Dimensional Coordinates: 223.917.611.628
Divergence Date: 1519
Welcome to Aztec World, where Meso-American Indians retained their grips on the Americas by kicking a lot of white man ass.
A force of between 600 and 700 men, only thirteen of whom were musketeers, only ten field pieces and two or three smaller pieces of cannon. Does this sound like a force capable of conquering an entire empire?
It did on our world — Hernan Cortez, conquistador and convenient look-alike for the human form of Quetzacoatl, ravaged all of Mexico and destroyed the Aztec culture with this and little more than a brutal vision of conquest. However, on Aztec World, fellow conquistador and governor of Cuba Diego Velasquez de Cuellar was able to stop Cortez. Hardly an altruistic goal, however, as de Cuellar wanted the glory for himself.
De Cuellar and a similar batallion of men landed in Mexico in 1519 and (unlike Cortez) failed to capture the village of Tabasco. The soldiers were driven back, cornered and executed. Word spread quickly about the atrocity, and the natives came to accept that the Spaniards were not their glorious reincarnated Feathered Serpent God, but a bunch of animalistic profiteers. The sheer numbers of Aztec allowed them to rebuff all major military campaigns launched in North America, and by the time the Spanish had brought over another wave of colonists, the exponential growth of the Aztec empire leeched north into present-day California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
Today’s Aztec Empire is technologically advanced. Cell phones and automobiles are commonplace, and Americans are usually bilingual, speaking both Nahuatl and English. Western influences seeped over to the New World, it seems.
There’s a bit of slavery, but not how you think. Whites are used as slave labor, while the descendants of the black slaves taken from Africa return the favor brought on by their ancestors by living high on the hog selling white people for the most money possible.
Aztec World is pretty brutal. Ruled from the west by a direct descendant of Montezuma, you’ll still see bloody sacrifices to the gods and unfettered draconian law enforcement.
Off-limits to white people for obvious reasons.