Edit: Although it is hinted at within the story, sexual activity is never explicitly written in the story: For that reason, I've removed the 'sex' tag from this story.
Inspired by Beau Willimon's House of Cards, The Manehatten Project is set shortly after the beginning of Season 5 (and before the season finale) of My Little Pony, and tells the tale of the rise and fall, and nefarious scheming of Manehatten mayor, Otto Cratic. Otto is a ruthless Manehatten politician, disenfranchised with the Royal Canterlot Sisters, who will stop at nothing in his quest to 'protect' the citizens of his city from the dangers outside of Equestria, and the dangers and seemingly incompetent rule within.
After 20 years of patient waiting, Otto has finally been elected to the seat of office of Equestria's largest and most powerful city, Manehatten, a hub of culture and diversity boasting millions of citizens, a major shipping port and naval drydock, and the heart of Equestria's ore mining and metal industry due to the vast Dragon Mountains to the north. Manehatten is a city who's time has come.
...However, dark events are brewing, and with the aid of romanced enemies of the Mane 6, the magic of a long since vanquished king, and a band of Griffin Mercenaries, Otto has a plan to secure his own place in Equestria's history, and see his family rule Manehatten for a thousand years to come...
As you may expect of a story inspired by House of Cards, The Manehatten Project features adult themes, including Violence, Sexual Themes (albeit suggested only, no actual written scenes of sexual activity take place in this fanfic) and Political Corruption. Viewer discretion is advised.
With a story title like that, this better involve the development of nuclear weapons...
6865036 Agreed. Or at least a weapon of mass destruction (some magical equivalent)
6865044
6865036
Hehe, I hadn't considered nuclear weapons. But then again, we've got the Elements of Harmony, that Rainbow Power BS, and a kingdom ruled over by literal gods. There's only so much nuclear weapons would be able to do. Still, if I was to use something like a megaspell, I fear all the supporters of Kkat would be baying for my blood for stealing stuff from Fallout Equestria. And rightly so, that fic is legendary.
Okay, to all the people giving me thumbs down. Kinda sucks, but people have a right to their opinion, but please: Can you at least say WHY you don't like it please? I can't fix it or learn from it if you don't tell me these things! Thanks!
Is the pony in your current avatar Otto Cratic?
6898755
Yes he is. I've not really got a ponysona of sorts yet, so he's the character I'm using.
Scetchbook and Bullwhark had better have those whatever curses those objects they're wearing have laced into them removed after Autocrat's- sorry I meant Otto Crat's defeat. As whith those shoes stuck on Goldenstreets's hooves.
More!
6907893
I'm not sure quite yet how I'm going to resolve the problem with Sketchbook and Bulwark yet, but really that IS a must: Paver's curse is pretty nasty, but with Bulwark, he's had all notions of free will and independent thought robbed from him. The out, I suppose, would lie in Sketchbook, as she, technically, outranks Bulwark, so could easily use that part of her enslavement to her advantage... Problem is, she can't simply use her position to make Bulwark attack Otto, since he outranks the pair of them. She's going to have to take another approach.
But hey! You got the play on words in Otto's name! Awesome! :D ...Oooh, boy, trying to redeem him is going to be HARD after all this. I mean, I can kinda hide a bit behind the fact the Alicorn Amulet has made him do a lot of things he probably wouldn't have done himself, but I'm really going to have to pull out something good in one of the future stories: I've actually changed my mind on the sequels, and am going back to splitting up The Manehatten Alicorn in two stories: The Manehatten Princess and The Manehatten Exile. The Manehatten Princess involves the alicorns, and their efforts to try to bring Manehatten back into the fold after Otto's civil war, and the Manehatten Exile is going to be about Otto and Starlight being banished from Equestria, and me, trying to start Otto down a redemption arc after he royally fucks up.
Sorry, that's a lot of text-dumping on you. Bone appetite.
6908191 I always thought that those helmets had a mind control spell built in and could only be taken off by the wearer, and only if he was ordered to by a superior officer. (King Sombra himself saying: "Take off your helmets, NOW!!!" would work perfectly on them. The bracelets would probably only be removable by someone wearing the alicorn amulet or King Sombra's magic. The Crystal heart could also dispell whatever dark magic enchantments that were cast on them if it was powered up.
6908664
Ah, well, I'm glad we agree on that bit about the helmets. I also kinda think the bracelets mentioned could probably be just powerful enough to have a similar effect (where an officer was to dismiss a soldier, for instance), and yeah: The fix for Sketchbook will just have to be Celestia sending her up north to T.C.E (The Crystal Empire) to have herself freed from her predicament. I wonder if it would even be a spell Cadence might have some knowledge of?
