The Navatlacas: Heirs to Hernan and Montezuma is an Alternate History where Hernán Cortés overthrows the Aztecs and instead of leaving it for the King of Spain, misunderstandings between the two of them leaves Hernan into forming his own empire in the Americas. Read it here
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The time-line begins with a slow start. It starts off with Cortes preparing for his expedition to Mexico though small changes already come in. He arrives with more money and troops, giving him much more luck in conquering the natives. Fast forward to 1520, he conquers Tenochtitlan rather early and leaves the town and its surviving inhabitants more or less intact instead of destroying them. The time-line then branches off to multiple fronts, covering the changes in Europe, the Americas and in Asia. Charles V manages to kick Francois I of France's ass much harder after the battle of Pavia leaving the man imprisoned where he dies, leaving his brother in law Henry of Navarre to take the throne in his place, as a stooge to Charles. The Mughals get rounded up and beaten in Panipat by the Delhi Sultanate who in turn get beaten by Rajputs. Portugal has better luck starting up relations with Ming China and sets up colonial ports all over the country, monopolizing on trade.
However in the Americas, while Cortes is a great general, his policies are a little more controversal. He's a zealous Catholic and does whatever is possible in pissing off the native population and show his superiority compared to them. Told through a combination of small stories and your average history textbook. Various characters include the ruler Cortes, the commanders Pedro de Alvarado, Pizarro, Olid, Cortes' former mistress Malinali, his queen Isabel, the priest turned Patriarch Geronimo de Aguilar and various other individuals.
Tropes:
- Allohistorical Allusion: Do you want hope and change with that Obama car?
- Alternate History: A clear-cut and excellent example of such.
- Amazon Brigade: Played straight with the Zihuatlánas.
- Ambition Is Evil: Can be argued for Cortés and Olid.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Cortés cements himself as Lord-Speaker of the Aztecs through smashing all those who stands before him, even fellow Spaniards.
- Balance of Power: The Pope's foreign policy emphasizes that the major powers of Europe (Holy Roman Empire, Spain, France, etc.) do not get too powerful at the expense of hiw own influence in Italy.
- Beam Me Up, Scotty!: An in-universe example. The historians of the Navatlacas highly doubt that Cortés gave an epic, Shakespearean speech when declaring independence from Spain.
- The Cavalry: Played straight with his army saving Don Pedro and his Juārdiyās from slaughter.
- The Chessmaster: Played straight with Cortés and to a lesser degree Olid. How else were they able to get where they were?
- The Church: Who else but the Roman Catholic Church?
- City of Gold:
- The Spanish sent numerous expeditions into the Americas looking for Cibola, the fabled City of Gold. Ironically, the natives of one tribe they worked to death mining for gold were sitting on a treasure unaccountably vast: all of the natives' jewelry was made of platinum, which the Spanish conquistadors considered worthless silver Rocks and threw vast quantities of platinum in the Amazon river looking for the "good stuff". Problem was, only the natives knew how to work platinum, and they were all dead.
- Also played straight with the Navatlacas at the beginning,
- Child Soldiers: Jenizários start out like this.
- Determinator: Most definitely Cortés, in both Real Life and this Alternate History. Taking only a few hundred men and forging an empire the kind of which the world has never seen through sheer will, Cortes is an excellent example of this kind of trope. His men probably qualify as well, going into an alien world most of them have never been too, and conquering ALL of it.
- The Empire: None other than the Holy Roman Empire.
- Folk Hero: The author himself notes that Cortés essentially turns into a murderous, conniving, and utterly ambitious George Washington for the Navatlaca people.
- For Want Of A Nail: Must have been some misunderstanding between Charles and Cortés.
- Going Native: What most of Europe fears Cortés and his men have done. In practice, they have, by orders of Cortes himself, taking Aztec wives, and adopting some of the local customs. Played straight with Gonzalo Guerrero, one of the shipwrecked Spanish sailors that Cortés encountered on his expedition. Unlike Aguilar, Guerrero opted to stay with the Maya.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Possibly one of the reasons why Olid went all Starscream on Cortés.
- Hijacked by Jesus: Played straight with the pyramids of Tenochtitlan which are converted, on Cortés' orders, to become churches. Same could be said for the local variant of Catholicism that is practiced in the Empire and the Aztec Mythology.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: Played straight with Diego Colón and Cortés.
- Human Sacrifice: Firmly outlawed and crushed by Cortes's men, and one of the few customs of the natives that Cortes makes sure ends.
- Lady of War: Is played straight and justified with Bagua Maorocoti.
- Mighty Whitey: Essentially what the conquerors of the Aztecs are, but due to ethnic assimilation, they will no longer be so in a few generations.
- Noble Savage: Subverted with Bagua Maorocoti and the Taino.
- Istanbul (Not Constantinople): By virtue of not being real-life history, this trope is in full effect, especially in what would normally be Mexico and the Central American nations. Of special note is that the author uses a Nahuatl (the Aztec name for their language) Wiki for the names used in his story.
- Politically Correct History: Averted. Big time.
- Putting on the Reich: Happens with Nordamerika as witnessed in the Tales of the Navatlacas: Heirs to Hernan and Montezuma spinoff thread.
- Praetorian Guard: Eventually down the road, the Navatlaca Empire's Jenizários become this.
- The Savage Indian: Played straight with the Aztecs and the Taino.
- Shown Their Work
- Spexico: There's considerable cross-fertilization between the cultures of the Spaniards and the Mesoamerican peoples in the Navatlaca empire. The country enjoys churros and hot chocolate while bullfighting remains popular.
- The Starscream: Olid. Here is a man who is among the most skilled and competent of the Spaniard nobility in Mesoamerica. Yet he backstabs Cortes, and using the conquerer's own tactic, carves a kingdom under Cortes's nose.
- Vestigial Empire: Will be played straight with the Ottomans.
- War Is Hell: Played straight.
- What If?: Cortés created an empire in Mesoamerica for himself?
