Fox Universe

Navy Jones and Princess Coral (Feb 1940)

Naylor Jones was born in 1916 into a family with a great naval tradition - family legend even had "Davy Jones" as an ancestor. Young Naylor never knew his father - Captain Everett Jones had died heroically during a Great War sea battle in 1918. In seeking to honor his father and forebears, Naylor, already sporting the nickname "Navy" Jones, joined up as soon as he was old enough.

Graduating from officer training in early 1939, Ensign Jones was assigned a berth aboard the US submarine Z-81; In December of 1939 the Z-81 was engaged in the task of mapping the deep ocean floor when it was hit by a left-over WWI mine. The ship was officially reported sunk with all hands lost. The real story emerged a few years later.

Navy was the sole survivor, but trapped in a holed submarine as his breathing apparatus ran low, the odds didn't look good. But then strange underwater humanoids burst through the hull and took him captive - hours later the party arrived at a mysterious city existing in depths yet unexplored by humanity.

Navy was taken before their king and startled to find that unlike the green scaled beings he called "fish men", the king was an ordinary human being, albeit one who could breathe underwater. The king commissioned a self perpetuating "synthetic air" suit so Navy could exist in the city they called Aquaria.

Over the next two months, Navy and the old white bearded king became close companions, along with the king's youngest daughter, Princess Coral - he soon discovered their strange origins.

The king was once a Swedish citizen named Augustus Eklund, a scientist, scholar and academic whose own family history contained an oral tale passed down thousands of years, about their ancestors. Over 10,000 years ago when the legendary continent and city of Atlantis sank, a sub city of Atlanteans managed to seal off the water under a great dome. Ancient Aquaria thrived for thousands more years, and their scientists eventually invented a process whereby Aquaria's citizens were mutated and learned to breathe underwater.

However the process affected citizens differently - Eklund's ancestors and a small percentage of the population retained their human characteristics, while a larger percentage became the green scaled humanoids known as "Watermen." Thousands more years passed and while the "humans" stagnated, evolution and later, genetic tampering split the original watermen into various sub species, later to be known as "shark men", "eel men" and "reptile men" - a "Mer people" also emerged from attempts to kickstart the evolution of the humans. All of these species were essentially humanoid though, with the exception of the "Octi-Men" who were the result of tampering with giant octopi which were first used as sea mounts, but later developed intelligence and rebelled.

Some two thousand years ago, Aquaria had spread itself among various undersea colonies, forming an empire unknown to those above the waves, but tribes made up of the various sub species had also splintered and lived barbarian existences away from the city.

These tribes gathered in the wake of the Octi rebellion, and smashed through Aquaria, destroying the prime city and scattering its inhabitants; while the Watermen were victims of this, the real genocide was perpetuated among the water breathing humans. A few hundred escaped including the science kings who were ancestors to Augustus Eklund. Hunted undersea, they eventually devised a way to reverse their original mutations and go ashore to breathe on and live on land.

By the mid 1800's a tradition among the Eklund family and others had grown, and a desire to escape mundane existence and return to under the waves. In the 1860's, Augustus was already a young graduate scientist studying towards his doctorate, when news broke of a submersible vehicle attacking shipping. Augustus became obsessed with finding this "Captain Nemo" and exploring the ocean depths with him.

Gathering some four dozen supporters, all descended from the Aquaria of old, he launched an expedition to seek the Captain and ask his help. In the year 1869, the expedition encountered the Nautilus which fired torpedoes, sinking their craft.