The Manhattaning

The Manhattaning
E27 Moments: 1802 EST, October 12th 1987
Gallery
Participants	Ozymandias, Dr. Manhattan, Nite-Owl, Silk Spectre, Rorschach, The Comedian
Appearances by	Sally Jupiter, Nelson Gardner, Talia al Ghul, Nyssa al Ghul, Perry White
Location	New York City, Karnak, The Moon, Global
Date	October 12th, 1987

History

Beginning

In 1966, Ozymandias was summoned by Captain Metropolis, who organized a new superhero team, the Crimebusters. This meeting was disrupted by the Comedian, who noted in his brutally apt way exactly how petty the doings of the costumed heroes were. Veidt tried to explain that everything can be achieved with proper planning and leadership, but the Comedian referred to the threat of nuclear war that hung overhead, and how powerless the crimefighters were before it. This, along with Nelson's coda that "someone must save the world" brought to a head Veidt's doubts, and he was inspired to do just that. 

Adrian would soon develop "spark hydrants" and with the proceeds of this creation, he financed Dimensional Developments. Dimensional Developments became profitable enough that by 1970 he was able to build a private research sanctuary in Antarctica with the help of Dr. Manhattan. The two would often retire to this location for weeks at a time, conspiring in their in-depth research together. Adrian soon left the crimefighting scene to focus on building his fortune and reputation to sustain his research.

Watchmen

Veidt tasked Jacobi to deliver a package of medicine to Janey Slater (Jon Osterman's former lover and a newly hired lead researcher at Dimensional Developments), the "medicine" was actually carcinogenic. Eventually both Slater and Jacobi's health started to deteriorate, vomiting, feeling tired and suffering from insomnia, headaches and diarrhea.

Starting in 1983, Veidt had also engineered the recruitment of many of the world's leading physicists and engineers to focus on the development of intrinsic engines at Karnak. The first of these prototypes were installed in twenty-seven of the world's major cities as part of the spark hydrant pilot program. Some of the bombs were planted with the help of League of Assassins after meeting the al Ghul sisters. Adrian also gave some of the technology to governments, who begun experimenting on it (and taking on the risk of the dangerous trial and error needed to create the Intrinsic Bombs).

Due to the scale of Veidt's recruitment, Eddie Blake was sent to investigate Adrian's work at Karnak. Blake discovered the part of Veidt's plan that the world's brightest minds did not realize. To confirm his suspicions, he copied a list of names he found at Karnak and returned to New York to investigate. Blake found that everyone on this list was dead or dying from what they believed to be cancer. Jacobi was one of the few people Blake could be certain was not a part of Veidt's plan. Drunk and hysterical, Blake broke into Jacobi's home at night and told him about the list, Jacobi did not understand.

The next day Jacobi reported it to Veidt, who assured him that the Comedian was just becoming delusional, and provided Jacobi with guards to keep his place safe. When Veidt discovered his dear friend Perry White was coming to New York to interview Blake, he came to the realization that he needed to kill the Comedian.

The death of the Comedian caught the attention of Rorschach, who investigated the crime and mistakenly theorized that there existed a conspiracy to murder masked adventurers and even climbed to the top of Veidt Tower to warn Adrian.

Appearing to mourn the loss, Veidt attended the Comedian's funeral and insisted that Jon and he continue in their research, even persuading Jon not to cancel his press interview which Adrian had arranged even after an attempt on Adrian's life and the Comedian's funeral being held on the same day. The press event was an ambush for Jon, where he learned of many persons close to him having been diagnosed with cancer.

When Rorschach visited Moloch's house, Veidt decided that both Moloch and Rorschach needed to be dealt with. Adrian decided to kill two birds with one stone by framing Rorschach for the murder of Moloch. While Moloch was watching the press coverage on Manhattan's disappearance after being accused of causing cancer in Wally Weaver, Slater and Moloch, Moloch realized that Adrian was the one behind it. As he pieced it together, Veidt appeared in his house to explain his plan to save the world; he then offered him the chance to save the world in a final act of redemption. Moloch agreed and Veidt shot him in the head. The gunshot alerted Rorschach who Veidt knew was outside the house waiting for Jacobi to retire. As Rorschach broke into his house, he found Jacobi dead just moments before a full SWAT division (who were in the neighborhood on a false alarm secretly arranged by Adrian) raided the apartment. In the confusion, Adrian was able to step out of the closet and discreetly slip away, witnessing Rorschach being pinned to the sidewalk and publicly unmasked during his arrest.

