SS Californian comes to Titanic's aid

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
OK, so the U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701) arrives just as the Titanic hits the iceberg. Captain Kirk says screw the timeline and the Prime Directive and decides to beam them all up. Now, from what I recall watching Star Trek, they only seemed to be able to beam up a maximum of five people at a time, so that means 300 trips to do fifteen hundred people. Figure a minute to beam up five people, and two minutes for them to freak out at Spock's ears and some redshirts to frog march them out of the transporter room. So, that's five people in three minutes, so a hundred people an hour, so, fifteen hours to beam up fifteen hundred people.

On the other hand, the Enterprise carries four shuttlecraft (citation needed) and you could probably cram ten people into the back of one of those things. Assuming you could launch and land all four at once, you could rescue forty people at one go. Say, you allow five minutes to launch and get down to the Titanic, five minutes to load up ten people, five minutes to get back to the Enterprise, and five minutes to offload the people and launch again, then in theory, you could rescue forty people every twenty minutes using the shuttles, or 120 people every hour. At a rate of 120 an hour, it would take 12.5 hours to rescue 1,500 people using the shuttlecraft.

However, if you used the transporter and the shuttlecraft together, then you could rescue 220 people an hour. This would take approximately 6.82 hours.
You stepped off in the wrong Forum.
 
I think the point Baron Bizarre is trying to make is that even going ASB you still won't save everyone.
The best Californian can do before daylight is turn her lights on and act as a rally point for Titanic's lifeboats. Her wireless could transmit real time information to Captain Rostron aboard Carpathia. With both ships on scene we will
Probably get a more accurate picture of what happened that night.
 
I think the point Baron Bizarre is trying to make is that even going ASB you still won't save everyone.
The best Californian can do before daylight is turn her lights on and act as a rally point for Titanic's lifeboats. Her wireless could transmit real time information to Captain Rostron aboard Carpathia. With both ships on scene we will
Probably get a more accurate picture of what happened that night.


Uh, yeah...I definitely had a point with that, and wasn't just being silly. Sure, that's it, that's the ticket, Mooorgan Fairchild. ;)
 
Last edited:
Uh, yeah...I definitely had a point with that, and wasn't just being silly. Sire, that's it, that's the ticket, Mooorgan Fairchild. ;)


More seriously, yeah, with the resources that were handy, there probably wasn't much more that could have been done.

(I wonder, though, could the tractor beam have kept the ship from sinking until everyone was saved? OK, I'll shut up, now.)
 
In order to actually manage to accomplish anything, Californian would need to have her steam up, and for Titanic to have either suffered less damage, or had more effective damage control. Or any at all even. If they could have delayed her sinking a few hours, Californian and Carpathia would have had a chance to arrive and start taking passengers off.
 
More seriously, yeah, with the resources that were handy, there probably wasn't much more that could have been done.

(I wonder, though, could the tractor beam have kept the ship from sinking until everyone was saved? OK, I'll shut up, now.)
I could see a Titanic episode working better on "the next generation" series. Picard could be more dramatic.
 

SsgtC

Banned
Getting all the life boats launched, and all filled, would have save hour many more people?
About 300 to 400 more. Total capacity of the boats was 1,180. 14x65 passenger boats, 2x41 passenger boats, 4x47 passenger collapsible boats. Considering that if all the boats were filled it would primarily be women and children, you might be able to squeeze in another 100 or so.
 

Md139115

Banned
Given the amount of evidence in favor of that having been actually played by the band....

Look, I'll admit, I would love them to have played that, I really do, but the evidence isn't that supportive. Harold Bride and Col. Archibald Gracie were both on the boat deck until the ship literally sank from underneath them, and they spent the rest of their lives insisting the band played ragtime and similarly upbeat pieces to the end. Col. Gracie even declared in his memoirs of the disaster (which I strongly encourage everyone here to read) that he would have thought it "shockingly bad form" if the band started playing something that would have caused mass panic among the hundreds of people still left on the upper decks.
 
Look, I'll admit, I would love them to have played that, I really do, but the evidence isn't that supportive. Harold Bride and Col. Archibald Gracie were both on the boat deck until the ship literally sank from underneath them, and they spent the rest of their lives insisting the band played ragtime and similarly upbeat pieces to the end. Col. Gracie even declared in his memoirs of the disaster (which I strongly encourage everyone here to read) that he would have thought it "shockingly bad form" if the band started playing something that would have caused mass panic among the hundreds of people still left on the upper decks.
Given that former bandmates of Hartley the Titanic's bandleader had said that Wallace stated on previous occasions that if he was ever on a ship and it went down that Nearer My god to Thee would be the song he played. Plus IIRC one of the versions of the hymn at some part sound like the song Autumn that Bride claimed was played. As for Gracie's claim having heard both versions of the hymn that Wallace could've chosen from I seriously doubt anyone would've been brought to a panic from the song.
 

Md139115

Banned
Given that former bandmates of Hartley the Titanic's bandleader had said that Wallace stated on previous occasions that if he was ever on a ship and it went down that Nearer My god to Thee would be the song he played. Plus IIRC one of the versions of the hymn at some part sound like the song Autumn that Bride claimed was played. As for Gracie's claim having heard both versions of the hymn that Wallace could've chosen from I seriously doubt anyone would've been brought to a panic from the song.

You may be right. Tje Methodist version is obscure enough that it may have been mistaken. I would certainly like for you to be right. Unfortunately, we'll never know for certain.

As things stand though, I think a much more profound hymn in that moment would have been "Abide with Me," though that's just my personal preference.
 
Top