Her people and her country would still be living with the scars of the reign of King Sombra, and so they'd be constantly having to deal with cases of cursed bits of Sombrian relics popping up in their lands, much like how countries in mainland Europe occasionally come across unexploded bombs from the World Wars, or some places in Vietnam and other former warzones still have to deal with trying to disable minefields: Their equivalent would be discarded pieces of cursed armour and bracelets which were buried with dead Sombrian soldiers, later dug up by archeologists or unwitting folk and end up getting cursed because they didn't know about the effects such armour had on the wearer.
I am aware that it was a conflict from 1000 years ago, though: It'd probably be rare to have something like that happen, unless you were on one of the former battlefields between Equestrians and Sombra's army, but common enough that Princess Cadence would likely have to put some steps in case people ended up cursing themselves. It's not like it's just a case of "Help, I can't get this helmet/bracelet off!", those things were for soldiers, tasked with killing their enemies without mercy: Once someone ends up stuck in one of those things, the armour would probably drive them to resume their old, wartime purpose: The indiscriminate slaughter of Sombra's enemies.
In other words: You know! For kids!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clgfRkyGqrc
6909406 Wouldn't he have wanted to capture and enslave anyone he could and force that armor, or at least the helmet onto any soldiers that he could. Because suffering ends in death.
6911558
Probably, but that's easier said than done when you're in the middle of a battlefield. My logic is this: In the event of a normal battle, of course that probably would've happened, anypony who surrendered if the Equestrians were defeated would've been taken prisoner and likely enslaved, but a battle needs to have ended first: The last orders that helmeted soldier would've heard was likely "kill them all" or "attack the Equestrians" and so, returning to service a thousand years after the war has ended, finding all of your fellow soldiers and your CO's dead, the armour would've probably gone a bit rouge, trying to kill anyone in the area who isn't a Sombrian, and trying to find a commanding officer, which would likely mean that the drone would end up returning to The Crystal Empire eventually.
Or at least, that's the case I'm employing with Bulwark. I'm probably tarring all of the cases with the same brush here. But I don't necessarily see Sombra as cruel, per say, so much as he is totalitarian and a control freak to the extreme.
I know that in the S3 premier episodes, Sombra was referred to as this terrifying figure, and he probably would've been too. But, in the history of politics, a regime so dominating and controlling never lasted long if it was nothing but constant misery. Even the Nazis tried to ensure that the people they actually cared about had some degree of time to wind down, and evil as it might have been, a lot of those in the Hitler Youth were inner city kids who'd never had the chance to actually get out and see the countryside: For someone in that position, they'd see the benefits before the reality of the situation.
...And that's kinda what I'm employing here: Sombra was big, and scary, and evil, yes. But I do believe there would've been a section of the population that, to some degree or another, DID actually support, and thus enjoyed various benefits from, his reign.
But I digress: That has very little to do with helmets. Sorry, I ramble a bit. I don't see Sombra as sadistic, more simply a totalitarian control freak; and yes, under most circumstances, the Sombrians probably would've taken prisoners to enslave, but in most cases in the present, there's neither the resources, nor even the orders, for soldiers to make that happen, so they'd fall back on the last orders they knew they had been given.
6911947 Okay okay, whatever floats your boat.
6912460
Sorry. I really do ramble when I talk about my work... ^.^;
6915866 I ramble a lot as well.
6915921
Fair enough.
6916293 I have Asperger's syndrome, so I can't always help it.
6916415
How interesting. I actually do as well. :) I'm not actually sure to what extent it affects me, compared to if I didn't have it, but that's a pretty daft thing to ponder anyway... Although, it probably does explain the rambling about Pony Politics. ^.^;
If the OCs in this story were voiced, what would they sound like?
7447676
Otto Cratic, Kevin Spacey, hands down.
Paver Goldstreets... Hm, that's tougher... Manehatten is basically New York, and in that field, Sigourney Weaver kinda comes to mind if she was to be American voice acted. Then again, Paver's in her 20s, and Sigourney, for all her amazing acting and VA talent, might be a bit too old for that role... I'm not sure, I'm open to suggestions though!
Scopes. Scopes is tricky, I really don't know. He's a tough sort, but more of a rouge-build, so my first thought was the Rock, as the first name to come to my head, but no, just, no, the voice doesn't fit the body. Maybe Ryan Reynolds at a push, but I'm still not convinced. I'll think it about it though!