Unanticipated by Adrian, Dan and Laurie began a relationship and returned to their heroic identities as the second Nite Owl and second Silk Spectre. The two also grew to believe that Rorschach's investigation had merit and decided to spring him from prison to investigate the matter. In addition, Manhattan took Silk Spectre to the Moon where she convinced him to return to Earth.

However, the four remaining Watchmen were unable to stop the fulfillment of Veidt's scheme, which led to the deaths of fifty-two million people in twenty-seven major cities. 

The Manhattaning

On October 12th, 1987 Adrian Veidt presses the button, putting his plan into action. 27 bombs explode across the world, exploding in a display with a distinct energy signature to Dr. Manhattan.

The cities which are targets include:

1. London, United Kingdom
2. Paris, France
3. Cairo, Egypt
4. Istanbul, Turkey
5. Moscow, USSR
6. Tehran, Iran
7. Las Vegas, Nevada, United States
8. Washington, DC, United States
9. Boston, Massachusetts, United States
10. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
11. Detroit, Michigan, United States
12. Houston, Texas, United States
13. Los Angeles, California, United States
14. Manhattan, New York, United States
15. Chicago, Illinois, United States
16. Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States
17. Delhi, India
18. Dhaka, Bangladesh
19. Bangkok, Thailand
20. Shanghai, China
21. Beijing, China
22. Seoul, South Korea
23. Tokyo, Japan
24. Mexico City, Mexico
25. São Paulo, Brazil
26. Buenos Aires, Argentina
27. Lima, Peru

With a total of 10 cities affected, the United States was the most affected nation in this event that had a global scale.

The world governments fell for this ruse, and agreed to a union to oppose Manhattan who Veidt had also framed by using his energy signature in the explosions at the spark hydrant plants. This plot was an attempt to give the nations of the world involved in the Cold War a common enemy, which could unite them and prevent nuclear annihilation.

Seeing how Veidt's plot had the desired effect of uniting the nations of the world and averting a possible nuclear war, Doctor Manhattan, Nite Owl and Silk Spectre agreed to keep silent about what they knew, as it would only plunge the world back to the brink of disaster. Rorschach alone refused to keep silent, telling Doctor Manhattan that he will "never compromise, not even in the face of Armageddon." Thinking quickly, Veidt used logic to convince Jon he must kill Rorschach before he can tell anybody. When Jon returned, Adrian tried to assure him he did "the right thing" and that this way everything would "work out in the end," Jon could only reply that nothing ever ends, leaving Veidt in doubt as Jon then left the world.

Aftermath

The United Nations formed a nearly universal peace accord between its members, dedicated to the capture and destruction of Dr. Manhattan.

There were political changes in the world.

