Disclaimer: This crossover includes the world of 1910 of OTL (albeit set in the near-future), Fullmetal Alchemist, Girls und Panzer, Valkyria Chronicles (though the events of this series have already taken place and no characters will show up), Eddsworld, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Assassination Classroom.
Also, just to make this clear: I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING! ALL RIGHTS GO TO THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS!
Narrator: It has been said that "Titanic" is the 3rd most widely recognized word in the world, following "God", and "Coco-cola". True or not, it's undeniable that even though she went down over 100 years ago, the Titanic still possesses a compelling power. Thus, The Nuclear Alchmist, who is one of the many people fascinated by the incident, will now preform a (mostly) modern retelling of the story. With fictional characters and real people that both lived and died on the infamous ship, visual guides, and plenty of drama and laughs along the way.
This is the new story of the most famous ship in the world. From an idea to a behemoth. And its construction to its maiden voyage. And ultimately, to the tragedy that shook the Edwardian era Europa (Europe) and the world to it's core.
A story that so few lived to tell.
NIGHTS to REMEMBER By: The Nuclear Alchmist
Chapter 0: Genesis
Narrator: She was conceived, along with her 2 sisters, on a warm summer evening in 2017.
[A large Daimler-Benz town-car stopped at the front entrance of 27 Chelsea street in the Belgravia district of London, U.K. A man steps out of the car. He is a brunette, has an average hight, a mustaushe, and is wearing a formal business suit. As soon as he stands up, the camera freezes.]
Narrator: This is Joseph Bruce Ismay, the eldest son of Thomas H. Ismay, and chairman of the White Star Line. [Camera unpauses.] He is to be a dinner guest of Lord and Lady Pirrie.
Sorry to interrupt so early, but here's some aids to help you read this fan-fiction:
1: [A man steps out of the car. He is a brunette, has an average height, a mustache, and is wearing a formal business suit. As soon as he stands up, the camera freezes.]: this is a cut from the main story to show visual details. (Please note I write in the format of a script.)
2: Narrator: (insert sentence[s] here.): this is an example of a character talking.
3: And I'm 16 for crying out loud. : Minor lines by a character.
4: * BAM *: sound effects.
5: Italicized talking lines like this one are a character's thoughts.
6: Lastly, here's how I put cuss words. Serious tone: "oh, for fucks sake"
6.5: Non-serious tones: "Oh god-* BLEEP * -it" or "what the h* l do you want?"
Now back to the story.
[Cut to Ismay sitting at a table indoors with Lord and Lady Pirrie. They are greeting each other as another man walks in. He is slightly taller than average, had black-brown hair, a short beard, and wore glasses with orange lenses. The camera focuses on this man and freezes again].
Narrator: Along with Ismay, Lord Pirrie has also invited over Gendo Ikari, CEO and founder of his own steel manufacturing business, NREV Steel, and the ex-heir to the Nishizumi school style.
[The camera unfreezes as Gendo sits down next to Lord Pirrie, clasping his hands in front of him].
Ismay: (to Pirrie) This is a lovely evening to have a dinner talk. Now, let me ask you have you herd of the Lusitania & Mauretania?
Lord Pirrie (Lord P): Yes, I have herd well about them. I suppose the reason you called for this meeting is to propose something that we can do about them?
Ismay: Exactly.
Narrator: Since the introduction of air travel on the global stage in 1990, sea travel had been on the decline. By 2010, both the White Star Line and its rival, Cunard Line, had taken notice in declining sales. Cunard responded in late 2013 by simultaneously starting constructing two cruise liners that would double-stun both its rival and the entire air travel industry. They were the two ships that Ismay just mentioned, the Lusitania and the Mauretania. Both launched in September of 2016, there were 2 things that set them apart from all other sea ships at the time;
1:their size. Normally, cruise liners were only 180 ft. (54.864 m) long on average, yet the Lusitania-class liners were a record-breaking 790 ft. (240.8 m) in length, 4.5 times the average. Though this did not mean they were the biggest in the world. For instance, the school ship Ooarai was 24934.4 ft. (4.722424 mi/7600 m/7.6 km) long, and other carriers like Saunders and Black Forest Peak (which is the school Gendo was disinherited of due to his gender, just FYI) were certainly larger. That's where the second difference came in.
2:speed. The Lusitania-class was powered by 4 Direct-action Parsons steam turbines, 2 high-pressured and 2 low-pressured. Each one drove a rotating shaft, which in turn, drove a propeller, 4 in total. These drove the ship at a jaw-dropping speed of 24 knots (28 mph/44 km/h). This was extremely fast, and gained the Mauretania the world record on the fastest crossing of the Atlantic, which stands to this day (as of Oct. 2036).
