we built this dream

The Engineer’s Lament and the Birth of Vers3Dynamics

"A ship is not built with rivets and steel alone, but with the blood of ambition and the tears of those who dare to defy the sea."
—Hesketh, Logbook Entry #13, 1912

I. Belfast: Forging a God of Steel

Belfast, 1909
Christ, it was a slag-heap of a city. The air itself wanted to kill you—iron-laced, coal-soaked, thick enough to slice. Hammers beat like the heartbeat of some iron deity, and the furnaces coughed like dying dragons. A symphony of soot and madness. This wasn’t a city. It was an altar of fire, trying to outcreate the cosmos.

And there she was—the Titanic. Not born—summoned. A steel skeleton rises from the filth of Harland & Wolff like some leviathan shaking off the mud of Eden. They called her a cathedral. Screw that. She was a war cry in steel. A middle finger cast in rivets, pointed straight at the cold indifference of the universe.

Blueprints? Mathematics? No. This was alchemy. blood, obsession, and a whisper of madness. We were forging a beast, lungs full of steam, arteries of pipe and piston. My engines—raw kinetic poetry—were the heartbeat of that defiant monster. I didn’t just help build a ship. I poured myself into an exoskeleton of ambition, daring the gods to take a swing. We weren’t just building a ship. We were trying to bend fate into a hull.

II. Afloat: The Illusion of Perfection

Southampton to the Atlantic, 1912
When she sliced through the water on her maiden voyage, the Titanic was a living myth. Her decks echoed with the laughter of the elites, her salons dripping in gilt and gaslight. But my sanctuary was belowdecks, where the engines roared like dragons in repose. I walked her arteries, tracing the pulse of her mechanical soul, my hands brushing brass fittings that bore the imprint of my own.

Yet even then, a shadow lingered. A steward, wide-eyed and trembling, once asked if she were truly unsinkable. I laughed, but the question gnawed. "Nothing is invincible," I muttered to the darkness that night. "But she is exceptional."

That evening, I stepped onto the promenade deck, inhaling the crisp Atlantic air. A passenger murmured about the cold, then turned his gaze to the moonless sky, where the stars burned like distant fires. He had the look of a man who had glimpsed something beyond the luxury—the vastness, the fragility.

III. The Night the Ocean Remembered

April 14, 1912
Midnight crept like a curse. And then it came—the mountain of frozen vengeance. Not a specter. A fact. The Atlantic raised its ancient blade.

The impact wasn’t loud. It was worse. A groan. A soul-deep shudder. Like the earth remembering some ancient betrayal. I was half-awake, but I felt it in my bones. This wasn’t a scrape. This was evisceration.

The officer lied, "minor damage", I said. no. I felt the rip. The cold teeth of ice biting through metal like wet paper.

In the depths, truth always rises first. Compartments ruptured. Water gushed in like the ocean had rights. Chief Bell’s face told the story: the beast was mortally wounded. We slammed doors, twisted valves, and screamed prayers. But the Atlantic had time. And hunger.

Upstairs? Delusion. Rockets started to pop like party favors. Hope fluttered like paper wings. But down here, we knew—this was the reckoning.

My engines—those fire-born beasts—gave their final cough and died. Silence settled like judgment. And then the tearing—steel screaming as the hull fractured. The belly of the beast split wide. Our miracle drowned.

IV. Into the Abyssal Embrace

April 15, 1912
Cold like punishment. Cold like memory. I grabbed Fred’s arm—we were both shadows by then, instincts screaming louder than reason. The stern pointed skyward like an accusing finger aimed at God. And then it was over.

She sighed—Titanic didn’t scream—she exhaled. The ocean took her gently, like it had all the time in the world.

I swam. No style. Just desperation. The water bit into my bones, dragging the warmth, the will, out of me. Somewhere, a collapsible boat floated like a ghost. I thrashed toward it with frozen fingers and no future.

Thoughts blurred. Belfast. Her birth. That fire. That arrogance. That defiance. We thought we were building a future. We were forging a warning.

A ship isn’t just steel, it’s need. Dreams with teeth. It’s an attempt to outpace entropy. And she was that. Titanic was the dark miracle of belief in the face of oblivion.

And that? That’s the fire that birthed Vers3Dynamics.

Fueled by failure. Tempered by cold truth.
Out of the abyss—I will build again.