To provide legal cover for killing Atahualpa, Pizarro held a rudimentary trial. The emperor was charged with a mix of political and religious crimes like regicide and incest, demonstrating the Spaniards' deep-seated need to frame their actions within a legalistic framework for their king.

Communication during the pivotal meetings relied entirely on young, frightened interpreters who stumbled over their words. This created a dangerous filter of misunderstanding and potential misinformation, adding a layer of chaos and distrust to an already tense first-contact scenario.

The Spanish used a legal document called the "Requerimiento" to legitimize conquest. Before attacking, they read a history of the world and demanded submission to the Pope and Spanish King. Refusal provided a legal pretext for slaughter, a practice some Spaniards at the time considered absurd.

In a surreal display of dominance, Francisco Pizarro held a formal dinner with Atahualpa just hours after slaughtering thousands of his followers. He then had a mattress prepared for the Inca emperor to sleep beside him, a bizarre and intimate assertion of absolute control.

The famous moment where Atahualpa supposedly threw down a prayer book, sparking the massacre, was a manufactured pretext. The Spanish, already in ambush positions, simply needed a justification. The book ending up in the dust—whether thrown or dropped—provided the trigger for their pre-planned attack.

The conquest of the Americas was a highly legalistic endeavor. Conquistadors sought official royal charters, essentially operating under a franchise model. This legal cover was crucial not for legitimacy with the natives, but to protect their claims from rival Spanish adventurers, blending brute force with bureaucratic procedure.

After executing Inca emperor Atahualpa, the Spanish installed his brother as a puppet ruler. This co-opted the existing power structure, making the conquest seem like a restoration of the natural order to local chiefs and smoothing the transition of power.

The Spanish conquest of the Incas succeeded largely because they inserted themselves into an existing civil war. By siding with the southern Inca faction against the northern one, they gained crucial local allies, transforming the conflict from a foreign invasion into a complex, multi-sided war they could manipulate.

Pizarro's ambush wasn't an improvisation but a standard Spanish colonial tactic: "theatrical terror." This strategy used a sudden, overwhelming, and performative display of violence to psychologically shatter a numerically superior enemy, a method honed in previous American conquests.