• The US capital is established as National City, Virginia. Philadelphia became Hub City after great restructuring effort.
• North and South Korea have reunited, forming a country called Rhelasia.
• The city of Paris was rebuilt and renamed Nouvelle Lumière.
• The bomb in London destroyed St. Mary's College and created an irradiated crater flooded by the River Thames. The crater was named St. Mary's lake and a park was built around it. Unfortunately a virus developed in the lake, killed hundreds of thousands of people and sent London into chaos. It provided an opportunity for the Under-Secretary of Defense Adam Sutler to gain power.
• New York was deemed too expensive to rebuild. Most of its industries relocated to one or more of the Trinity Towns - Gotham, Metropolis, and Gateway. Within a decade, most of its buildings were left empty and falling apart. Its population was reduced to a mere fraction of once lived there. Crime ran rampant, and eventually the government evacuated Manhattan. Fort Manhattan was built near the crater and the derelict buildings north of the fort are now used in urban warfare training exercises for both military infantry but also for ARGUS agents, DEO agents, police SWAT teams, and even superhero teams with good standing with the US Federal Government.
• Many nations withdrew their peacekeeping forces from Santa Prisca to protect their land. Without them Santa Prisca erupted into a fierce civil war.
• Conflict in Zandia ended.
• City of Toronto became Canada's new capital after it underwent a series of restructuring and was renamed Maple City.
• China started to round up all possible extranormal beings within its borders regardless of criminal status. Many people disappeared within the first ten years after the explosions in a period that the Chinese people still refer to as the Dark Decade.
• Australia offered the city of Townsville to be a safe harbor for the refugees. Its population grew, and the city became Australia's primary population center as well as a hub for commercial, industry, cultural, and academic interests.
• The commune, known as "Dancing Waters", was built to be a safe haven and extended support group for those who were affected by the death and devastation caused by the Manhattaning event.
• With the advent of the Manhattaning, Vlatava felt pressured to scale back its military production and as a result of this, the economy of cities such as Cheřov, the seat of power of House Bogdanow, collapsed rapidly. Afterward, Hissan Bogdanow saved House Bogdanow by utilizing the tricks of the trade from his previous profession as a mobster. He retooled the noble family into an organized crime syndicate that would actually become a blueprint for several other struggling noble houses — not just Vlatava, but also Markovia, Kasnia, and Zandia.

The explosions affected many people:

