Titanic (spaceship)
- You may be looking for RMS Titanic.
The Titanic was a cruise liner-spaceship built by Max Capricorn Cruiseliners and in use during the early 21st century on Sto.
History[[edit] | [edit source]]
It was loosely based upon the design of the original Earth sea-going vessel RMS Titanic. This was primarily a tourist vessel and it is unclear whether Max Capricorn, the owner, was aware of the name's significance: the Doctor himself noted that it was a very bad name for a ship. (TV: Voyage of the Damned [+]Loading...["Voyage of the Damned (TV story)"]) In his twelfth incarnation, the Doctor would find himself sent to the past of Sto, using the influence he had gained to fashion the ship after its Terran counterpart. (COMIC: A Confusion of Angels [+]Loading...["A Confusion of Angels (comic story)"]) The ship had a humanoid crew, supplemented by a contingent of information and service robots called Hosts, who offered assistance and advice to the passengers. Like the ill-fated vessel that sank in 1912, this ship met with a horrific accident.
The vessel, under the command of Captain Hardaker, travelled to Earth in December in the 2000s[nb 1] to allow its passengers to experience the Earth holiday of Christmas. The vessel was bedecked with Christmas decorations and its band performed Christmas songs. Some facts related to the holiday were skewed by the ship's poorly-informed history expert, Mr Copper. (TV: Voyage of the Damned [+]Loading...["Voyage of the Damned (TV story)"]) The Tenth Doctor, fresh from leaving Martha Jones on Earth (TV: Last of the Time Lords [+]Loading...["Last of the Time Lords (TV story)"]) and a brief encounter with his fifth incarnation, (TV: Time Crash [+]Loading...["Time Crash (TV story)"]) accidentally collided his TARDIS with the Titanic, (TV: Last of the Time Lords [+]Loading...["Last of the Time Lords (TV story)"], Time Crash [+]Loading...["Time Crash (TV story)"]) though neither vessel was damaged. The Doctor boarded the vessel, effectively as a stowaway, and befriended several passengers as well as crewmembers Copper and Astrid Peth.
Unknown to the passengers and crew, Capricorn had arranged for the Titanic to be destroyed in Earth orbit to take revenge on the board of directors of his company, who had forced him out of his own firm. Captain Hardaker, terminally ill, had agreed to pilot the vessel in return for his family being taken care of. Capricorn, himself a cyborg, also boarded the vessel but expected to be protected from the disaster and later rescued.
Hardaker orchestrated matters so that the ship's shields would be lowered as three small asteroids approached the vessel. The resulting impact killed most of the crew and passengers (including Hardaker), but did not destroy the vessel outright. Capricorn had arranged for the Hosts' programming to be changed so that they would kill any survivors. Over the next few hours, the Doctor and his friends, assisted by the Titanic's only surviving bridge crewmember, Midshipman Alonso Frame, worked to stop it from crash-landing on the Earth, which the Doctor feared would cause an explosion strong enough to wipe out all life on the planet.
Efforts to stabilise the orbit failed and the Titanic entered the Earth's atmosphere. After defeating Capricorn and rendering the Hosts harmless, the Doctor narrowly prevented the Titanic from crashing into Buckingham Palace in London, and started the vessel's secondary storm drive by using the heat of re-entry to fire it up, returning it to space. The vessel, under the temporary command of Alonso Frame, was salvaged after he sent a distress call. (TV: Voyage of the Damned [+]Loading...["Voyage of the Damned (TV story)"])
Panda used a Time Scrunchy to travel onboard the Titanic, where he was chased by the Heavenly Host when they began to attack the passengers of the ship. (PROSE: From Wildthyme with Love [+]Loading...["From Wildthyme with Love (novel)"])
One Christmas Eve, the Titanic possibly gave either the Twelfth Doctor or River Song - or both - a lift. (GAME: The Night Before Christmas [+]Loading...["The Night Before Christmas (game)"])
Legacy[[edit] | [edit source]]
Whilst traveling with the Eleventh Doctor, Amy Pond became aware that he had been on a spaceship Titanic which almost crashed into Buckingham Palace on Christmas Day. (GAME: "Amy's Profile: The Titanic" [+]Part of Amy's History Hunt, Loading...{"namedpart":"Amy's Profile: The Titanic","1":"Amy's History Hunt (video game)"})
Alternate timelines[[edit] | [edit source]]
In an alternate timeline in which the Tenth Doctor had died the previous Christmas, the Titanic crashed into Buckingham Palace. Donna Noble and her immediate family saw the falling ship on the news from the safety of Firbourne House, then felt the shockwave as it crashed. (TV: Turn Left [+]Loading...["Turn Left (TV story)"])
While the resulting explosion wasn't enough to wipe out all life on Earth, (TV: Turn Left [+]Loading...["Turn Left (TV story)"]) as could have been the case, (TV: Voyage of the Damned [+]Loading...["Voyage of the Damned (TV story)"]) it obliterated London and resulted in a mushroom cloud which covered the whole of southern England with radiation.
Watching the cloud rise over London, Sylvia Noble mournfully assumed that everyone they knew had died.
The crash of the Titanic led to a refugee crisis, starting a series of events which resulted in the country becoming a police state. (TV: Turn Left [+]Loading...["Turn Left (TV story)"])
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The idea that the owner and captain of the Titanic so much as inadvertently contributed to its sinking is also espoused in the 1997 hit film Titanic, which showed the ocean liner's sinking. In the film, White Star Line owner Bruce Ismay is shown pressuring captain Edward Smith into speeding up the maiden voyage, which eventually makes the iceberg harder to dodge. Ismay was also roundly criticised in the press in real life as a coward, especially after the sinking.
- Though not a steamship like its namesake, the spaceship Titanic also takes after it by having a similar outward appearance, particularly in its upper decks and its four funnels despite having no steam to vent.
- Concept artworks showing the exterior of the spaceship Titanic were illustrated. One of these images was dated 10 July 2007 and prominently featured a nebula. "The original design was done completely in Photoshop," explained Peter McKinstry, who drew the image, "and was then transferred to Painter to add the nebula background and make it all a bit more traditional and painterly." The same image was ultimately printed onto canvas and hung in the background of a set used as the ship's interior. (ImageFX magazine, October 2008, p. 60)
Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- ↑ Although Voyage of the Damned is supposedly set the Christmas after the 2007 setting of The Runaway Bride, the Doctor Who series which aired immediately before and after Voyage give contradicting dates for when their present day is set. PROSE: The Paradox Moon places Martha Jones' present day in series 3 in June 2007. AUDIO: Recruits dates it to March 2008. A newspaper clipping in PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters places Smith and Jones on a Sunday 4 June, which in the real world does not fall on a Sunday in either 2007 or 2008. Donna Noble's present day in series 4 is set in 2008 according to TV: The Fires of Pompeii, TV: The Waters of Mars, and AUDIO: SOS (and is heavily implied by TV: The Star Beast and TV: The Giggle), or in approximately April to June 2009, according to PROSE: Beautiful Chaos.
