I don't know if this is the right place for this, but I'm writing a movie script just for fun, nothing professional, however, I'd still like to fact check some stuff to be as historically accurate as possible.
I've never had history lessons about Aztec civilization, so everything I wrote is based on quick internet research. I'll try to be as brief as possible:
The story is told through the eyes of a father of a small family of 4. It's about the downfall of aztec civilization encompassing the plague and the Conquistadores' invasion. The narrative has a "mythological component" as you'll see later.
It's set in late 1520, on small farming village, Ahuacatlan, who relies on trading with a couple different tribes/villages (all aztecs). One day hawkers start bringing strange tales about pale giants (conquistadores). "They come from the sea and wield powerful weapons that bark fire and spit death from a distance. They've got indestructible shining armor from the color of the sun" - hawkers say.
These hawkers start getting sick, they wake up with belly pains, black tongue, and their noses dont stop bleeding. A strange pestilence starts spreading across tribes while farmers get sick and food gets scarce. Priests claim these are punishments from their angry gods: they demand more blood rituals! Human sacrifices are performed, but nothing seems to stop what looks like to be the end of the world.
The tribe "closes off their village" and fortify the area (placing traps, etc...) in fear of nearby tribes' attacks. Soon these giants, who everyone thinks are sent by raging gods, invade this small and weak village: they easily start killing everyone while the family escapes. The family runs away and passes by what were once friendly, but now turned enemy tribes. Some villages are burning, others are completely empty. They pass by famished people dying in the streets, wounded soldiers and misery spread through the roads they take. The family is encounters these new invading giants and they are forced to hide from them, when the parents start showing signs of sickness. They decide to abandon their kids to luck, so they have a chance to live and start a new life far away from there.
Any thoughts? What's accurate/innacurate here? The story is far from finished so I have a lot of room to change/rewrite stuff to accommodate for accuracy.
Thank you all for your time! :)
Edit: some words corrected. Also forgot to mention their village is somewhat remote, to the east and far away from the central empire. So the news take a little while to come by.
Hi there - we're happy to approve your question related to your script, and we are happy for people to answer. However, we should warn you that many flairs have become reluctant to answer questions for aspiring writers, based on past experience: some have a tendency to try to pump historians for trivia while ignoring the bigger points they were making, while others have a tendency to argue with historians when the historical reality does not line up with what's needed for a particular scene or characterization. Please respect the answers of people who have generously given you their time, even if it's not always what you want to hear.
Additionally, as amazing as our flair panel is, we should also point out that /r/AskHistorians is not a professional historical consultation service. If you're asking a question here because you need vital research for a future commercial product, you may be better off engaging a historical consultant at a fair hourly rate to answer these questions for you. We don't know what the going rate for consultancy work would be in your locality, but it may be worth looking into that if you have in-depth or highly plot-reliant questions for this project. Some /r/AskHistorians flairs could be receptive to working as a consultant in this way. However, if you wish for a flair here to do this work for you, you will need to organize this with them yourselves.
Forgot to ask: Is there any interesting fact/detail you think would be relevant to talk about? Any "personal fun fact" about aztecs or conquistadores you have?
What about mythology? I forgot to write about it on this post, but is there anything regarding their view on the end of the world that I should talk about?