It was also because of this speed that the RMS Mauretania and RMS Lusitania became the most celebrated ships not only in the Atlantic, but in the entire world. Sales for trips on the liners immediately skyrocketed, increasing revenue for the Cunard.
[cut back to Ismay and co.]
Narrator: (continuing from above) However, it made a challenge for the White Star Line and Bruce Ismay that could not go unanswered.
Lord P: So, what do you propose that we do to counter our rival?
Ismay: How do you think I know the answer?
Lord P: Well, think of something! I haven't got all day.
Gendo: Whatever crazy idea you come up with, I need something in exchange so I lend my steel for you to use it on God-knows-what.
Ismay: [thinking] What can we do? * Beat (pause) * Well, we can't go for speed, that's already given... *Beat* (A light bulb appears over his head). * DING * That's it!
Lord P: (confused) What?
Ismay: (Stands up straight, the light bulb disappears) If we can't beat them in speed, we can beat them in Size and Luxury! We make a cruise liner about a hundred feet longer than the Cunard twins and beat them by a long-shot in terms of luxury and comfort. (Points to Gendo.) How much are you wanting us to pay you?
Gendo: 1,000,000,000 USD.
Lord P: Well, with that amount of money, we can actually make at least 2 ships at the size Ismay suggested. Now, here's the big question: what will we call these queens of the seas?
Lady P: Dear, because these cruise liners you speak of making are to be so large, I would suggest that we call the first one 'Titanic'.
[There is a 20 second silence in the room.]
Gendo: (breaks the silence) With all due respect mam, I think the name 'Titanic', though fitting, would better suit the second ship.
Lady P: (thinking) How about "Olympic"? They do rhyme.
Lord P: (shocked, somewhat offended) 'Olympic'? My darling, why do you propose the liner-class name should be called something that rhymes, yet clearly differentiates from their original purpose and isn't opposing to the Cunard at a-
Ismay: (interrupts Lord P) Let's go with that.
Lord P: (surprised) What!?
Gendo: (Nods) Agreed. It does ring a bell.
Lord P: (Calms down) Okay, fine! Then it's settled. 'The Olympic class: Olympic and Titanic.' The two liners that will show Cunard that we are not to be messed with...
[Music cue: "How it Began" by Silent Partner]
Narrator: Thus, the Olympic class was born. Soon, Lord Pirrie had chosen Belfast, Northern Ireland to be the port of construction for such a grand class of liners. Yet to know exactly what such looks, dimensions, and interior luxuries they would have, Ismay decided to make an old time friend of Gendo the head designer of the project. His name: Van Hohenheim Elric.
The two first met each other when they were 8-years old in 1986, while attending Black Forest Peak Elementary. Gendo, the primary heir to the Nishizumi style along with his twin sister, Shiho Nishizumi, was almost entirely surrounded by people of his opposite gender (female) and bullied because of being male, not just by the students, but his own mother too. (Note that his sister annoyed him VERY often while they were kids). While Hohenheim also suffered bullying from his classmates, he was an orphan, and had immigrated to West Germany from the Amestrian Reich, back then known as the Amestrian Soviet Socialist Republic, part of the East Europan Imperial Alliance (EEIA) along with what are now Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, and (most obviously) the Russian Federation. In consequence, he was considered Imperialist. Isolated by their society, Gendo and Hohenheim quickly found a bond with each other, and quickly became their only friends. Things changed in 1994 when Gendo's mother disinherited AND disowned Gendo and abandoned him in the streets of London, Great Britian, effectively separating the two. (Then she died, and instead of him inheriting the Nishizumi style, his sister Shiho took the {metaphorical} throne.) Meanwhile, Gendo was taken in by a generous woman named Yui Ayanami, and built the NERV Steel CO. from scratch. Afterwards, the two married had twin children in 2008, Rei and Shinji Ikari. Sadly, Yui passed away due to lung cancer in 2011, leading him to neglect his son.
Hohenheim, meanwhile, in 1999 had become the first male to graduate from Black Forest Peak Women's College, and was hired by the White Star Line to design tugboats the following year. During his career, he earned a massive reputation among his colleages, the business he worked for, and caught the attention of the Nishizumi style, finally giving him the respect he deserved. In the meantime, he had settled down in life, married his wife, Trisha Sutherland Elric, and had two sons, Edward in February 2006, and Alphonse in October 2007.
His reputation is also precisely why he was put in charge in designing the Olympic-Class liners. Hohenheim was immediately reluctant to accept, but Ismay encouraged him otherwise, and upon hearing of his old friend would be making the steel used to make the two ships, he accepted. The reunion of the two old friends after all those years was truly a tearjerker.