Zunbil Zoor's easy, he's Charles Dance, no doubt about it. Charles Dance all the way.
And, I think that's about it. I do hope I haven't missed anyone. But hey, thanks for the comment! Was very thought provoking. :)
This was really an entertaining and thought-provoking read.
Why is the only thing holding Equestria back from complete disaster the Mane6?
Perhaps we'll never know, and Autocratic and Theocratic will rule as dictator and church (nice names).
I'm sure you put a lot of thought into your work. I really enjoyed your background and character development.
Your background cleared up some things for me: namely zebra rhymes and Sombra's armies.
Your character interactions are much more reasonable and believable than most fics one sees. You handled the Otto/Starlight particularly well, actually giving a reason why they begin to do dirty things in drunken stupors in the night.
Only shortcoming is its incompletenes...
Keep up the awesome work!
7554856
Hey there, thanks for the comment! Please forgive my late reply, and do also accept my apologies for the lack of updates on this story in the first place. This is still my largest MLP related project so far, but I do try to keep to the policy of never abandoning a project I've started, with a few exceptions where my work was so amateurish that I decided just to scrap it and start over.
But, if I'm honest, a lot of this story built upon my own personal backlash again those very fanfics you're likely speaking of, as well as all the unspoken rules around OCs and CCs.
I love making pony names, it's a strange process, since you're pretty much deciding their entire future from birth, but it also puts a lot of information or references up front with just the name (Paver is an accidental example: Her name was me alluding to the idea of streets being paved with gold, but I discovered later on that Pavers is also a shoe brand here in the UK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavers_Shoes The irony was not lost on me, and it made me very happy when I found out about it. :D).
The biggest shtick for this is my own personal middle finger to the controversy around alicorn OCs and 'Mary Sues'. The fear over Mary Sues has held back me writing this story for nearly 2 years, since I wanted to make an alicorn OC. Eventually, I figured out that Mary Sue isn't a real thing, it's just poor criticism for bad writing, and I don't take kindly to either. Therefore, I wanted to make some characters, flesh out those characters, then go out of my way to one by one break all of those unwritten rules of Brony fanfiction writing: Alicorn OCs, OCxCC shipping, having a unicorn be as powerful as an alicorn, and also the recycling of familiar plot points from the canon... But, do it well. I also love Politics, and have studied it at university for the past three years.
As to the Mane 6... I'd ask the same thing, and the fact the question exists at all basically allowed for this whole story to happen: Nothing I've written here can't be backed up by the actions, or inaction, of the princesses, the army or the Wonderbolts. Hell, the S5 Finale pretty much added fuel to the fire for this problem, and if Otto had seen the events of that, it'd have only bolstered his resolve to act. If Celestia was a queen, if she was effective and able to protect her own realm; if Luna was mentally sound and had the experience of her sister; if her army wasn't so acclimatised with peacetime that they had become an ineffective fighting force; and if the Mane 6 weren't the only thing between Equestria and catastrophe... Well, Otto and his followers wouldn't need to exist.
Either way, thanks again for your patronage. :) As I said, I try to avoid ever abandoning a project, and I do still have work going on for this story, but... I'm a slow writer, and I'm distracted by both uni work, and a plethora of other projects I may have going on at any given time. Regardless, I will always endeavor to keep producing content, even if it is a slow growth.
7556623
Thanks for the reply. I do love reading.
ALICORN! 
yay. YEAH!" Your plot is really building up to the ascension climax.
I agree with your Mary Sue comment. Really all successful protagonists are 'Sues, just some are more overt and annoying than others.
That is funny that you found a shoe brand named Pavers after you named your character!
I think you're going about making your alicorns in a good manner. You aren't just jumping right in and saying, "Poof! MAGIC!
Just a couple of questions:
Is Zunbil Zoor the same character as in your Thestral story?
Also, you mentioned redeeming Otto and Starlight. Will this story tie back in with Season 5 canon?
Thanks again for the reply! After all, it often is such a rare treat to converse with the author.
7560560
To answer your questions.
I actually have plans for two alicorn ascensions when all is said and done in the Manehatten series, and while the second is a bit more of your traditional 'poof, magic, profit!' fare, the way I plan to go about it is a set of 'Herculean Tasks' set for *spoilers* after the end of Otto's stint as mayor. Manehatten, to me, is on the same level of power as the Crystal Empire, which is a glorified city state, and Otto's agitation, whether he wins or not, is going to lead to Manehatten citizens demanding proper representation in the kingdom, and the authority that brings. It's like New York (well, obviously), but if New York decided that either it became the capital of the state of New York, or it would break away from the US, or at least NY, and become its own city state. Celestia will have to deal with that.
