“The ultimate test of man's conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.” - Gaylord Nelson
In most fiction, the act of human sacrifice is practically guaranteed to label the perpetrator or religious organization behind it as a villain. A form of ritualized murder akin to the modus operandi of the most unstable serial killers, human sacrifice is a brutal and sickening act. So why would someone, sane or otherwise, perform what is perceived as an intrinsically evil ritual? In many fictional stories (such as "The Wicker Man" and the Conan stories by Robert E. Howard), human sacrifice is used for selfish ends such as power and control. But what if it were actually necessary?
In the Aztec culture, which sacrificed thousands of people per year, human sacrifice was deemed necessary because it sustained their deities and allowed them to sacrifice their own divine essence to preserve the world. While this is obviously not true in the real world, in fiction the Aztecs could have been right and even after the fall of their empire the sacrifices needed to save the world are still taking place.
This idea has been ruminating in my head for a couple of weeks now because I feel like this scenario would lead to a very interesting, if morally ambiguous, story. Having a character, perhaps a detective investigating recent disappearances, discover the secret Aztec priesthood would lead to a difficult conflict: allow the horrific murders to continue or potentially doom humanity to save a few individuals. To be honest, I'm not even sure which I would choose, and this uncertainty makes me all the more interested in exploring it further.
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