To everything, there is a season...
After World War II, inspired by the idea of the Holy Grail War - namely the Third sometime in the early 40s - a multinational (read: both Soviet and otherwise) group of magi and scientists work to create a similar project. Realizing that, if humanity alone can split the atom then they can probably adapt that dedication and theory to Magecraft and create something just as powerful as the ritual of the Holy Grail War of Japan. The goal of this is to settle the Cold War, reacting to increased tensions after the hot-button issues of the late '50s and early 60's such as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Named the Manhattan Project II as a way to hide it as yet another nuclear weapons project following World War 2, the scientists and magi create their own replica of the Holy Grail, minus the corruption that had ruined the Japanese original.
...and a time for every purpose under heaven.
The winner of the subsequent War, as a magus from either a NATO or Warsaw Pact country, would use their wish to end the Cold War with particular benefits for their home country, making them a superpower. Of course, that's a definite oversight by the designers, as several magi who participate learn the scope of the Manhattan Project and for the most part change their goals to more personal ones.
A time to gain, a time to lose...
Unlike the Fate series itself, there is no rule in the Manhattan Project that states that there must be only one Servant for each class, or that each class must have an equal number of Servants. The presence of Servants instead of some more scientific, non-magic deciding factor is based on the idea that secret magic is easier to conceal than all-out fighting - in addition to some of the founders' own observations of the actual Holy Grail War.
A time to rend, a time to sew...
The setting is Washington, D.C., for the strong leyline that runs through the heart of the city and as a result of the amount of history the place has in America; with its high number of monuments and its status as the capital of the United States of America, few cities could be better from a symbolic standpoint. And also, for symbolic and logical purposes, the war is presided over by a member of the Holy Church, working out of the Oak Hill Chapel. He owns the spiritual land of Washington, D.C. and Arlington, Virginia, and ensures that the city isn't damaged... too much, at least.'
A time for love, a time for hate...
"The Manhattan Project II"
is a Fate/stay night fanfic written by Five_X and hosted at the Beast's Lair Fanfic Forum. Featuring a cast made up of original characters and set in a time far before the key events of Kinoko Nasu's stories, its actual connection to Fate/Stay Night is tenuous; it is set in the same universe and involves a war for a Holy Grail, but the similarities end there. In a way, it's more like an original story rather than fanfiction, though set within the Nasuverse. A prequel and additional stories set in the same universe were also planned, but it seems the author decided to abandon those plans.
A time for peace... I swear, it's not too late.
Wiseup! This fanfic contains examples of:
- All There in the Manual: There's a lot of supplementary info for the story, including profiles for Servants and Masters, and some Q&As answered in-character by the author. Lots of info can also be found in several of the
omakes. - Anyone Can Die: It is the Holy Grail War after all. By the end of the story, the number of named characters who survived can be counted on one hand.
- A Father to His Men: Temujin, both literally and figuratively.
- An Ice Person: James makes excellent use of this type of magecraft after Hassan captures him.
- Action Girl: The female Servants qualify for this trope but quite a few human women can kick some ass. Special mention goes to Penthesilea's Master Ilse who kept fighting even after her Servant died, and Johana who is more of a Dark Action Girl given her circumstances.
- Achilles' Heel: The actual Achilles shows up as a Lancer and dies because of this. Also Sigurd Fafnesbane's leaf-shaped mark on his back that is the only part of him that can be stabbed.
- Badass Army: During the General Dialogue arc, when each of the Generals summons his respective army.
- Badass in Distress: Sigurd was this when he was trapped in Scathach's Land of Shadows. He ultimately escapes and kills her. James was also this when captured by Hassan.
- Big Brother Instinct: Francois has this for his older sister, Amelie. Unfortunately, it ended badly for both of them.
- Big Damn Heroes: Just when James' Saber was defeated and they were at the mercy of Alexei's Servant Rostam, Odysseus shoots the latter full of arrows, killing him and saving the former two.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Holy Grail War ends but many people have died, including several innocent civilians and genuinely good people like James' father and Eleanor, with no clear winner for either NATO or the Warsaw Pact ensuring that the Cold War continues, with the surviving characters forever changed by the war. Of note, James and Saber survived to the end and got together as a couple, Nigel Lancaster returns home and takes part in the Tour de France a year later in memory of Hannibal, Dietrich returns to his hometown Königsberg (known as Kaliningrad today) where he was arrested and executed by the authorities and Filippo, the least notable Master, ends up dead and became a news sensation over the mysterious circumstances behind his death.
- Break the Haughty: Saber experiences this at the hands of Hannibal, Nobunaga, and even James.