Narrator: Hohenheim did his work, and the heads of business were presented with more than any of them had expected. The Olympic and Titanic were to be 882.5 ft. (269.1 m) long, 92.5 ft. (28.2 m) in beam (width), and a height of 175 ft. (53.3 m) from her double-keel to the top of their 4 massive heat-stacks (the fourth stack was a dummy, only used for three things; ventilating the turbine engine, storing deck chairs, and making the ships look [more] impressive. Not kidding on that last one). They would displace 52,310 Tons. The Olympic would have a GRT [Gross Rate Tonnage] of 45,324. The Titanic's would be 46,328.
The 2 liners would be powered by 2 reciprocating engines, which would drive 2 shafts [1 for each engine] with a gear at the end, which toward the end of its length is inside 4 Electric Dynamos [2 on each shaft]. When the ship is in motion, the gear would turn another gear at the front of another shaft, which extended out the back [stern] of the ship, with a 3-bladed propeller at the end of each one. The engines themselves would be powered by high-pressure steam generated by 24 double-ended Scotch ragnite boilers while in motion, or 5 single-ended Scotch ragnite boilers while in port. This adds up to 29 boilers in total, each one with 3 furnaces on each end. The single-ended boilers were closest to the reciprocating engines (i.e.: right forwards/ directly in front of them), stored in a place in the hull below the waterline right designated 'Boiler Room 1' by Hohenheim. There were 5 more 'Boiler Rooms' in front of Room 1 (#2 was directly in front of #1, and #3 was in front of #2, and so on.) Therefore, the 24 double-ended boilers were split into 4 groups of 5 (Boiler Rooms 2-5) and 1 group of 4 (Boiler Room 6), each room connected to the engines and each other via large steam pipes. The access steam could also be diverted from the reciprocating engines to a large steam turbine, located just aft of them, which drove a long shaft that extended out the back, and ended with a smaller, 4-bladed, forward-only propeller. Located to the sides and top of the turbine were 2 large condensers, which is where the steam went to after cycling through the 3 engines, and 'condensed' [no pun intended] the steam back into water, before getting sent [via small pipes] directly back into the Boiler rooms. Together, they would propel the ships with a max. speed of 24 knots (28 mph/44 km/h), equivalent to the Lusitania class.
Dividing the turbine/condenser room from the reciprocating engine room, the latter from the boiler rooms, and the said rooms from each other were 7 watertight bulkheads, 15 in each ship, which had special doors 'watertight doors' that the stroker/engineers/whoever could get into each room, or 'watertight compartment' [16 in total] without having to go all the way back to the top of the ship to get into each individual one. Yet in times of emergency i.e.; a breach in the hull that allows seawater into the hull, the doors would close on command from either a lever beside each door [one on both sides of the bulkhead] or a button from the bridge, thus, sealing off the breached compartment[s]. The Olympic class could stay afloat with one or two compartments flooded. Heck, they could even float with her foremost 4 compartments breached and still float like almost nothing happened.
The Olympic class would have 10 decks, with the propoultion system described above located on the lowest deck, the Tank Top. Above that is the Orlop Deck. The 6 decks above the Orlop were lettered A-G from the top-down. The top deck was called the boat deck because, well, the lifeboats were placed there. Originally, there were 16 regular lifeboats, 8 on the port [left hand side], and 8 on the starboard [right hand side], enough to meet the BOT [board of trade] regulations. However, just in case of a worse-than-worst case scenario happening, Hohenheim made a last-minute tweak to the blueprints and added 4 extra lifeboats, 2 of which were located on top of the officer's quarters, abrest to the forward heat-stack, with the combined capacity of all 20 was 1,150 people. Toward the front [Bow] and back [Stern] ends of the ship there were 2 masts, relics from over 1 ½ centuries ago, during the Age of Sail. They would support the long, thin wires used for the ships Marconi wireless system. On the front mast, there would be a man-sized half-ciliender a little higher than the bridge, which housed the ships radar. The ships had a capacity of 3,330 people, 894 were crew, and the remaining 2,436 were all of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd classes combined. The 3rd class passengers were to be given 3 good meals per day (which is basically all they cared about), and living qualities signifigantly better than any immigrant had at their home in Russia/Italy/Portugal/Gallia/wherever he/she comes from. 2nd class standards would be precisely equal to 1st class standards on the Lusitania class liners. The staircase at the center of all the 2nd areas in the ship was to be quite impressive, but not as impressive as the grand staircase in the 1st class areas. It would have a opaque, white-stained, wrought iron elliptical dome overhead on the boat-deck level, and it would be lined with the finest, most precisely cut wooden decorations and railings, and reach all the way down to E-deck. The food served to the 1st and 2nd classes would be equivalent to a 5-star hotel. After all, they would share a common galley [a kitchen on a sea vessel]. However, Hohenheim also managed to cut the cost of building each ship from the estimated USD 500,000,000 to only USD 333,333,330.
