One of my favorite random quirks about Titanic is that arguably the most famous deep-sea explorers associated with it had some sort of "side gig" relationship to it. James Cameron, who is a deep sea explorer first and filmmaker second, admitted that he made Titanic (1997) so he could fund his Titanic obsession; filmmaking is his side gig. Robert Ballard, who discovered the wreck in 1985, also made the much more important discovery of fucking hydrothermal vents!!! (Imagine discovering Titanic and that's not even your most important accomplishment!) And for OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, submersibles were a side gig to his background in aviation and being an idiot. For being without question the most famous shipwreck of all time, Titanic sure tows the line between over- and underestimation
Tilly, aka EV Nautilus and Atlantis' streamer crush. She mainly does seafloor mapping and deep sea exploration using ROVs. You might know her from those youtube videos of scientists getting excited over weird sea creatures (example).
↓ fun facts and design notes ↓
EV Nautilus is a research vessel owned and operated by Ocean Exploration Trust (OET). OET was founded by Robert Ballard, who discovered a whole lot of stuff at the bottom of the ocean, most notably the wreck of the RMS Titanic and the existence of hydrothermal vents. His birthday was actually a few days ago on June 30th! Even at 84 he's still the lead scientist onboard the current expedition. Absolute legend.
OET focuses heavily on science communication/education so they livestream their expeditions and do outreach programs. EV Nautilus has special telepresence systems and a live production studio on board to facilitate broadcasting and live ship-to-shore interactions.
Design Notes:
Jacket - The stripes are based on the (old) EV Nautilus merch that Robert Ballard is wearing in a lot of his photos:
Headset - Gamer headset because she's a streamer lol. The "antenna" are modeled after the main mast.
Satellite Dome - Basically every research vessel has one, but I wanted to feature it on Tilly's design because it felt more relevant for her character.
Leg Warmers - The spiky bits are a reference to the Nautilus submarine from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which is what the EV Nautilus is named after.
Personality - Basically if you combined a streamer with a grade-school teacher. Very friendly, likes to talk, good with kids.
Hobbies - She likes singing and playing guitar! This is a reference to the songwriter Jim Salestrom (1956-2023), who joined the 2014 OET expedition and wrote an album, Nautilus, about the ship. His music is free to download on his website (link).
Today (15th April 2026) marks the 114th anniversary of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, which isn't a particularly notable anniversary to commemorate but here we are. (Also, the Titanic actually began to sink in the late hours of the 14th, but the process took about two and a half hours so it was 2:20am when it finished). Despite multiple investigations and over a century of interest, there has never been one conclusive agreement on what was responsible, rather, the sinking was due to a variety of unfortunate factors: damaged equipment, misunderstandings within the crew, poor safety standards of the time, the mysterious cursed amulet, unfavourable environmental conditions, the excess number of time travellers (visiting as a form of disaster tourism), and aggression from the North Atlantic Ice Titans.
The wreck of the Titanic was only rediscovered in 1985, after a joint US-French expedition led by retired Navy officer Robert Ballard. Because of the confluence between multiple unlikely misfortunes and the weakening of reality caused by the time travellers, the area surrounding the wreckage is still highly cursed. The most notable effect of the curse in recent times is the 2023 Titan submersible disaster, which imploded and tragically took the life of that one guy who didn't want to be on the boat.
Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator (70/69 BC – 10 or 12 August 30 BC) was Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt from 51 to 30 BC and the last active Hellenistic pharaoh.
A member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, she was a descendant of its founder, Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general and companion of Alexander the Great.
Her first language was Koine Greek, and she is the only Ptolemaic ruler known to have learned the Egyptian language, among several others.
After her death, Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire, marking the end of the Hellenistic period in the Mediterranean, which had begun during the reign of Alexander (336–323 BC).
—
Kathleen Teresa Martínez Berry (born 1966) is a Dominican archaeologist, lawyer and diplomat, best known for her work in search of the tomb of Cleopatra in Egypt.
She heads the Egyptian-Dominican mission in Alexandria and is currently minister counselor in charge of cultural affairs at the Dominican Embassy in Egypt.
Extremely worth watching. James Cameron and Dr Robert Ballard talk about the OceanGate disaster, and certainly both men know more than a thing or two about underwater exploration. Very happy to see Bob Ballard give his opinion on the subject, since he was who discovered the wreck of the Titanic back in the 1980s.
I really really recommend watching Bob Ballard: An Explorers Life on Disney+.
One of the things towards the end is this, where Bob discovered he was dyslexic when his daughter was diagnosed and suddenly all his struggles with school made sense.
And this made me cry:
“I'm trying to let everyone know that your wasting talent! There are so many of us that are playing by a different set of rules and we're not taking advantage of what they can do. want every kind of person, I want the rainbow of people we have on this planet to be on my team because I know we will have the best team if we have everyone bring each of their unique characteristics to the game.”
I was always fascinated by science but I did terribly in school and was convinced it would have been a waste of time to pursue it. I didn’t even try to go to college out of High School. I didn’t know then that I was ADHD. I’m in my 40s now and still trying to figure out a career.
So to have someone I’ve always sort of admired say this means a lot. We need all kinds of people, all kinds of brains. There’s so many people out there just need a little support and understanding.
He freely acknowledges he was lucky to have supportive parents that didn’t laugh when he said he wanted to be Captain Nemo. And look at what he’s done.
