Titanic Fantasy

[Carl Ireton]

Everybody has a fantasy, right??? Mine is this. Suppose for a second that the Titanic's builders, in their infinite wisdom, had built a double skin up from her double bottom, such as was done with the Britannic. She would have survived her brush with the iceberg. Okay, World War One comes along. She is outfitted as a hospital ship and ferries the British wounded from Churchill's disasterous Dardanelles campaign to the British mainland. Or perhaps she is designated as a troop carrier and ferries troops to and from the frontline. Now, let's suppose she escapes the fate of her sister Britannic and avoids a mine, or avoids being torpedoed as was the Lusitania. She is returned to the White Star Line to resume passenger service and serves an illustrious career, along with the Olympic. I'm sure the White Star Line could have survived financially the loss of the Britannic. Cunard survived the loss of the Lusitania. Oh, and the Britannic? Had the Titanic survived her brush with the iceberg in April of 1912, Britannic's name would have been Gigantic, and the Gigantic would have been the name of the hospital ship that went down off the island of Kea in 1916. Now the 1930's have arrived, and the Olympic and Titanic are getting old, and White Star is considering what to do with them. It's fun to imagine the Titanic sitting alongside the Olympic and Mauretania in tnose famous last photos before they are scrapped. Or, as in the case of the Aquitania, would Titanic have survived once again, to be used as another troop carrier during World War One? Would love to hear other people's comments or fantasies. Thanks, Carl Ireton

[Moderator's note: This thread was in a different subtopic, but has been moved here. JDT]

[Second Moderator's Note: Another copy of this was posted in, and has now been deleted from, another thread. MAB]

 

[Carl Ireton]

Sorry, still new at this, and still learning the rules.

 

[Doni McLerran]

Hmmm... first of all, there would be a lot of history changed because 1500+ extra people would arrive in New York to live out their lives, have children and grandchildren -- which were know didn't happen. Of course, Captain Smith would have retired a happy man.

I have tended to follow Father Byles' story. Depending on the damage to the ship, if the passengers of the Titanic could make it to New York early enough, he would still have officiated at his brothers' wedding as planned (and probably would have anyway if his brother decided to postpone the wedding until he got there). At any rate, Byles would eventually go back to St. Helens in Ongar, Essex, to continue his work there. He would simply been another pastor of a rural Catholic parish, remaining forever unknown to the masses.

Here's something to think about: Millvina Dean would be living in the United States instead of England.

Of course there would have been no inquiries, and at least for the moment, there would be no changes in lifeboat regulations, or 24-hour radio on ships, or the International Ice Patrol, or other issues concerning safey of life at sea.

And, likely, we wouldn't be hashing things out on a discussion board called Encyclopedia Titanica. (Wouldn't life be boring?)

 

[Robert T. Paige]

>>And, likely, we wouldn't be hashing things out on a discussion board called Encyclopedia Titanica. (Wouldn't life be boring?)<<

This always reminds me of the CD-ROM game "Titanic-Adventure In Time"....if you get it all right, then things turn out to be perfect...but if you miss even one item on the list, things turn out even worse than what actually occurred.

 

[Doni McLerran]

Well, thinking more about this, there might would have been inquiries anyway. After all, Carl's original post did say that the Titanic still brushed the iceberg. But it might not would have been to the scale that the actual investigations ended up being.

Hmm... (to Robert) ...Computer games aren't quite up my alley, but it may have to check out that CD-ROM game anyway.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

A "brush" of any kind which did any significant damage to the ship would call for an investigation of some kind, even if it amounts to an internal corporate enquiry with a report submitted to the appropriate government agency. As strange as it might seem with today's Zero Defect Mentality, this might not have been enough to kill Captain Smith's career or even that of his officers. The powers that be back then tended to be a bit more understanding of the fact that "Things happen."

Of course, the above goes along with the initial scenario that the Titanic doesnt sink. In the real world, we know that she did. The powers that be aren't as forgiving of that.

 

[Roy Kristiansen]

>>The powers that be back then tended to be a bit more understanding of the fact that "Things happen."

And when you consider the pounding Atlantic shipping in general was taking in early '12 (to the tune of multi-millions of dollars), a "brush" with an iceberg that didn't actually destroy the ship might have been seen as a fortuitous outcome indeed.

 

[Amanda Ratliff]

Here's an interesting thought. Who believes in destiny? What if something happened to intercede with the ship striking the iceburg or if the "mystery ship" had indeed been close enough to save all. Would that have interfered with 1500 peoples destiny to die? Perhaps these same deaths would have occured later from some sort of accident? Personally, I'm not a big believer in fate but it makes for interesting thought.

 

[Ann Whitworth Unemori]

Amanda, I like your thoughts. It's a bit like the part in "It's a Wonderful Life" where George Bailey learns how his younger brother saved a boat filled with Marines; but in the NightTown part he learns those men died. I wonder--would those Marines have died later in the war anyway? It was in late 1944, and the real casualties started in 1945. How destined is Fate?
Titanic was carrying the cream of 1912 society, what would those men (and a few women) have done had they lived?
For that matter, which time-line would George Bailey live in, the one where Titanic sank or where she did not? Just some thoughtful fun.

 

[Wayne Keen]

If one speculates that time travel is possible, then one would imagine the creator designed the system with some way to deal with it.

I don't know what that would be however...



Wayne

 

[sharon rutman]

What if, by some miracle, the Titanic avoided the iceberg and made it to New York intact? Now that's the ultimate fantasy.

 

[Stanley C Jenkins]

When I cannot sleep, I imagine that I am emigrant, travelling far from earth aboard the starship Titanic. This future vessel is roughly the size and shape of the Hindenburg, albeit with two engine pods, each the size of a Trafalgar class nuclear submarine, which are mounted on massive pylons on the port and starboard sides of the hull. My cabin is situated on the port side just abaft the ship’s (Anglican) chapel, where we sing ‘Nearer My God to Thee every Sunday’ As the future me is also a chronic insomniac, I imagine a nocturnal walk from my cabin, along the endless corridors, and thence down the grand staircase to the Palm court restaurant, which features massive stern windows through which one can observe the stars in the perpetual blackness of space. I admire the large size mural behind the bar — which depicts an old-fashioned Olympic class ocean liner on her speed trials in Belfast Lough and muse, for a moment, on the “Old Country”, before (hopefully), falling asleep.

 

[Deborah Russes]

Take Sharon's fantasy of the Titanic avoiding the iceberg and making it to NY...all those people who had passed would be alive...what impact would their lives have on society or the world? Would one of them have done something monumental? Something that would go down in history?

Every event or action has an effect on another event or action. What would have changed...as we know it?

I guess you could apply that "fantasy" to any event...the death of Kennedy, the Challenger, etc.

 

[sharon rutman]

I'd love to rewrite Raise the Titanic so that Anne Archer's character actually sounds intelligent. Wormy on the hooky would be the first thing to go.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>Wormy on the hooky would be the first thing to go.<<

No quibble with that. The scriptwriter who came up with that line should have been shot.

I'd keep the part where the ship makes it to the surface complete with the musical scoring. As downright awful as the rest of the film was, this part made up for a lot. Not everything, but a lot.