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"This io9 flashback previously ran in January 2012." This note on the submitted article prompted me to look for earlier discussion of the Inca empire through t

"This io9 flashback previously ran in January 2012." This note on the submitted article prompted me to look for earlier discussion of the Inca empire through the HN Search tool. This article appears not to have been submitted before, but we have had other discussions here about the Inca empire and its conquest by the Spanish. The submitted article correctly notes that the history of the Inca empire is fragmentary because of a severe lack of written sources. Archeology is a poor substitute for history (relying on actual written records from the time studied) because it is hard to figure out what people were thinking. The rather rapid conquest of the Inca empire by a badly outnumbered group of Spanish explorers surely relied most on the epidemic diseases that the Spaniards inadvertently brought with them, but it appears to have relied as well on dissatisfaction with Inca rule on the part of many Inca subjects. People don't fight hard against invaders if their "home" rulers are dictators--World War II provides other examples of that principle. Maybe the greatest mystery of the Inca empire is that it lasted any length of time at all. The empire collapsed rapidly once a new, tiny group of potential rulers arrived. South America's Andean territories soon became viceroyalties of Spain, far away.

oarevalo 13y ago
Actually, Pizarro took advantage that at the time of his arrival at Peru, the Inca's were in a somewhat state of civil war due to the two heirs (Huascar and Atahualpa) of the recently deceased Inca (Huayna Capac) fighting each other.
s_baby 13y ago
>People don't fight hard against invaders if their "home" rulers are dictators--World War II provides other examples of that principle. You don't think the Russians fought hard?
- freehunter 13y ago
  I assume I have a limited knowledge of WWII history on that front, but from what I was taught in history class, the biggest deterrent of the Nazi invasion of the USSR was the weather. What we learned was that the Russians were invading Germany more than the Germans could invade Russia. Basically the Russians weren't fighting to keep the Nazis from invading, but were focused on a counter-invasion. I could very well be wrong, as I took WWII history in the US (which tends not to focus on European involvement in WWII).
  - soperj 13y ago
    That sounds more like Napoleon's Russian excursion, than the Nazi one.
  - mpyne 13y ago
    Well when I took WWII history in the U.S. it had no such inaccuracies, though it did tend to gloss over the Eastern Front in general. Of course the schools I've been to have also stayed away from trying to teach creationism as biology so maybe it's different elsewhere in the U.S.
  - int_19h 13y ago
    Weather helped somewhat to slow blitzkrieg down in 1941 (though it applies to both sides equally; Soviets were just better prepared), but it doesn't win wars. If you look at casualty figures, 2/3 of all Axis casualties in WW2 (this includes Japanese!) happened on the Eastern Front in Europe; and most of those weren't frostbite. Soviets paid two for one in terms of casualties, though. But they could keep doing that for longer, and their industry could keep up as well (war production figures for Reich vs USSR are rather telling).
- tokenadult 13y ago
  I had Ukraine in mind as one outstanding example. For some parts of the territory Japan invaded, too, the local people thought at first that maybe the invaders would be better rulers than their previous rulers.
  - asdfdsa1234 13y ago
    Ukraine had just suffered a forced famine (Holodomor) that killed millions.
  - jeltz 13y ago
    Ukraine had very recently suffered an artificial famine caused by Stalin so it had less to do with form of government and more to do with that genocide does not breed loyalty.
jeltz 13y ago
What examples from WW2 do you have? I can see no pattern between countries ruled by dictators and not.
- int_19h 13y ago
  I think this was a reference to the fact that Soviet Union had extremely high (compared to average) rates of collaboration with the enemy among both civilian population on occupied territories, as well as and POWs. Some keywords to look up: Hiwi, Russian Liberation Army, Lokot Republic, Ostlegionen.
Florin_Andrei 13y ago
> Maybe the greatest mystery of the Inca empire is that it lasted any length of time at all. The empire collapsed rapidly once a new, tiny group of potential rulers arrived. Any society would collapse like a house of cards if it wasn't in its prime, but was instead just a bunch of bewildered, shell-shocked survivors of a 90% die-off event triggered by new microbes. Pizarro was dealing with people who were basically living in a post-apocalyptic universe. The gods were angry and all that stuff.
soperj 13y ago
Just wondering about this: "World War II provides other examples of that principle" care to elaborate on that?
asdfdsa1234 13y ago
Why do you call them "dictators" instead of "royalty?"
mercurial 13y ago
> Basically the Russians weren't fighting to keep the Nazis from invading, but were focused on a counter-invasion. The thesis of Icebreaker [1], a controversial history book by an ex-GRU officer, is that Stalin was planning an invasion of Germany right when Operation Barbarossa happened. However, his interpretation is disputed by most historians. What is certain is that the Red Army was caught with its pants down and got a sound beating at the beginning. However, they did fight with tremendous tenacity (eg, at Stalingrad) later on, and eventually pushed back the Germans. You'll also note that Germans and Japanese troops fought with particular determination even when it became clear that defeat was the only possible outcome. Contrast this with the dismal performance of French and British troops during the Battle of France.
- int_19h 13y ago
  > You'll also note that Germans and Japanese troops fought with particular determination even when it became clear that defeat was the only possible outcome. I actually recall reading regarding Germans that there was a very peculiar distortion of perception there when even during late 1944 and early 1945, with Soviet armies literally at the door, a lot of people genuinely still believed that a victory (at that point defined as peace on non-debilitating terms) was highly likely - based on letters and other personal correspondence from that period, journals etc.
  - ekianjo 13y ago
    I'm not so sure about that. When cities like Dresden were bombed day and night and destroyed to the ground, it'd be very hard to believe Victory or Peace is at hand. Maybe people living in Berlin had that perception, but I would be very surprised if that was a general sentiment in Germany.
- ekianjo 13y ago
  > Contrast this with the dismal performance of French and British troops during the Battle of France. Contrast this with the millions of people who died in Germany and Japan because of that determination (or should I say their rulers' determination!), without avoiding the final outcome at all. The French government understood very fast they were completely behind and were going to lose and they did the right thing to avoid a massacre which would have prevented nothing. And besides, in Germany and Japan people were forced into fighting until the end (even teenagers in Germany), it's not like it was the "nation in arms" or something. Nobody wants to lose their life on purpose.