Indeed he is, you can consider Zun and Moon as something of a prequel to his place in The Manehatten Project, because at the end of the day, he's actually a bit of a jerk.
In fact, all of my stories are connected in their own ways: Otto's initial plan to curse Paver is inspired by the autobiography of a much older, much wiser Little Steppes, as her story takes place roughly 100 years or so before the events of the modern day MLP stuff.
Will their story tie into Season 5? In short: No. In longform: The Manehatten Project diverts from the canon of MLP around the midpoint of Season 5, around the time of Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep. From that point, my story effectively becomes its own timeline separate from the MLP canon. Things like Cutie Markless don't happen, for example. They do have redemption arcs though, Starlight is pretty soon in the story, but Otto's is a slow cook, and probably won't be a thing for quite a while. I do have more than one story planned for this series, though, so yeah, sequels. ;)
Otto Cratic and Theo Cratic. I see where you're coming from...
7835396
Cool. :) But yeah, it's a play on Autocratic and Theocratic. But you knew that already. ;)
Ooo Goody! I see you've updated!
I really love all your creatively sly pony names like Teddy Bear's "speak softly and carry a big stick".
I'll be looking forward to seeing how Otto's choices and decisions come back to haunt him with CONSEQUENCES!
(Also, Thanks for following me! You probably will not see a whole lot of creative action from my account.
)
7849323
No problem. It's really good to have someone who likes my work. :D These chapters had been in storage for a while on DeviantART, and I hadn't bothered to upload them for... flimsy and nonsensical reasons when I look into it. So, here they are. I'll be trying to put more effort into uploading stuff for this more often.
I love the Pony puns. Sometimes they're cringe-worthy, but that's part of the fun!
You can complain about them being cheesy, or you can go at it with a cheese grater to get yourself some pizza toppings.
But yeah, Otto's damn near ruined his relationships over blind paranoia. And he's pretty much doomed his city to civil war at this point. A lot of ponies are going to get hurt so he could get some wings. :S
But yeah. It seems really hard to get any lasting attention on this site for your work, so it only seems fair to return the favor for you following me. I'm sure you can come up with something cool though, given time. :) I
I feel this well represents Otto's mental state:
Black Sabbath's "Paranoid," 1970.
Oh classic rock references...
Very appropriate snake similie for Otto.
)
Otto, "Your time is gonna come!"
(Now Led Zeppelin. I can't escape it. Not that I really want to though
I can't help but see a lot of interesting parallels between your tale and the current political scene... Whether intentional or not, I think you have crafted an appropriate allegory for a certain paranoid political movement which fails to uphold the ideals of friendship.
7856343
Hehe, the oldies are the best, hm? ;)
As for Politics, thanks. :) My original inspiration for this was House of Cards, and I'd love to say that Otto is an allegory for Trump. Sadly, he isn't (he's smarter than Trump for one! :p), but playing to populism, demonizing certain people within a community (the changelings in this case) for personal gain.
He does have good intentions, at least at first. But the road to hell is paved on good intentions, and I doubt that damn amulet is going to keep him honest, is it?
I love this kind!~
8301302
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by 'this kind', but I'm very glad you liked my work nontheless. Thank you for reading my work, and following me in fact. Sorry that this has still been unfinished. ^.^;
8304090
I 'll keep on paying close attention to this story~~~
(Although I'm busy with schoolwork, I'll enjoy it to relax myself during the break time~~~
) [By the way,I hope I have no misspellings or grammatical mistakes XD]
I love this novel that combines ponies with the real political life . It makes me feel ~~~excited~~~... Of course I like the title "The Manehatten Project"，too~~~
8310226
Ah, okay. I did do a little lookabout on your page after making my comment and found that out. I probably should've just checked before I commented. But yes, thank you. Outside of FiMFiction and DA, I've studied a BA in Politics for about three years, and currency in the process of writing a dissertation for a Creative Writing Masters degree. I do quite enjoy writing political themes into stories. I will be honest though, TMP is currenctly on the back burner, as I have a ton of other stuff I'm working on: Pony, non-pony, uni-related and work.
