I don't own 20,000 leagues - the novel or the classic Disney movie.
Please let me know what you think, also please - find the time to support me on Pa-treon; just look up The Stargate Time Traveller.
Remembering the pain for I am the Avenger.
"Do you know the meaning of love, Professor?" Captain Nemo asked Aronnax.
"I believe I do," the French scientist replied, his voice low with shock after learning from Nemo how the nation who'd been sending the ship carrying a cargo of death back to its home country for ammunition, the seeds of war.
Good. After hearing the sanctimonious way Aronnax and his two companions called him a murderer for the sinking of the ship, and now he was apparently a hypocrite for all of his talk of freedom; Nemo had been educated in some of the best universities and colleges in the world, he had met philosophers and scientists, wordsmiths. He knew why Aronnax had called him that.
But the French scientist was a fool. He had known who owned and ran the prison camp Rura Penthe. Had Aronnax forgotten the British wars against Napoleon? And all of the other wars fought between France and Britain over the centuries? Clearly, he had, or the man was too soft-headed. That was not good for his plans.
When Nemo first met the scientist, he had been hopeful that Aronnax would be the kind of man he needed, an emissary. When he met Aronnax, Nemo had come up with a plan to make a peace with the world, but now he was wondering if there was ever any point. The scientist had lashed out at him after he had sunk the ship, and Nemo had decided to lash out himself.
He had gone out of his way to bury the memory of what happened with his wife and son, but every time he attacked a warship, the memory resurfaced in his mind.
"What you fail to understand is the power of hate. It can fill the hearts as surely as love can," Nemo whispered while he fought to maintain his composure. The memory of what happened to his family was coming back to haunt him.
"I am sorry for you, but it's a bitter substitute," Aronnax said.
Nemo wanted to kill him. He had just told the French marine biologist about what the British had done to his family, and he had the gall to say something like that? Who was there for him to love? His wife was dead. His parents were dead. His son was dead. He had nobody, and he had no intentions of marrying anyone again. Who could love him since he had nothing but revenge on his mind, traversing beneath the waves because he had nowhere else to go, and he had a bullseye painted on his back?
Angry, Nemo closed his eyes, dismissing the French scientist without a word although he was prepared to lose his composure and lash out at Aronnax until he took the hint and left. Fortunately, he didn't need to go that far, Aronnax left the Salon a moment later; Nemo could hear the scientist's footsteps as he walked away.
X
As he had his eyes closed, Nemo remembered his past. He preferred to lock his past and his thoughts behind an iron wall of discipline and stern stoicism, but the walls were not watertight unlike the Nautilus's hull, and more than once there were moments when something slipped through the cracks and threatened to drive him insane.
As Prince Dakkar, Nemo had travelled the world in order to gather a complete education after his parents discovered he had a gifted intellect and they had decided to send him away because India didn't have the facilities to help him achieve and maintain his full potential. Dakkar was not stupid; he had known his family had hated the British and it wasn't hard; his parents nursed that disgust for all of the laws and regulations and embargoes the British enforced on them for years. And he had picked up on it at an early age. When he was a child, Dakkar had ventured out into the streets. He had been mischievous and he had loved playing, just as children did, and his parents hadn't stopped him; they had wanted him to enjoy a rich, full and enjoyable childhood.
But one day he had sneaked out of the palace and discovered the British beating a group of Indians. He remembered the whole thing vividly; the British soldiers had been deliberately stirring up trouble for the local shopkeepers, calling them names and insulting their families before a child made the mistake of running nearby, and one of the soldiers tripped the child up. It was a little girl. That had been the last straw, and before the soldiers realised what was happening, they were being attacked. Their superior training and combat knowledge helped them fight back, and they were soon beating the Indians almost to death.
The sight of that disgusting display had burned a spark of hatred for the British, and when his parents had decided to send him off to Europe to be educated because his tutors were having trouble coming up with subjects because he mastered them very very quickly, Dakkar had quickly realised what his parents wanted. He had even confronted them about it. They knew about what the British had done, the major in charge of the military force in the province had stormed the palace - if the Indians were more powerful, the major would not have exhibited such arrogance - and launched a diatribe. His father, the local rajah, had pretended to go along with the British arguments, but he had secretly sent the shopkeepers and their families away, and he had given them a small fortune and told them to leave and then come back in a few months so then the British wouldn't recognise them.
Dakkar knew that his parents wanted him to return with the intellect needed to end the British threat. They had admitted as much to him, knowing there was no point in denying anything.
And Dakkar, young and naive at the time to believe he could one day return with the intellectual mindset to free India from the British occupation, had promised to do just that.
And he had. Unfortunately, he hadn't known what the consequences would be.
He had travelled far and wide in Europe, soaking up languages, subjects like mathematics, engineering, chemistry, physics, biology. As the years passed, Dakkar became fascinated with the theories of the atom and with his knowledge of mathematics which was expanding to the rate his brain was a sponge, he came up with a theory for splitting the atom and transforming it into a virtually unlimited supply of energy. By that point, Nemo had even come up with a theory after learning of the history of submersibles that it was possible for a nuclear reactor to power a submarine boat.
When Dakkar returned to India, armed with this knowledge, he performed a demonstration using a small scale nuclear device. The explosion took place in a remote part of the mountains. He had wanted to test his theories, and hopefully learn enough of the science to devise means of destroying the British occupation and transforming India into a superpower. The British had become a power thanks to the steam age. It would be good to prove Indian might.
Sadly he had made a mistake. The British had been spying on the proceedings when they noticed he had been getting technology that garnered their curiosity. Prince Dakkar had been preparing for a rebellion for months during the time he had been preparing for the bomb explosion but the discovery of the explosion caused him to accelerate his schedule. He moved too fast and unsurprisingly his rebellion just folded, and everything fell apart. The British imprisoned him and interrogated him about the explosion, but he had refused to talk. And then they became desperate. They started beating and torturing his parents, but it wasn't until his wife and young son were brought in that they nearly broke him. The British raped his wife and they forced him and his son to watch before they beat him to death.
But he had refused to talk, knowing the British would become invincible if they knew anything about nuclear power. So he had refused to talk, taking the horror with him when they threw him into prison before sending him off to Rura Penthe. Fortunately, he had destroyed his notes so the British scientists couldn't discover his secrets.
In the end, Dakkar had finally managed to seize one of their ships with a band of fellow prisoners. Together they had fled as far as they could, and they found themselves on an island that contained the resources they needed. The whole civilised world filled Dakkar with horror, and he wanted to forget it forever. He had found the right resources on the island, and with the help of his men, the Prince had begun the building process of the Nautilus.
He remembered the idea he'd had for building a nuclear reactor into a submarine and a year after experimenting with the reactor technology to get it right, Nemo had discovered the right way of installing one into a submarine. He had hoped to construct a submarine in India, birthing a brand new navy but it was never to be.
After he spent 3 years gathering materials and technology using gold forged from the ocean depths to pay them off, Nemo started constructing the submarine and then launched her, and now he was the avenger.