The plans for the liners were met with positive reception, and was immediately approved by the BOT. The construction management company, the White Star Lines long- time partner, Harland and Wolff, were given permission to supervise the construction of Olympic, Titanic, and, thanks to Hohenheims lower budget design of the class the third ship; the Britanic.
The managing director, in charge of overseeing the actual building of the ships themselves, was Thomas Andrews. Born February 1983, was the second son in his family. His father, also named Thomas, had early on established himself as a politician. The Thomas that would build Titanic had from the earliest shown a fascination in ships, along with a remarkable gift for all things mechanical. He considered the Olympic-class as his finest masterpieces.
[Music cue: "Come With me Now" by Kongos]
The first module of the Olympic began construction at Belfast, N. Ireland, in December 2018. Once finished it would be carried to a shipyard, before getting assisted by cranes onto a double slipway on the Irish coast, formerly used for building and launching battleships for the British Navy. The production of the trio was straightforward. First Olympic, followed by Titanic, laid in the slipway beside her sister, in September 2019. When the Olympic's hull was fully assembled and launched on October 10th, 2020, the Britanic's modules were laid in her old slip. The new liners were projected to go into service in the spring of 2021, 2022, and 2023 respectively.
By April 2021, the Titanic's double-keel, hull modules, engines, condensers, boilers, heat uptakes, watertight bulkheads, cargo hatches/cranes and elevator casings were fully welded together and assembled.
[Screen cuts to footage of the Titanic's launch]
Narrator: On May 11, 2021, the RMS Titanic left its slipway, and first made contact with the ocean. Advertised as the 'Largest thing that ever moved on land', 2 million spectators were present at the launch of the ocean liner. Afterwards, it was towed to a dry dock in Belfast. There, she would be fitted her top 2 decks, known as the superstructure, her 3 bronze propellers, heat stacks, masts, interior walls and partitions, the staterooms for all 3 classes, lifeboats, and a countless number of luxury fittings. A last minute add-on to the ship was the enclosement of forward A-Deck. It was made from experience on the Olympic, as the passengers complained of spray from the prow washing up on forward A-Deck during heavy weather, and it would distinguish the ship from her older sister. Soon, [after numerous delays] the date of the maiden voyage was set: March 3, 2022.
Narrator: Sadly, that changed in February when the Olympic, captained by Edward J. Smith, accidentaly collided with the warship HMS Hawk. Final preparations for the Titanic had to be delayed to fix the former, thus, the maiden voyage was pushed back from March 3 to April 10. And as for captain Smith, … he was put in charge of the Titanic's Maiden voyage and return to Southampton. Afterwards, he would retire at the age of 63. Frankly, it's quite a spectacular way to finish a career.
On April 2, 2022, Titanic set out on her sea trials, close to the port of Belfast. They weren't very long, as Ismay expected her to preform as well as the Olympic. And, after a series of twists, stops, and sharp turns in the span of 2 hours, she did. Now approved as seaworthy, that evening the massive cruise liner made her way to her home port of Southampton. There, she would be loaded with her crew, cargo, food and freshwater for eating and drinking [obviously you couldn't drink the salty seawater] for the long journey ahead of her.
And of course, passengers. Among which were Gendo, Hohenheim, Ismay, and Andrews. Aboard on her first 2 trips across the Atlantic, They, along with their children and a handful of the ships builders, were to take note of any occurring complications and/or recommend any improvements to her on later voyages. These 14 men and teenagers were to be called 'The Guarantee Group'. And behind Smith, Titanic would be commanded by Chief Officer Wilde, followed by 8 senior officers, in the following order:
Roy Mustang
Charles Lightoller
Riza "Hawkeye"
Alexander Louis Armstrong
Jean Havoc
Harold Hitchens
Maes Hughes
And James Moody
Finally, the most luxurious cruise liner was about to embark on her first, adventurous journey to France, then Ireland, before crossing the Atlantic to America. However, her first journey also proved to be her last, taking the lives of 1,500 helpless passengers and crew, leaving only a few hundred to tell their tale.
This is their story.
UPDATE 6/1/2018: I've come back to this abandoned story and revised some things. Also to note: Girls und Matoran has run into some plot-writing issues, so don't expect another chapter/episode of that for a little while.
ANYWAYS, tune in for chapter 1, whenever it comes out...