If the company(s) that are in charge of the ships find out what happened to the Skeld once everything went to shit, are they going to do anything about it? Will they make improvements to the safety of future crews, or will they just like and try to hide what happened from the media? Given the clear corporate greed, the second option seems more likely, but I’m really curious about what would happen and how the companies are run. Have a good day/ night!
Long rant about the ships incoming, watch out
I've tried to base the ships off of what little I know about submarines! (Which is to say, what little I remember mixed with whatever I make up.)
Specifically I was recalling an episode of the show 'West Wing' in which a submarine shut everything down to avoid being detected. No one, not even it's home country knew if it had been found or if it was still out there until it had 'turned back on', I wanted to combine that and the US Navy's tradition of no sub being considered 'lost at sea'.
In the case of this universe's fic, ship's 'going ghost' is pretty regular. Not having contact outside of the ship is a warning label people use when describing the jobs on ships. It's expected to happen at least a couple time's within your career. It's so regular that media doesn't really comment on when ships go ghost. Maybe as an offhand, 'these are the ships that don't have contact currently' but not much more then that. What the media does pay lots of attention to is when ships regain contact.
Whether it's because they get more money if they focus on the positive outcome or because it's the only thing they have to report about, that's what people remember.
If a ship isn't found nothing will be said about it. A more famous ship like the Skeld might have more controversy around it, but the only people that really care about where a ship might be would be the close friends and family of the ships crewmates.
If the ship was found it'd probably depend on the state of the ship and who found. If the company finds it first they're free to clean up and weave whatever story they want. If other people find it who knows what details would get released that the company would have to work around. They'd probably give a 'heartfelt' statement about how they're going to look for the missing crewmates and how they stand besides their grieving loved ones or whatever.
Maybe it would create a push from the public for more routine regulations and inspections to happen. Maybe a reform happens.
What improvements could happen when faced off against corporate negligence and lack of knowledge on the Imposters? Depending on the state of the ship would they even know Imposters were involved? Or would it just be a more likely theory?
The way I think about it is- how much effort goes into missing person cases today? What about all the missing planes and boats? Maybe a couple months of news coverage and searching, but in the end, without proof of anything we tend to stop devoting energy to it and it becomes just one more unsolved mystery.