Recently, I'm experimenting with my own take on the rather trite 'human goes to Equestria' sub-genre of stories. You know the ones? Hi, my names X, and I really like MLP and I would oh so love to go to Equestria! Oh wow, a sudden, inexplicable coincidence allows me to go to Equestria! Hooray! Wish fulfillment!
My big twist on the formula? The story HAS one of those 'I really wanna go to Equestria' types, sure, her name is Claire Trotter, and she's a Welsh woman studying History and Politics... But she's not the focus of the story. The focus of the story is her roommate, who knows nothing about MLP, isn't really that bothered about it one way or the other, and is in fact a 3rd generation British-Pakistani woman in the middle of a History degree, who accidentally gets caught in a ton of powerful pony magic which transforms half her body and leaves her having to deal with Claire, who had knowingly, happily been the intended target, and find a way to find someone who might tell her what's going on...
Problem is, Claire tells her that person is probably in Equestria, or that Equestria Girls town where everything is set... However, that's in Rhode Island, America, and of course, how do you get a British-Pakistanti girl, who's been half transformed into a pony, to America, without drawing attention to yourself?
We all know what Equestria is. We all know what MLP is. We all clearly love it, and already biased towards it, otherwise we wouldn't be on this site, right now. So, how better to actually give a story like this some teeth, than to have all this shit happen to a person who doesn't know anything about the show or its lore, and has to be forced into it by factors beyond her control.
I'm currently six chapters into writing it, and I don't intend to upload any of it until it's completely finished. I'm sick of my page being full of half-finished stories I keep getting distracted from, and I doubt it reflects well on my page either. :S So, no upload until it's actually finished.
8310286
Wow ~Awesome!!! I 'm eager for it~~ I can't wait ~~
8310286
Oh, I forget one thing. I can't read this fiction in iPad. I downloaded it with EPub format.But it says"The format is not correct, or iBooks can not open the format" So I can only read it online. I'm sorry to trouble you. But I would like to read it in iBooks .
8323501
Huh? That sounds pretty frustrating. I'm not sure how I can help, I'm afraid. I've not studied computer tech in any format since high school, and I'm pretty much using the standard format that FiMFiction uses? Is your ipad problems unique to my work, or are you having trouble with everyone's fictions? :S
8324036
My email address is 18297970518@163.com 
Sorry to trouble you. Maybe you can send me the Epub formatted files by email. Thank you!!!
8333062
I'm a little overly cautious about handing out my email address to people I'm not familiar with, I'm afraid. Nothing personal, I've just been burned by that one too many times in the past. Sorry.
8333494
I apologise for my irreverence. I think I should solve this problem by myself... Sorry...I'm not ask it on purpose...Can you forgive me?...
8342584
That's fine. I'm not sure what your deleted comments were all about, but it's just a case of me being overly cautious. As I say, it's with all people I'm not familiar with. If you've not got a problem with that, then I don't have a problem with you asking.
8342838
Um...I made two silly spelling mistakes in the comments that I deleted, so I decided to delete them. It doesn't matter if you don't want to show me your email address. You know, I'm not an English-speaker. Could you please explain the last sentence? I don't know the mean exactly...Sorry about that...
8349930
First of all, talking about the deleted comments. You know there's a button where you can just edit your comments, so you don't have to delete them, right? ^.^;
As for the other bit. To try to put it simply: I don't mind your spelling mistakes, and I don't mind you asking the question of emails. In turn, I hoped you didn't mind me refusing to hand out contact details in a public venue. Since you didn't mind, I have no ill will towards you. Relax. :)
8350739
Wow... I don't know there is an edit button here...
THANK YOUUUUUU for your understanding!!! I will continue following this fiction!!!
8358720
Hehe, glad to help out. :)
As for FiMFiction, I appreciate that a ton. Sadly, this fic is on unofficial hiatus while I work on other things, including another MLP story which has caught my imagination for the time being. Good news is, I'm more than 10k words into the story, on its eighth chapter, and I don't see it being longer than about 12-15 chapters long, with plans for a sequel once that's done.
I actually read this fic before making a fimfiction account and I have had no idea that it had been updated. I better get to reading it again soon.
8411825
Thanks. :) Well, the good is is, yes, I am still working on it. I don't have any intention of abandoning any story I ever start. The BAD news is, I'm not working on it right now. I've been busy with a Master's Degree for the previous year, and since then, I've been distracted by many other things, including MLP stuff (I have an MLP fic other than TMP in the works as is, which has captured my attention lately). I do really need to come back to this story, it's got a ton of cool things I wanna do with it.
Still, thank you so much for reading what you've read so far, and thank you for your patience.