oarevalo 13y ago

Actually, Pizarro took advantage that at the time of his arrival at Peru, the Inca's were in a somewhat state of civil war due to the two heirs (Huascar and Atahualpa) of the recently deceased Inca (Huayna Capac) fighting each other.

s_baby 13y ago

>People don't fight hard against invaders if their "home" rulers are dictators--World War II provides other examples of that principle. You don't think the Russians fought hard?

freehunter 13y ago
I assume I have a limited knowledge of WWII history on that front, but from what I was taught in history class, the biggest deterrent of the Nazi invasion of the USSR was the weather. What we learned was that the Russians were invading Germany more than the Germans could invade Russia. Basically the Russians weren't fighting to keep the Nazis from invading, but were focused on a counter-invasion. I could very well be wrong, as I took WWII history in the US (which tends not to focus on European involvement in WWII).
- soperj 13y ago
  That sounds more like Napoleon's Russian excursion, than the Nazi one.
- mpyne 13y ago
  Well when I took WWII history in the U.S. it had no such inaccuracies, though it did tend to gloss over the Eastern Front in general. Of course the schools I've been to have also stayed away from trying to teach creationism as biology so maybe it's different elsewhere in the U.S.
- int_19h 13y ago
  Weather helped somewhat to slow blitzkrieg down in 1941 (though it applies to both sides equally; Soviets were just better prepared), but it doesn't win wars. If you look at casualty figures, 2/3 of all Axis casualties in WW2 (this includes Japanese!) happened on the Eastern Front in Europe; and most of those weren't frostbite. Soviets paid two for one in terms of casualties, though. But they could keep doing that for longer, and their industry could keep up as well (war production figures for Reich vs USSR are rather telling).
tokenadult 13y ago
I had Ukraine in mind as one outstanding example. For some parts of the territory Japan invaded, too, the local people thought at first that maybe the invaders would be better rulers than their previous rulers.
- asdfdsa1234 13y ago
  Ukraine had just suffered a forced famine (Holodomor) that killed millions.
- jeltz 13y ago
  Ukraine had very recently suffered an artificial famine caused by Stalin so it had less to do with form of government and more to do with that genocide does not breed loyalty.

jeltz 13y ago

What examples from WW2 do you have? I can see no pattern between countries ruled by dictators and not.

int_19h 13y ago
I think this was a reference to the fact that Soviet Union had extremely high (compared to average) rates of collaboration with the enemy among both civilian population on occupied territories, as well as and POWs. Some keywords to look up: Hiwi, Russian Liberation Army, Lokot Republic, Ostlegionen.

Florin_Andrei 13y ago

> Maybe the greatest mystery of the Inca empire is that it lasted any length of time at all. The empire collapsed rapidly once a new, tiny group of potential rulers arrived. Any society would collapse like a house of cards if it wasn't in its prime, but was instead just a bunch of bewildered, shell-shocked survivors of a 90% die-off event triggered by new microbes. Pizarro was dealing with people who were basically living in a post-apocalyptic universe. The gods were angry and all that stuff.

soperj 13y ago

Just wondering about this: "World War II provides other examples of that principle" care to elaborate on that?

asdfdsa1234 13y ago

Why do you call them "dictators" instead of "royalty?"

mercurial 13y ago

> Basically the Russians weren't fighting to keep the Nazis from invading, but were focused on a counter-invasion. The thesis of Icebreaker [1], a controversial history book by an ex-GRU officer, is that Stalin was planning an invasion of Germany right when Operation Barbarossa happened. However, his interpretation is disputed by most historians. What is certain is that the Red Army was caught with its pants down and got a sound beating at the beginning. However, they did fight with tremendous tenacity (eg, at Stalingrad) later on, and eventually pushed back the Germans. You'll also note that Germans and Japanese troops fought with particular determination even when it became clear that defeat was the only possible outcome. Contrast this with the dismal performance of French and British troops during the Battle of France.

int_19h 13y ago
> You'll also note that Germans and Japanese troops fought with particular determination even when it became clear that defeat was the only possible outcome. I actually recall reading regarding Germans that there was a very peculiar distortion of perception there when even during late 1944 and early 1945, with Soviet armies literally at the door, a lot of people genuinely still believed that a victory (at that point defined as peace on non-debilitating terms) was highly likely - based on letters and other personal correspondence from that period, journals etc.
- ekianjo 13y ago
  I'm not so sure about that. When cities like Dresden were bombed day and night and destroyed to the ground, it'd be very hard to believe Victory or Peace is at hand. Maybe people living in Berlin had that perception, but I would be very surprised if that was a general sentiment in Germany.
ekianjo 13y ago
> Contrast this with the dismal performance of French and British troops during the Battle of France. Contrast this with the millions of people who died in Germany and Japan because of that determination (or should I say their rulers' determination!), without avoiding the final outcome at all. The French government understood very fast they were completely behind and were going to lose and they did the right thing to avoid a massacre which would have prevented nothing. And besides, in Germany and Japan people were forced into fighting until the end (even teenagers in Germany), it's not like it was the "nation in arms" or something. Nobody wants to lose their life on purpose.