Titanic: The Novelization (110th Anniversary Edition)

Epilogue

James Cameron once said that he wished he lived in a world where Titanic was never a famous ship, but he was also known to have said the following:

"There have been many shipwrecks, but there was only one Titanic. The details of her sinking have fascinated a few generations of scholars. The courage and cowardice of individuals and sheer size of the tragedy became legends for the Twentieth Century. Hindsight lets us look back to analyzing blame, but when we ask who should have seen the ice warnings and how many lifeboats there should have been, we lose sight of a larger, more timeless lesson. From the shipbuilders to the White Star officials, from the men shoveling coal to the most privileged passengers, everyone was participating in a consensus reality built on sand. The world simply did not operate in the ways they had been led to believe. Our society is probably working under some popular myths of its own right now. People see this in Titanic's story, they understand that it was more than a big ship filled with famous passengers; they see hubris and tragedy that echoes the Ancient Greeks. The Titans challenged the Gods and the Gods struck them down, banishing them to the blackest depths. People also see examples of heroism and sacrifice that resonate to the core of everything we feel about human nature. In the end, Titanic is not just the story of a ship that sank, but the story of those who lived on afterward, whether physically or in spirit."

In August 1998, RMS Titanic Incorporated went back to reclaim a 22-ton hull section that was reported to be the least successful part of the 1996 Discovery Channel expedition. The section of Titanic's outer hull, 23 by 14 feet, was raised from the debris field to within 360 feet of the surface. At that point, rough seas snapped the tethers, sending it plunging back into the depths. The ocean still seemed unwilling to release its hold on the wreck. George Tulloch and his company then made their second attempt to capture the aptly named "big-piece" They found it wedged, knife-like, into the sea bed 10 miles from the wreck, where it had fallen two years earlier. The submersible Nautile made a series of dives, each time carrying down a three-ton lift bag. These were giant sacs filled with diesel fuel, a substance lighter than water. The sixth lift bag provided enough buoyancy to raise the Big Piece. From almost two and a half miles above, the ships Nadir and Abielle hauled it up, reeling in the massive artifact with five-inch nylon recovery cables on powerful A-frame winches. As the hull section drew near the surface, divers checked its condition and secured it for the final pull. At last, corroded but unbroken, the Big Piece was hoisted from the Atlantic and rested on Abielle's deck. In spite of all the care taken during this salvage operation, the prize was damaged in the final moment, bending under it's own weight as it settled onto the deck of a newer, smaller ship. This mishap did little to dim a moment of triumph. RMS Titanic, Inc. had accomplished something that no one had ever done before: obtain a piece of Titanic herself.

At last, after 86 years, a piece of the Wonder Ship that may have been the Gilded Age's crowning achievement, saw daylight once again.

By the year 2000, at the start of a new century and a new millennium, people began to wonder: Is Titanic a piece of history for all the world to share, or is she the property of those who through their courage and skill, have located and visited her physical remains? The floating palace that was Titanic, lost for so many years, had come back to life as a sunken treasure of the Gilded Age. Yet, as with her sinking, the final opponent was time. Exploration and salvage continued as the wreck slowly dissolved in a mass of rusticles. Far above, in the world of air and daylight, 5000 restored artifacts, attest not only to the myth and legend of Titanic, but also to her human element.

Even so, Titanic lived again, as a subject of study, as a cultural metaphor, as a reminder of human ambition, and how small it can seem against the vast impersonal forces of nature.