• Many people died: the parents of Cisco Ramon, Rory Regan, Nina Mazursky, Edward Fyers, Angelica Turing, Jonas Maliki, Will Everett, Emma Goode; the fathers of Harrison Wells, Lyuben Plunder, Winslow Schott and Chandi Gupta; grandfather of Steve Dayton; the mothers of Cole Cash, Chas Chandler, Ignatius Ogilvy, Linda Tran, Alicia and Delores Winters; parents and sisters of Albert Davis.
• Many years later, Rasi Gupta's lab was determined to be the epicenter of the explosion in Delhi.
• Matthew Shrieve died and command of Creature Commandos was given to Eve Frankenstein.
• Destruction of Cairo awakened Aten Khalis.
• The intrinsic radiation affected Kimiyo Hoshi and a pregnant Miya Shimada, causing them to become ill and have their meta-genes activated.
• The destruction bonded pairs of people: Marie and Jean-Claude d'Aramis, Ellen Dolan and Bill Harvelle, John Winchester and Mary Campbell.
• Desire of the Endless conceived Drury and Rose Walker on the night of the explosions.
• Lux Beata celebrated the destruction and on this night Alyce Sinner was conceived.
• The original Fabletown was destroyed. Ichabod Crane's death summoned the Headless Horseman and now he again tries to hunt Ichabod down.
• The Chinese government sent soldiers after Yao Fei Gulong, which forced him and his daughter to hide.
• Explosions affected psychics. Chuck Shurley started having dreams since the explosions. At the moment of the explosions, Kevin Beckman suffered some sort of neurological problem which resembled a stroke, which left him with mental issues.Johann Kraus' body was destroyed, and his ectoplasmic projection is supercharged. Missouri Moseley saw the explosion in Washington, DC. Though she was outside of the blast radius, the explosion still dropped her to the floor and left her comatose for a month. During her blackout, Missouri experienced disturbing psychic visions, reliving the last moments of life for dozens (or possibly hundreds) of people killed in the explosion. The Barnes siblings started to experience strange dreams. Liz Sherman fell into a coma and became connected to the Burn.
• Byron Lewis, the former Mothman, became aware of the explosions despite being in a padded cell without radio and television. He snapped, went completely catatonic, aside from the random utterance of "into the blue flame, they go..." or various passages from the works of Max Shea or other artists like Mitch Wacky or Percy Bysshe Shelley.
• The explosions destroyed the remains of Hollis Mason and William Brady.
• Young Thomas Blake decided to join the military to preserve the peace the destruction brought.
• Erelim held a number of departed souls hostage. They demanded that in exchange for the release of millions of souls bound for Heaven that Zachariah should be returned to his previous post. Zachariah returned to Earth and took the identity of Jack Hardemeyer.
• Jian Chau meets his future wife Chen. Both were Chinese refugees that met in Maple City during the post-Manhattaning migration. They would later have a daughter who they give the unconventional name of "Knives."
• Vast amounts of energy flooded the Void and gave Heaven, Hell, and Limbo vast deposits of power. This event was called the Great Influx.
• The devil Aradia capitalized on the sudden influx of souls in Hell. With so much power, she was in a key position to ride the wave of the influx of magic that swept over Earth in the decade following the intrinsic explosions. The number of covens devoted to Aradia tripled. The Silver Daughter spent more and more of her time on Earth, aiding her covens' rise to power which in turn gave Aradia more bountiful worship.
• Kevin and Petra Tilley were killed in the explosion, but their daughter Renet found herself in various dimensions in realities. due to an intervention of a vorpal being.
• The concussive force of the event threw Arani Desai into a wall and she lost consciousness. After she woke up her powers activated.
• Trigon broke into the Rock of Eternity and took the souls of the Seven Deadly Enemies.
• Earth's ley lines were jumpstarted by the Intrinsic radiation, in addition to the massive amount of residual psionic energy released by all that instant death.
• The Eurybian College of the Occult decided it needed new members to allow the society to make better use of the opportunity to engage in more powerful rituals.
• BPRD received new funding and was called to investigate the explosions. The Enhanced Talents team was relocated to Station 5 in New Jersey.
• In the face of such great devastation Langdon Caul decided to embrace his inhumanity and embraces the name Abe Sapien.
• Silvestre Barros recognized world peace is temporary and started to acquire weapons.
• Rufus Turner's unit was disbanded.
• Uhgeum Dae-kyun was inspired by the devastation done by Jon Osterman, who had once been a meek and humble scientist to pull aside his childish pranks on his brother and focused more on science.
• Eric Morden somehow used the mass devastation to increase his own power.
• The bombings created tidal waves that capsized Andraste's boat. She was rescued and taken to hidden island to recover. On it Tula zin'Marius was conceived.
• The explosion that decimated Los Angeles caused California's already volatile fault lines to quake for months after the detonation. One of the worst earthquakes happened in San Diego County of the United States and in Tijuana, Mexico in 1987. A good chunk of the coastline vanished under the sea and tidal waves from offshore. Some estimates are as high as a tenth of San Diego County's population of 2.7 million in 1987 were lost to the devastation and destruction. About two hundred people survived thanks to their meta-gene which gave them the ability to breathe underwater. They set up a village called Sub-Diego.
• Travis Cody almost died in the intrinsic explosion of Manhattan when an overpass collapsed on top of him. The spinal injury causes him difficulty with certain physical activity.
• The demon Pruflas had his corporeality forever compromised due to his infernal bonds being saturated with intrinsic interference. Pruflas reformed many years later. Weak and lacking a body, existing only as stray essence with limited sentience keeping it together, Pruflas floated about Earth only vaguely aware of his direction.
• While accompanying an archbishop on a business trip to the Vatican, Matthew Glick's plane suffered some engine trouble and was forced to make an emergency landing. It was at the airport that Matthew learned that the cause of the mechanical failure has been due to some electromagnetic feedback brought on by the intrinsic blasts that devastated nearly thirty cities across the globe. Matthew would soon discover one of those blasts has claimed the lives of his pregnant wife Jennifer and her family, as well the orphanage where he had been raised.
• Will Everett's family home was destroyed in the very same intrinsic blast and their home was on the edge of the blast zone and rather than complete disintegration, the residence was collapsed by the shockwave. Rescue crews heard a crying child and after several hours of sifting through debris, they found Will pinned between his mother's body and the concrete floor of the house's basement. No one could explain how Will was not smothered, let alone outright smashed under the weight of his mother and the debris that had killed her, but no one questioned it further than a testament of a mother's need to protect her child fueled by an adrenaline surge. The truth of Will's survival was owed to his activated meta-gene that caused him to absorb the molecular density of the concrete floor in the instant his mother's body pinned him against it.
• The explosion contributed to weakening of the Veil, a magical phenomena hiding supernatural from the eyes of regular people.

