Conkling Steel

Conkling Steel
Location
Area	London, England

"Conkling Steel provides steel for ships. This ship, for example."

—Andrew Conkling.

Conkling Steel is a steel mill, based in London, owned by Andrew Conkling. Conkling Steel provided steel for the hull of the RMS Titanic, even though the steel was faulty.

Story

Conkling Steel is a fictional steel company controlled by Andrew Conkling. Due to financial issues Conkling is putting sulfur in the steel, but this process makes the steel brittle and unsafe for industrial use; the brittle steel might easily fracture in a collision. Conkling admits this to Frank Carlson, who confronts him about the letter Conkling wants from Shailagh Hacker. The letter's contents reveal this information and would create a scandal for Andrew Conkling and his company should the news leak. Carlson also reveals that the Titanic is made from the same faulty steel.

Bad Steel and other Greedy Capitalists

Since the Titanic wreck was discovered in 1985 by Dr. Robert Ballard, there have been numerous studies done on samples of the vessel's hull recovered from the site. These suggest that the ship was in fact built from sub-standard steel which would have been more brittle, especially in the frigid North Atlantic Ocean. This, however, has been disputed.

White Star Line Parallels

Before the First World War, the North Atlantic was the site of two maritime technological races of similar sorts. One, the more famous, was the arms race of naval shipbuilding between Britain and Germany which was one of many reasons tensions rose between 1890 and 1914, resulting in the First World War. The second was a fierce competition for control of the North Atlantic passenger trade, which the Canadian/British company Cunard had dominated since the 1860s. However, massive German luxury liners were beginning to heavily compete with the British and American companies. White Star Line, an American company, took a huge financial risk in building the three Olympic-Class ships, Olympic, Titanic, and Britannic, and it has been suggested that in order to make the ships so large and luxurious, White Star cut corners in other regards, such as in using substandard steel. Another suggestion has been that because White Star was building three large ships at once, they could not get enough high-quality steel fast enough, and settled for lower-quality materials.

White Star Line and Cunard were not just competing in a capitalist race to secure a market-share of passengers, but were also carrying the burden of prestige and honour for their respective nations and empires against the encroaching gains of Imperial Germany only two years before a global conflagration which would destroy the Edwardian ideals and luxury which Titanic was supposed to embody.

The "Nazi" Titanic Film

During the Second World War, Joseph Goebbels commissioned a propaganda film about the sinking of the Titanic. The film, called "Titanic", focuses on the machinations of greedy British and American capitalists and how John Ismay and John Jacob Astor's manipulations of the White Star Line's share price leads to the ship's sinking. In contrast to "Titanic: Adventure Out of Time", the film features a heroic German officer, and none of the English or American characters are portrayed favourably.