion and epidemic of numerous diseases nobody had any immunity to survived
No, user, it collapsed. It just did. I'm not even going try to pretend your idea makes any sense, because if you think a what was basically a confederation of few city-states had any capability to go further than gaining better control of own region, it just shows you are interested in "cool" stuff and not how things work.

And it wouldn't be a problem on its own, but allowing such attitude two decades ago was the reason why suddenly so many settings based or placed in real world went from "well-researched and probably stuff" to "piece of convoluted bullshit that runs on nonsense as fuel"

Not the other user, but if they can't into metal, they most definitely can't into space.

OP's idea is simply retarded, like every scenario in which Mesoamerica resisted Spaniards. It just show how ingnorant one must be to the reasons why Cortez succeeded, assuming it was anything else than combination of countless elements that NOTHING can counter or stop.
Want good "future Aztec" setting? Try the one from GURPS, where Phoenicians reached Americas after getting to Azores. The world ends up so fucked up the fact Mesoamerican culture pretty much "rules" the world is the least problematic.

X-men and the marvel universe alter everything.

Magic exists in full force in that setting, gods exist from every single pantheon and more. Mutants have existed since pre-history. Yet the world is roughly the same minus giant death robots and 70-80's inspired sci-fi tech.

I believe its invention was just significantly delayed. I'm pretty sure that the Enclave, House, Big MT, and the Institute possessed advanced computer technology which incorporated transistors.

Any source ? From anybody ?
Just curious because, while it might be easy to evaluate how many redskins are living in the US right now, we have precious little information about how many might have lived before the colonists arrived.

Not him, but the statement is technically true due to simple fact manipulation
There can be more natives in NA now than in 1650 due to the simple fact native population back then was pretty small, counted in thousands. Thus by sole fact you will account now say... five millions of natives (let's be generous here), you can claim there is more of natives now than back then.
It of course completely neglects the simple fact it's just doesn't take proportions and ratio of non-natives into account, but hey, the guy is technically right.

>It's literally impossible for the aztec to be cool sci-fi shit.
>In a board that has often pondered and brewed settings where Japan would be better off if it stayed isolated
Is this racism?

No, just most of us aren't Mexicans looking for national pride and 'We wuz Empire' moments of bliss.

>counted in thousands.

What

There were at least a few million people in N.A., the issue was that they were just spread out over a massive distance.

They actually made a multi-dimensional Aztec conqueror comic complete with a God-Machine Feathered Serpent hologram to worship

Well, some of us are Mexicans

Everybody sacrificed humans in the region and I'm certain we'll find plenty of folks wore human skin as part of their cult as well. The Aztects simply were newcomers who desperately needed the political capital that could be gained by performing such rites.

That was just a single story in Tom Strong though.

Nope, 90% of the Native Americans died within a hundred years of the Westerners due to disease. There wasn't any time to develop immunities, and it really doesn't happen that quickly if ever.

The Native Americans were basically just mopped up by the Westerners, and it would end up being pretty similar here.

Mexicans are more proud of colonial stuff than mesoamerican stuff. Turns out they're not indigenous or spanish, they're mestizos.

Seeing this ammount of absolute denial for setting in a board that has supported sci-fi Tokugawa-era Japan, sub-saharan africa and abbos, reeks of racism against the acceptable target of current times.

Cases of mass sacrifices are uncommon. We know that many cultures had ancient bloody rituals but they were replaced by animal sacrifices and other rituals with time, not embraced to new level. I can't think of many cultures where wearing human skin was acceptable.

Btw, that girl who was skinned by Aztecs was a daughter of the local king and was sent to help rebuild Aztec royal family.

One does need to take into account that, like so many smaller civilizations with similar practices, the only reason the Aztecs were sacrificing people en-mass was because they were starving. The population boom could not be compensated by their farming methods, and the land was salinated in their desperate efforts to do so, reducing their agricultural capacity yet further. The bulk of people they were sacrificing were competing tribes encroaching on their dwindling supply of arable land, after all.

If the Aztecs had access to Spanish horses and sailing techniques, they could have easily expanded their empire to other fertile lands to compensate for this, as interconnected trade puts a major dent in soil salination, allowing more time for soil to rest and drain. Presumably, this would have eventually have caused them to liberalize and cut back on human sacrifice, as people generally don't like eating their babies every time it rains on a new moon, or what not.

(Also the fact that the scale and nature of their human sacrifice was probably greatly exaggerated, cuz, well, drunk Spaniards need to spin a good yarn when they get home, and are looking for funds for return trips.)

But, of course, that's all no fun.

So, if we say they somehow keep with the mass human sacrifice bit, due to some odd cultural motivation, and somehow manage to start a galactic empire, despite being hung up on this fundamentalism (I suppose it'd have to be the only hang up, given all the other conflicts such scientific discovery would have with their religion)... Then, following that pattern, presumably they'd start mass sacrificing any aliens they came across, assuming they were sitting on anything they wanted (at least provide an economic motivation for the massacres). Maybe they even start engineering ways to knock out other people's stars, looking upon them as competing gods. It'd all be very odd, and very ugly.