- Character Filibuster: Saber talks at length about the meaning of a Heroic Spirit’s existence during the General Dialogue kickoff dinner. Unfortunately for her, she falls short of an I Am What I Am moment.
- Character Song: Each major Master has one, as shown in their profiles (i.e. James' is "America" by Simon & Garfunkel, Ilse's is Gimme Shelter by The Rolling Stones, etc).
- Cold War: The story takes place during the Cold War, and most of the Masters are representatives of NATO and Warsaw nations.
- Cool Sword: Quite a few of them appear given that these are great heroes. Crocea Mors, Tizona and Colada, Joyeuse and the weapons Gilgamesh shoots out are just a few of these weapons.
- Cool Ship: Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge and Napoleon's L'Orient are two such examples.
- Cycle of Revenge: Hannibal nearly falls into this before his Master dissuades him.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Ramesses II is this, with his absurdly powerful Noble Phantasms giving of a Final Boss vibe. In a subversion of this trope, he is not killed by any of the main characters but by the newly appeared Lancer Servant St. Longinus. Gilgamesh is also this, being killed off shortly after by the Archer Servant Hayk the Great after weakening himself from killing Moctezuma.
- Driven to Suicide: Francois blows his brains out after the act of killing James' father and the death of his sister finally sets in.
- Dual Wielding: Enrico's Saber-class Servant El Cid spots this with his famed swords Tizona and Colada.
- Discard and Draw: Not a weapon, but a Servant, and on two occasions.
- After Francois lost his Rider-class Servant Boudica, he ends up with Napoléon Bonaparte as his replacement Archer-class Servant. When he asked the overseer George Coleman about it, he said it was because the slots were not filled yet and so he had a second chance at it.
- After Johana's Servant Lohengrin disappears upon revealing his True Name, Filippo notices that her Command Seals are still present and suggest that she invoke the summoning ritual once more. This causes her to summon Godfrey de Bouillon, the fame Crusader Knight and apparent descendent of Lohengrin. It is implied that in the event that Lohengrin is gone, his Master can invoke the summoning for his descendent/real-life counterpart to replace him, giving Johana a second chance in the Holy Grail War.
- Dysfunction Junction: The characters are not exactly free of burdens when they participated in the Holy Grail War.
- Eagleland: The War is fought in Washington D.C. and Arlington. Also the Archer-class Servant James Bowie, who becomes stronger based on this trope.
- Failure Knight: Johana’s Lancer wouldn’t see himself this way, but he’s admitted that there’s a dead person of some sort in his backstory. It becomes more like a dead lady-in-waiting since he is Lohengrin.
- Fan Disservice: It's not the fact that Saber is sexually active. It's more along the lines of how easy she is, and how she flaunts it without any shame, to the point where even one of the leads gets sick and tired of it.
- Four-Star Badass: Many of the Servants commandeered an army during life, and it shows. Amongst them are Hannibal Barca, Alexander the Great (not that one), Napoléon Bonaparte, Oda Nobunaga, Temujin, Moctezuma and Julius Caesar.
- Guns Akimbo: Napoleon's Noble Phantasm is basically this and Walking Armory put together, able to summon any number of cannons that he owned or commandeered in his life.
- Historical Gender Flip: Subverted at first. Julius Caesar was recorded as a man in this continuity. However, Saber (who is Julius Caesar) still remembers herself as a woman. Ultimately played straight with the explanation that her cognomen Caesar is rather boyish. It could also be historical revisionism at work given how Caesar was killed by Senators and they took measures to change how history would remember her.
- Humanoid Abomination: Johana was accused of this by Lancer and for lying about it, and is the main reason they parted ways. Specifically, that her family's lineage descends from Morana. For her part, Johana denies this, saying it was ridiculous but it turns out to be true.
- Ice Queen: With her sheltered ojou background and often-overbearing personality, Eleanor fits this trope to a T. She does thaw out with a little help from James.
- Kill It with Fire: Let’s just say that Johana never did play nicely with others, making her memories a constant source of torment for her. Saber's Noble Phantasm Crocea Mors unleashes fire when invoked.
- Knight in Shining Armor: There are quite a few of them in this War, notably Lohengrin, Godfrey de Bouillon, and El Cid.
- Last Stand: James Bowie has this as a Noble Phantasm, calling forth the Alamo and everyone who fought and died in it and taking many of Moctezuma's men with them before Bowie was killed by Moctezuma.
- Must Have Caffeine: Johana would be even less mentally stable without her sugar and coffee.
- Mutual Kill: St. Longinus and Ramesses II die together after the former kills the latter and Ramesses' Reality Marble Noble Phantasm collapses with Longinus still in it. Same goes with Godfrey de Bouillon and Sigurd, the latter mortally wounding the former but not before using his Noble Phantasm to stab Sigurd in his weak spot, killing him for good as he ran out of lives by then. Near the end, Hannibal kills Napoleon before succumbing to his wounds.
