So, I have an idea for the science fiction short story (or short stories). World War II ends with a vastly different outcome. On the Western Front, German forces are unable to perform their Blitzkrieg campaign and fail to take Paris in 1940. After several costly offensives, they succeeds - after two years of a war that exhausted both sides. In the summer of 1942, German forces controls Low Countries and Northern France (with Paris), Mussolini just recently joined the war and seized Egypt - two years of additional development and switching most of the British forces located here to France improved Italian performance - and Tunisia from France. Isolationist President Burton K. Wheeler (elected on 1936 as a Vicepresident for the FDR, when Roosevelt retired after two terms, he won in 1940) refused to support Western countries, instead relying of the armed neutrality option. As a result, Japanese still fights against China and experienced some successes. On 1943, the Soviet Red Army invades exhausted Germany and within six months are present on the Franco-Spanish border. During the Cold War, Soviet Union controlls Finland, Norway, Germany, Denmark, Low Countries, France, Spain, Italy, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Turkey as the one party Marxist-Leninist states. In this reality they saved tens millions people more (no Generalplan Ost), so the new Paris Pact (counterpart of the Warsaw Pact) has vastly stronger economy and greater population. There is no Cuban Missile Crisis. Instead, the Okinawa Missile Base suffers malfunction and receives order to nuke Soviet Far East (in our reality same thing happened on October 28, 1962). This time however, one missile is not stopped and heads toward Vladivostok. Thankfully, it misses the city and explodes over waters of the Pacific Ocean. Yom Kippur War ends with Israel nuking Arab states and the Second Great Depression. Soviet Union experiences major oil boom as they are literally the greatest oil exporter. OGAS is implemented to assure computerized control over economy, limiting corruption and creating more efficent Gosplan. In the 1990s, World War erupts. Soviet Union launches 25,000-40,000 nuclear bombs towards NATO, NATO launches 20,000-40,000 nuclear bombs against the Soviet bloc. Soviet forces uses biological weapon to temporary paralyse all males (through chromosome-targeted bioagent). It does not work as expected - instead, it wipes out 80-90% of male population. As a result of Soviet biological warfare, less male babies are born. So, here we are. In Mexico women established totalitarian society that worships the current ruler as a incarnation of the Goddess of Time. Women of neo-Aztec state believe that the male domination and gender equality enraged Goddess who decided to punish humanity by destroying most of the men. In their religion, they believe that women are naturally destinied to dominate over men, with no room for equality. Human sacrifice is restored. If a man volunteers to be killed, he will be reborn as a woman in next time cycle (after next nuclear war). Men who have "destructive behaviour" (proponents of the gender equality) are sacrificed too - to ensure that Goddess does not destroy the world as a punishment for not punishing wickedness. New religion is formed on the basis that women are superior to everything else on the world. They were created as the last creation - from the man's rib, while everything else was created from the dust. As a result, they are products of highly advanced engineering, unlike men and animals. Is there a way to reasonably explain the rise of such radical new religion?
Just a question; how widespread is this new religion? Is it nationwide, or a small cult? The theory of evolution already being vastly accepted by the time of WWII might throw a wrench in this doctrine of women being created from a rib. Some how, you'd have to explain how they would keep all the new scientific discoveries a secret. Then again, America is filled with creationists (embarrassing), so what do I know. Also, how exactly does Aztec theology mess in with the Biblical Creation Myth (I assume this is where you're getting the story of women coming from a man's rib)? As for how radical new religions can rise, they do all the time. However, the main reason they don't catch on as much these days, as well as seen more absurd than ancient religions, isn't so much the doctrine, but rather their founders. Not many people know too much about the personal lives of Jesus, Mohammad, or Buddha (assuming they existed), so they're cloaked in a veil of mystery. However, we know far too much about Joseph Smith to not consider him a fraud. If your new religion is to gain mass attention, the founder would have to have a very good public image, or control over the media to silence critique. Just a few suggestions. Hope this helps.
Limited to central Mexico around the Teotihuacan. Syncretism? Some Christian denominations already adapted other religion's beliefs. I intended to place time of the story several hundreds years into the future to ensure that human population rise to the hundred million. So, the founder of the religion will be less known than Joseph Smith is. She can be described as dying for the sins of humanity or dying in the defence of her people during the post-nuclear horror (anarchy, elimination of the central authorities, law enforce services, widespread famine and crisis). I think that she might be some sort of a martyr taken to the heavens by the Goddess of Time to live free of the time influence. So, she would be reborn outside the time cycle as a semi-goddess. Her small group of followers could take domination in the area through attempting to enact revolutionary acts - forming the self-defence forces to protect inhabitants from external threats, redistribution of food, land, means of production. All while preaching new gospel to the people - people whom they prevented from dying or being killed. After some period of peaceful conversions, they could force rest of the population to follow their religion.
The problem is, that even with alternate 1990s World War (including a Point of Divergence placed in 1930s), transition to totalitarian, goddess incarnation-worshipping society is at least hard to explain.
Tbh I don't think you need all the convoluted back story - everything before the nuclear war is irrelevant and you could just as easily have a late eighties kick off between the USA and the USSR on the real time line That aside the major issue is if the USA is nuked to oblivion the Mexico area is going to catch a lot of fall out, not to mention the effcts of a nuclear winter
Nuclear fallouts seem to be used to explain almost anything in fiction. In desperate times, people tend to do crazy things. Combine that with religion, you've got a whole other level of crazy. A charismatic enough preacher can get even an otherwise intelligent person to believe in utter nonsense. I'd recommend looking up how cults form, and tactics that cult leaders use. I think it would help you a lot.
One of Sweden's biggest feminist parties had an old text telling all women to grab a shotgun, go out and shoot all the men they see. These cults are formed by selective perception when victims of abuse gather in the same place. That's why one on one help by phone is less prone to extremism. Small religious groups where people are isolated from society is also an easy pick for a cult leader with an angry message. A small village outside of my city had a sect murder many years ago. I also have some relatives who used to work in the church there, but they never speak to me about it. I had a classmate in a slowly growing Christian sect where you cannot leave because the other members will stalk you forever. He also collected soft airguns and had crazy accuracy with crossbows, which is another reason to stay. I was once in a school project led by a french idea guy and full of freshmen dreaming about entering the game industry. Of course it turned into a cult with long preaches that required extreme devotion and working all night long. If anyone gave critique about the project, the leader wanted the IP address tracked, so that they could prevent further critique from spreading. He never stopped to think about the bugs piling up or students flunking other classes. Luckily, he was dumb enough to invest money in it, so now he's just alone without a job.
Has society gone back to stone age practices? Medieval? Industrial revolution? If the world war sent mankind backwards on the timeline of societal evolution, you could easily explain the rise of a new religion through widespread superstition that was a trait of less advanced societies. If we are still talking about a modern type society with widespread education, then you may have to have an especially charismatic leader and a severe emergency such a drought, famine, or war for this leader to leverage in order to create sweeping social change.
I thought about the ruling clique (incarnation of goddess and her family) possessing pieces of pre-War technology such as limited electrical power, primitive machines and others while lower classes would be reverted into early industrial revolution era of economy. Thus, goddess would be seen as a incarnation of good deity who wants to improve the humanity.
