Coliseum of the Oceans from VIP Star Cruise Line

Burt Dismay was the COO of the infamous VIP Star Cruise Line, the extravagant cruise line that bragged about being the safest cruise line in the world. How ironic that every ship they ever managed sits on the bottom of various oceans across the world full of perished souls.

The height of their arrogance was the maiden voyage of the largest cruise ship ever built, the Coliseum of the Oceans, frequently referred to as it's more simplified name, the Coliseum.

When you think Coliseum, you probably get visions of gladiators goring each other to the delight of cheering demons. Yeah, hold that thought because the Coliseum's maiden voyage wasn't far from that nightmarish display.

The Coliseum must have had it's passengers wishing they were on the Titanic instead.

It truly was an impressive display of obnoxious luxury. The Coliseum was a mind-numbing 2,000 feet long, 250 feet wide and 30 decks tall. For those of you that are not familiar with cruise ship dimensions, it was almost twice as long as the longest cruise ship ever built, almost twice as wide and had almost twice as many decks.

It had a passenger capacity of 12,000 with a crew capacity of 3,000. The passenger capacity was also almost double anything else that currently existed.

It was considered a Super Galaxy class ship, a distinction created specifically for this single ship. VIP Star Cruise Line promised two others even larger than this ship would follow. Good thing that never happened.

There was not a drydock in the world large enough to accommodate the Coliseum's construction so VIP Star Cruise Line built it's own at sea drydock. It was literally a hole in the ocean that allowed the construction of this obscene menace of the oceans.

The ship was loaded via barge and passengers were taken, via the life boats, to their appropriate boarding area. Having to ride a life boat to the Coliseum is disturbing ironic considering most of the passengers and crew never made it back to shore alive. Many didn't make it back to shore dead either.

The Coliseum of the Oceans was unique in every way. For example, employees and contracted personal of VIP Star had a standard crew class and the officers had their own officer class. Each of these two classes had their own sub-classes. Their paycheck was the ultimate determinate of what sub-class they were admitted too. Passengers had seven classes to choose from; Bunk, Steerage, Coach, Business, Executive, Gold and Diamond.

The bunk class was a horrible option to offer passengers and one that played an important role in the Coliseum's ultimate plunge. Up to 60 people would be stacked in one of three triple stacked bunks with 20 of these bunks per room, 10 on each side and a narrow open hallway between them.

On the other end of the spectrum was the diamond class with some grand suites exceeding 6,000 square feet.

The hundreds of thousands of dollars wealthy passengers paid for those suites was all for not as the first in a sequence of disasters unfolded, the pirate raid.

How a ship this grand belonging to a company so eager to brag about it's safety record (again, all their ships are on the bottom of the world's oceans) could allow mere pirates to shoot, unabated, and board the Coliseum is a crime by itself. The so-called security guards on the Coliseum had to be the most insecure human beings ever to be placed in the line of fire in all of human history. Not only was it a waste to issue them firearms; it was a waste to issue them employment.

The fact that at least one of those pirates carried a pandemic virus and passed it along to countless passengers and crew will have historians wondering forever if that was by design on the part of the pirates were just the typical morbid luck that plagued the VIP Star Cruise Line company.

While passengers waited for a military rescue, they were instead relieved of the pirates by the pirates sudden death which was the direct result of the pandemic nightmare that had quickly contaminated the entire passenger and crew roster.

People were dropping dead, literally, faster than pigeon droppings fell onto a beach. A military battleship secured itself 5 miles away, clearly reluctant to offer any assistance and wisely so.

Most disturbing were the passengers and crew who seemed to be strong enough to beat death but still not strong enough to overcome the disease. In horrible agony, they roamed the ship in what appeared to be a near zombie state, putting terror and horror into the few passengers who managed to remain well as the sick roamed around desperately seeking relief.

In all of this chaos, it is believed an infected member of the bridge put the ship in gear by accident during his agony. The Coliseum powered, in what had to be a merciful state, toward the nearest iceberg.

In what almost seemed like the most predictable script ever, it struck the iceberg and the Coliseum became as infected with water as it's souls were infected with disease.

As the ship began to sink, barely abled passengers and crew tried in vain to board the life boats and get away but the horrible agony that afflicted the infected prevented any level of normalcy that would have allowed escape.

Most disturbing was that, despite the cold temperature of the ocean, the infected seemed unaffected as they clumsily plopped off the sinking Coliseum into the waiting waters.

As the barely well succumbed to death and the afflicted swam toward the destroyer, there was hardly a sailor on the California (how ironic!) that wasn't motivated to defend it from what ever in the hell was coming it's way. All the while, the massive Coliseum disappeared below the water, making horrendous sounds the entire way as it lunged deeper and deeper, seeking the ocean floor.

Meanwhile, on land, the world couldn't help but wonder if this was the end or the beginning.

a reply to: Genfinity

Great read, got any links?

originally posted by: nerbot
a reply to: Genfinity

Great read, got any links?

Yeah..it's posted under Fantasy and Science Fiction. I think you'll find it hard to research.

a reply to: Genfinity

Excellent!

When's the book coming?

a reply to: Genfinity

Excellent! I like it - now can you make it a 600-page novel please?

Good timing too, I've recently concluded for certain I mever want to go on a cruise. Was always 50/50 prior to the Diamond Princess - trapped on a plague ship doesn't sit well with me...thus, potential for a great horror story.

This is an idea I recently came up with. I have researched the Titanic extensively and currently am reading about many of the lesser known passengers. I doubt a ship that massive could even be built in a way that could assure it's safety on the water.

I lightly parodied the Titanic while sticking to a story unique from it. A morbid string of errors led the Titanic to it's doom and if just two of those errors had never occurred, the Titanic may well have had a very different story to tell.

Keeping with that spirit, I tried to come up with a disasterous sequence of events that would have the reader do multiple face-palms as the ship faced each situation. Pirates board the ship in a way that humiliates the security guards. They harass the passengers as a super bug spreads quickly from them. The bug is so bad, they die from it as do many passengers and crew members as one horror quickly transcends to another.

The bug makes everyone feel like they are on fire and with the entire medical staff infected, there is little anyone can do except, if they are still healthy, barricade themselves in their cabins.

Ship goes into gear and hits an iceberg. Ship begins to sink forcing the few healthy people that remain on it to make an effort to not only get on a life boat but also try to figure out how to operate it.

With the infected roaming around like a bunch of lunatics, the life boats are unable to be launched.

The infected fall into the ocean and remain alive despite the cold water. They begin swimming the 5 miles to the USS California, a destroyer class ship. In a state of disbelief, the sailors on the warship are in no mood for what is swimming their way and open fire.

From a helicopter, CNN provides live coverage of the horror as the world wonders what, if anything, will happen next. I think the best way to end such a book would be to create a cliff hanger making readers wonder if the end of the story is still the beginning.

I am currently creating crude deck plans for a 30 deck ship based on the largest four cruise ships in the world. This will take some time but I need to have this to prevent story errors.

So we'll see where it goes.

I am also working on a story that has a passenger airplane from a world where the Confederates win the American Civil War transcend into our world. You can imagine the mayhem as both the mystery plane and our current world try to make sense of each other.

If I could write 40 hours a week instead of going to work every day, I could get more done but the key is to stop making excuses and simply get a book idea done.

Thanks for the support!