Titanic makes it

For starters--delays in implimenting all the new safety features and procedures. Higher death toll from sunk ships until the next 'Titanic' like disaster.

On the plus side--no movie by Cameron.... :)
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
tom said:
If the Titanic had survived its maiden voyage, what else might have changed?

Well, for starters, the Harry Elkins Widener Library - America's largest open-stack library - might have never been founded. The Widener family gave Harvard the money to found the library on the site of Gore Hall (itself named after the Gore family), after their son perished in the sinking of the Titanic.

Harvard undergrads consider having a romantic rendezvous in the labyrinthine Widener library to be a prerequisite to graduation. Thus many Harvard relationships might never have come to fruition if it were not for Widener.

On the whole, though, bigger ships were built, and it didn't have as much of an imprint upon this industry as, say, the explosion of the Hindenburg over Lakehurst, NJ (my hometown) did on the dirigible industry. Zeppelin dismantled all of their dirigibles within three years of 1937.

I remember first seeing a poster depicting a zeppelin raid over London. The caption to the poster stated "The Zeppelin has come!" in Fraktur script, and the people of London were climbing all over one another in abject terror, as the dirigible loomed on the horizon. Today this poster couldn't be more ridiculous.
 
Leo Caesius said:
On the whole, though, bigger ships were built, and it didn't have as much of an imprint upon this industry as, say, the explosion of the Hindenburg over Lakehurst, NJ (my hometown) did on the dirigible industry. Zeppelin dismantled all of their dirigibles within three years of 1937.

Have we done one on the Hindenberg? What if it hadn't happened and [eventually] safer gas was used?.
 

Nonny

Banned
The Titanic would have been sunk in 1918 off Ireland by U52 carrying the US "Big Red One" Division, with 12,000 doughbouys drowning.
 
Didn't Titanic carry a lot of rich folks from US? Astor IIRC. This has to amke an impact on future/history.
 
Oh how I wish that had happened as this would have meant my girlfriend wouldn't have been able to drag me kicking and screaming to that execrable movie, with that appalling song.
 
mishery said:
Oh how I wish that had happened as this would have meant my girlfriend wouldn't have been able to drag me kicking and screaming to that execrable movie, with that appalling song.

I agree, no car crashes or anything really interesting
 
no bull moose

IIRC several of TRs political cronies were on the Titanic. If the Titanic had made it, they would have talked TR out of the 1914 campaign. Taft as President during WW1.
 

Xen

Banned
DuQuense said:
IIRC several of TRs political cronies were on the Titanic. If the Titanic had made it, they would have talked TR out of the 1914 campaign. Taft as President during WW1.

What 1914 campaign? The Titanic sank in 1912, the same year the US Presidential elections were held, TR was already vying for the Presidency when the boat sank.
 
Sorry Norman and Mishery, the next major disaster at sea would then be the Lusitania, which Cameron could certainly have made into a movie. Probably much shorter since the liner sank much more quickly - and who can say what appalling song would be associated with that.

With a Hollywood which is set upon sequels, a sequel to Titanic was one movie I was hoping they would make - tho I would be mystified how they would accomplish it.
 
David S Poepoe said:
With a Hollywood which is set upon sequels, a sequel to Titanic was one movie I was hoping they would make - tho I would be mystified how they would accomplish it.

Maybe instead of the Titanic, the sequel could take place on the Hindenburg.
 
David S Poepoe said:
Sorry Norman and Mishery, the next major disaster at sea would then be the Lusitania, which Cameron could certainly have made into a movie. Probably much shorter since the liner sank much more quickly - and who can say what appalling song would be associated with that.

At least Cameron could stick some cool explosions into that one.
 
Just read this on a we page about the Lusitania sinking...

"there was one person sucked into one of the funnels and was shot back out as the boiler exploded (he lived to tell the tale). "

...now that would be cool in a movie...
 
nothing interesting in the movie?! well, most of it sure, but did you forget about the naked Kate Winslett? Of course, if you were with your girlfriend, I suppose you couldn't drool and whistle....
 

Xen

Banned
Love or hate the movie you got to give it to them for recreating the look that it is actually 1912 and the deep divisions of class that existed at the time. I have a feeling if it were 2004 and the lower class was locked up while the ship was sinking that those gates would have been ripped down, people today probably wouldnt care that they had to "pay" for damage done to a sinking ship. I can see Rich people getting tossed out of the lifeboats in modern times too, lol.

Cameron did an excellent job of capturing the feel, imo.
 
Consequences

The consequences for shipping could depend on how Titanic survives. If she avoids the iceberg altogether--no change on shipping construction, no international cooperation on detecting and avoiding icebergs, etc until the next high profile catastrophe.
If the lookout is less alert, and the ship plows head-on into the iceberg at full speed, I'd expect some of the same changes as in OTL. Titanic limps into port, her bow crushed, with numerous dead and injured, but still afloat. The captain and lookout are toast. More work is done on avoiding icebergs, much as in OTL. What doesn't happen is the changes in safety requirements for getting off a sinking ship--so subsequent disasters are more severe.
Incidnetly, Titanic herself may not get many passengers after such a disasterous maiden voyage.
 
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