Kind of. They invented the transistor, applied it to their military technology and other high end stuff but then the world kinda blew up before it could hit the mainstream.

Could also be they interpret their religion in such a way as to assume their gods were visiting aliens (which would be easy to do), and thus are out looking for them... And maybe it even turns out to be true.

Granted, that's was kinda already done in the 70's Star Trek cartoons.

I don't give two shits about pathetic accusations of racism. From what accounts we have (not very reliable) Aztecs look like the closest version of evil demon worshipping empire we had on Earth. Not even Phoenicans are that bad. Naturally many normal people are repulsed by this idea and don't want to develop it further.

Maybe they end up being taken over and controlled from within by a small group of powerful aliens that resembled their gods? Kinda like how they worshiped the conquistadors when they first showed up?

youtube.com/watch?v=AJGvn5iOERM

Or maybe the aliens really are their goods, but are more benign that they ever were, and are all "You've been doing WHAT in my name!?" (followed by crunching noises.)

Though I like the idea of a bunch of Quetzalcoatl themed feathered star ships flying about.

The problem, OP, is that your setting doesn't pander to weeaboo neckbearded faggots who make up the majority of this board.

Make the aztecs an all female society that worships cock, speaks japanese, and uses katana's. Then they might like it.

Publish it as a 3.PF or 5e setting and you'll be rolling in greasy dollars.

So, are you gonaa elaborate or are you just gonna leave it at "this sucks for reasons"?

Actually, that's pretty interesting. Reminds me of the deleted scene from Prometheus were Weyland has a conversation with the Engineer, and it almost seems like they're going to be able to be peaceful but then Weyland mentions that he's a good too because he can create other living things, and it reminds the Engineer why he has to kill all the stupid fucking humans.

It would actually be pretty interesting if the whole setting was based around the conflict between "Gods" and the Spacetecs.

Add sexy jaguar warrior suits

>used prisoners and reverse-engineering to gain the secrets of metallurgy and shipbuilding

why would the missionaries or soldiers know this?

Okay so there's an all female Aztec themed society.
And they worship cock.
And they believe that the sun sits at the tip of a great divine sky cock.
And they have to regularly perform gratuitously sexy acts in order to ensure that the sun continues to 'rise' every morning.
Also they kidnap virgins from the tribes that they've conquered and sacrifice them on top of giant pyramids.
And by 'sacrifice' I mean fuck.
And they also kidnap young virgins who came over with the Spanish fleet who are thinly veiled user self inserts.
And they all have obsidian katanas which can cut through anything.
And particularly skilled warriors are blessed by the great sky jaguar and grow cat ears and a tail.
I couldn't think of a way to have them speaking Japanese.

youtube.com/watch?v=8GrYvMnrcL8

Gods that episode...
>They've come to me in a space ship...
>...Lemme see if they can put four blocks together.

Actually, the folks that were educated back then tended to have very widely rounded education ("specialization is for insects"). The missionaries would likely know some metallurgy, and the sailors, collectively, might know enough to rebuild their ship.

On the other hand, knowing metallurgy doesn't tell you where the iron deposits are, and the Aztecs didn't have any, which is the primary reason they were doing all their shit on bronze and gold, and the jungles around there make for real shit scantling - gotta go up to California for any decent oak or redwood.

But it's alt-history, which, by definition, requires some magical circumstance changes.

Which GURPS book is that? Sounds interesting.

Y-you had me at 1406473632247.jpg

...though I can't decide if that's a really huge jaguar, or a really tiny woman.

If you guys are interested in mesoamerican shit, check out The Water-Pouring Song. Iirc it's a Nahuatl poem performed at a Spanish wedding a few years after Cortez took over, and it told the story of how Montezuma fucked up. The whole thing was a plea for the spirits of their ancestors to lead them to victory, which actually sort of happened: there was a successful rebellion a few years later (that was squashed eventually).

Plus it's cool to see a translation of a language that's almost gone.

Japanese language and katanas are legacy of early Japanese colonists who landed in Mexico. They were shinobi clan in exile.

>Actually, the folks that were educated back then tended to have very widely rounded education ("specialization is for insects").

The Conquistadors weren't educated, they were the dregs of their society. Why else would they risk their lives on what was, even from the start, widely regarded as a suicide mission?

Ever managed to get an Aztec pope yet?

Cortes was educated as fuck (hell, he started university at 14, and was a lawyer)... A lot of the early explorers were, and many were nobility. Probably because the ridiculously insanely rich that invested the equivalent of billions to fund this shit wanted their investments to be looked after by one of their own, and looked upon the poor as unreliable animals in need of careful handling.

Google-fu tells me it's the first book of GURPS Alternative Earths and the world is called Ezcalli

>jaguar
>woman

Would you venture for a year inside a floating coffin without people who could fix any problem that may arise with it?