- Not Quite Dead: Sigurd Fafnesbane has this as a Noble Phantasm. Based on how The Volsunga Saga and The Ring of the Nibelung described the different adventures he partook in, it allows Sigurd to come back to life when he is killed as each life is a new story being told similar to Heracles' God Hand representing his Twelve Labours, but it only works up to 7 times and cannot be replenished as the latter can. However, unlike Heracles, his class changes each time he dies such that he went from a Berserker to a Saber over the course of the story.
- Omake: Several. Most notable are the "Teach Us, Scathatch-Sensei!!" posts, small hint-corner-like snippets which give info about the story, a Christmas special, and one snippet starring Eleanor.
- Original Characters: With a few exceptions, almost the entire cast. Even some of the characters like Alexander the Great, Cu Chulainn and Heracles are depicted differently from their respective source material.
- Official Couple: Like a certain route in Fate/stay night, James and Saber get together as a couple, but not without a couple of hurdles. It also sticks to the end of the story.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome
- The final battle between Hannibal and Napoleon is a clash of armies, but it was not shown, only the aftermath where the former kills the latter.
- Odysseus' battle against Hayk the Great during the second-last chapter. Unlike the above example, the winner is not shown, but it is implied that the latter prevailed since James was shot with an arrow when fighting Hayk's Master.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Sigurd's Master is a Dead Apostle, who enters the war by killing the previous contestant.
- Public Bathhouse Scene: Happens during the General Dialogue arc, when James and Saber visit Eleanor and Moctezuma at his palace. While Monty and Saber have no problem with being seen naked, Eleanor gets
understandably flustered. - Really Gets Around: Saber, during the General Dialogue arc, and it is not at all positive.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: James delivers a powerful one to Saber after getting fed up with her attitude during the General Dialogue arc.
- Sinister Minister: The Church representative George Coleman gives off this vibe. While he does do some shady things such as summoning his own Servants Charlemagne and Oda Nobunaga to run interference in the war and had a much more sordid past when he lived in Switzerland, he is not an antagonist and genuinely tried to manage the war as best as he could.
- Shown Their Work: Five_X makes sure to do his research, and it shows. The setting, the characters' attitudes, the Servants, their abilities...the list goes on. He even waited to reveal Napoleon's Noble Phantasm until he had researched every single one of the twenty weapons it involves.
- Summon Bigger Fish: The Caster-class Servant Moses can do this as his Noble Phantasm, able to summon Leviathan, Ziz, and Behemoth respectively through the course of the war. Interestingly, it took his Master using her Command Seals to summon them since he did not want to spoil God's creation on Earth with such powerful Phantasmal Beasts.
- Sword and Gun: Not with a sword, but James Bowie fights with a revolver and a Bowie Knife against Blackbeard's crew. Nobunaga plays this straight by fighting with a flintlock and a katana.
- The Bus Came Back: Odysseus, who was last seen in the National Mall and made several named and unnamed appearances after his Master died, returns when he saves James by shooting Rostam full of arrows, killing him.
- Those Wacky Nazis: Dietrich is an ex-SS Officer and the Master of Alexander the Great. He even participated in the Third Holy Grail War reminiscent of Darnic's involvement in the Third Holy Grail War.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Enrico, the Master of the Saber-class Servant El Cid, is this, having killed one of the original participants to enter the war and would do anything to ensure he can grant his wish to make Spain a better place.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Some of the Servants end up dying as quickly as they appear. Francois' first Servant Boudica was decapitated by James' Saber in her first introduction and several Servants at the Battle of the National Mall like Aeneas of Troy, Hector, Penthesilea, Romulus and Remus, Heracles and Achilles died so quickly that their contribution to the plot is almost non-existent (Although the deaths of Romulus and Remus serves to summon Gilgamesh). Even the Masters fall into this, whether they bit the dust, never appeared, or just vanished after their Servants died. Aeneas' Master left Washington after the former died now that there was nothing left for him. Ramesses II's unnamed Master is quite notable, being a background character who is little more than a mana battery despite the former's significant presence as a sort of Disc-One Final Boss. St. Longinus' Master is an even bigger example, as he or she never appeared even once and the former had about two appearances before he died.
- You Don't Look Like You: Several of the Servants like Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Ozymandias, Oda Nobunaga, Cu Chulainn, Scathach, Sigurd, Heracles, Odysseus, Hector, Romulus, Penthesilea and Julius Caesar who appeared in other Fate series do not resemble the characters from said series. Instead, they are Original Characters and are treated as such.