This "peace" lasted only about 10 years. Perry White received a leather-bound journal from a man claiming to be Rorschach. After exposing the "Great Lie" US Congress and the United Nations order an immediate inquiry into the allegations. Veidt goes into hiding, abandoning his business empire which goes into freefall. Most of its assets are acquired by LuthorCorp. The Khandaqi terrorists attacked the USA after the revelation.

When Veidt routinely proves to be too difficult for law enforcement to apprehend, public sentiment begins to shift toward favoring a return of masked vigilantes, particularly with the success of the Batman in Gotham City.

Trivia and Notes

Trivia

• The bomb that destroyed Tokyo had a defect, which resulted in a lower blast radius, but still created the same amount of intrinsic radiation.
• The global catastrophe caused several geopolitical changes that made the relationship between nations and historical events in the following decades different from how events occurred in the "real world".
• Diana of Themyscira ventured into different realms after the explosions to sort out the effects such a destructive event would have on them.
• After the destruction of Hollywood the independent movie scene in Star City became the new film capital.
• The most popular Fables started resurrecting one month after the explosions.
• When it was revealed that Adrian Veidt was behind the Manhattaning and other crimefighters like Nite-Owl and Silk Spectre were involved, agents from the FBI came to speak with Byron Lewis regularly. Byron's quotes mirrored many things that Adrian Veidt had expressed a fondness for in interviews and searching Byron's cell found many schematics that appeared to be prototypes for the intrinsic bombs. Byron was labeled a person of interest in the Manhattaning and was transferred to Arkham Asylum for security reasons.
• The area where the bomb went off in Delhi are called the 'Scarred Lands'.
• Despite having ten cities bombed, in terms of pure body count, China suffered more destruction than any other nation. The two bombs that destroyed Shanghai and Beijing took more lives than the total of the ten bombs detonated in the United States due to population density and variance in the blast radius and payloads of the bombs.
• It is possible that Queen Tsaritsa arrived on Earth via rifts in spacetime following the explosion.
• The explosions destroyed Langdon Caul's research and cure he developed for himself and Nina Mazursky.
• The angels of Heaven call it the Great Reaping.
• Following the Manhattaning, half-hour and quarter-hour time zones were removed.
• Countries affected by the Manhattaning have higher sensates populations.
• Edgar and Sarah Nashton are listed as victims of the Chicago explosion, but evidence suggesting this is questioned. It's possible they disappeared before the Manhattaning.
• In the wake of the explosions, the voice Nicolas Nolan heard as a child became much louder. The voice helped him break away from Cult of the Cold Flame's influence.
• Reportedly, Gomez Addams and Morticia Frump consummated on the night of the Manhattaning. The young lovers took as a sign that their love was a beautiful and dangerous thing.
• Cardinal Glick is on record saying he will do whatever is in his power to assure anyone who brings an end to Adrian Veidt will be allowed into Heaven. Whenever the subject of the Manhattaning is brought up, Cardinal Glick usually becomes visibly uncomfortable and will become increasingly incensed as the topic continues.
• The residents of Nóatún called it the "Day of Black and Blue".

Notes

• As explained by Roy: The Watchmen themselves: Nite-Owl, Rorschach, Dr. Manhattan, Silk Spectre, Ozymandias, the Comedian, and so forth, existed in Earth-27's 80s. Their tale would mostly result in the same way that it does in the movie (because I prefer the movie's ending versus the graphic novel's finale) except with even more devastation. Many major cities don't just suffer huge losses, most of the major cities are outright destroyed. So with Earth's major cities gone, this sets the stage for other cities to rise to prominence in the wake of this devastation: Gotham City, Metropolis, Gateway City, Star City, Central City, et cetera. So while that doesn't change much of the heroes' backstories, it does change the setting quite a bit. Manhattan is gone, as are London, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Tokyo, and even Washington, DC. This would give me a firm detachment from the real world and allow me to develop a unique world.
• Adrian Veidt's plan from the comic involved creating an alien monster from a brain of a psychic with help of kidnapped scientists and artists. Among them was Max Shea. Byron Lewis' NFX File mentions his disappearance, but it's unknown whether it's connected to Veidt's plan.

Links and References

• Event Gallery: The Manhattaning