If it meant cock-worshiping waifu monster girls- yes

>and it would end up being pretty similar here.
Oh, you KNOW that, do you?

No, the way you do this is you make that myth about a welsh king fucking off to north america in response to the norman invasion real, and then have light trade network between europe and americas a thousand years earlier, allowing iron working, horses and european diseases to reach the americas long before europe's capable of colonising the new world, thus creating american civilisations that are technologically and immunologically capable of resisting colonisation like the chinese and japanese.

Then prep your anus for Inuit submarines and battleships wrecking russia during ww1.

>Not even Phoenicans are that bad
you believe roman propaganda that they burned their babies alive?!

I... Don't think you get how this alt-history thing works.

and once again Veeky Forums confirms every stereotype about them.

If this was about humans fighting back an alien invasion and reverse engineering their tech, no one would complain about implausibility of the scenario. Even though the tech gap and disease gap and whatevs are light years apart.

Is this cognitive dissonanse or ass burgers?

Given what the Romans were doing to babies, that woulda been an improvement.

I'm down to play this world. ESPECIALLY if we get to see both perspectives. If for no other reason than to see how the GM would do it.

Honestly, the Aztecs were the closest thing in real life to an evil empire out there before gunpowder allowed other empires to make a shot at the title. They'd make good villains in any science fiction campaign.

and you can have the icelander keeping contact with the canadian natives too

>There wasn't any time to develop immunities, and it really doesn't happen that quickly if ever.

though note that it took europeans about 2 centuries to adapt to eurasian Syphilis to the point where it wasn't a fast acting and highly lethal disease. Seriously, the medieval accounts of syphilis are completely different from how it works these days, and indeed we found out that it was an adaption of europeans to the disease rather than an adaption of the disease to people because the portugeese spread it around west africa and it behaved exactly like the medieval accounts described it.

West Africans were all like "WE ...WUZ... JUST...getting over the black death, goddamit portugal, why you do dis?" And then the portugeese started enslaving them to sell to the spanish.

but my point is: 2 centuries is generally about as long as it takes a disease to go from "nearly 100%, fast acting risk of death" to "eventually you'll go blind, mad, and then die, a few decades later".

Well, the difference between an unlikely future scenario, and an alternate history scenario, is that by definition, the alternate history scenario can't happen, or it would have. Thus you need to magically change the scenario to make it happen. Thus it's a rather pointless thing to complain about.

Though, on an unrelated side note, the alien invasion scenario works, provided the aliens are basically retarded, just with a ridiculously huge head start, and for some damned reason, wanna do a ground invasion - ala the original X-com.

Well, with really nasty fast moving plagues, you tend to not so much develop immunity, so much as only those with resistance or immunity are left alive. Such as the Black Plague of Europe, that really, made all this possible.

>Well, the difference between an unlikely future scenario, and an alternate history scenario, is that by definition, the alternate history scenario can't happen, or it would have.

Contrast Man in the High Castle with that book by Newt Gingrich where Hitler invades britain via edinburgh.

Yes, I suppose it's better to find a way to make your alt history more plausible, but OP didn't go into that sorta detail, and saying it, "can't never happen" is just pointless and counter-productive. It's your world - make it happen.

>I can't think of many cultures where wearing human skin was acceptable.

It wasn't acceptable in Aztec society outside of one rite during one date once a year for one person either. Plus the way they used the princess was the correct one. Fertility eventually did return to their political body after the sacrifice, no?

This femur looks well developed. Are you sure it's bones of children?

Nope, thousand times nope

The Germans probably have them beat in terms of quantity and quality. Single biggest case of human sacrifice, really.

That's silly. Everybody sacrificed babies in ancient europe. It was called "exposure" and the right of every father. They certainly were mad about them being thrown into a furnance rather than being fed to wild dog as it is the Roman fashion.

I may has googled up the wrong image... But it was apparently a thing:
archive.archaeology.org/9703/newsbriefs/ashkelon.html

You can't argue with facts, user. The Aztecs did everything like their forefathers and eventually got an empire out of it. Whatever tribe was just keen on seeing their king fug rather than rise to become an Emperor probably was eventually killed to the last man.

>the alternate history scenario can't happen, or it would have.
That completely discounts personal actions and gool ol' chaos theory.

Well, if we're going by percentage of population, the Catholics vs. the Cathars have just about everyone beat, wiping out 10% of Europe's population in just a few years.

The numbers on the Aztecs are screwy as fuck though, and unlike the Catholics, they had practical reasons: mass starvation and competing tribes.

I can argue that many empires never commited such atrocities and lasted way longer. This act was shocking even for their neighbors since they drove Aztecs out after that.

Same person, same place, same scenario, same actions... And fuck chaos theory. Free will is a blessing granted to the non-omniscient.

A dig site in carthage turned out to contain burned sheep, goat and human infant bones mixed together. What the fuck do you think was going on there if not sacrifice including child sacrifice?