Point Nemo
Isolation. Hermitage. Remoteness. Solitude. All these words and many more came to mind for the anthropomorphic animals who lived in the city of Nautilus. There is a growing civilization there that has been based there for two centuries and we humans know nothing about them. They live near the pole of inaccessibility known as Point Nemo, which as any geographer will tell you is the farthest distance in the ocean from any landmass. Years ago, the governments of the world collaborated in creating these anthropomorphic animals as part of their shadow fauna program- their appearance in modern society caused great fear to the humans who had no knowledge of this program and the same people who created the animals sought their destruction. This did not sit well with the now-sentient animals who were seeking to become integral to human society and as hostilities reached a boiling point, miraculously a compromise known as the "Great Concession" was reached.
Rather than dying at the hands of their human creators who greatly outnumbered them, the animals would live in a specially-constructed city at the most inaccessible point in the world, in the remotest reaches of the South Pacific Ocean. And this explains how the city of Nautilus was created, a fully-functioning city of 322 sea platforms and a population of 10,000. The floating city had lasted for hundreds of years to the point where the human population that existed when the shadow fauna program and the shadow fauna themselves had long since died out and the population was kept low by birth control pills, specially formulated for the animals that lived on the pontoons. No human remembered it and for the remoteness of their location, out in miles upon miles of peaceful ocean that no one would ever find, the animals enjoyed their new homes. Mutual ignorance of the other party was key for peace, though the human world leaders and the leader of the anthros who took pride in his paws having never touched land knew of each other.
The time had come for the humans to make their once-a-decade voyage to Point Nemo for a meeting with the leader, this time a wolf given the traditional title of the leader of the Nautilans, "Captain Nemo". Every cub reared in Nautilus was required as part of his schooling to read the works of Jules Verne and the influence showed in the architecture of the city, thus leading to the creation of many wonderful inventions the rest of the world knew nothing about. The animals also had established the "Jules Verne Technological Institute" for the express purpose of building the inventions mentioned in the books by the French author. The journey was as secret as it was treacherous, across almost 1,400 nautical miles from Chile or Mata Nui to the pontoon city of Nautilus.
The American president arrived first, followed by delegations from Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom and they met Captain Nemo in his traditional navy blue jacket and carrying the trident, indicative of his authority as the Nautilan ruler and with his wife Amphitrite, dressed in a sky blue gown, also a wolf.
"You realize that it is never been our policy to pursue contact with the humans, as should be evidenced by the placement of our home. We do not want to be accessories of your wars and seek only lifetimes of solitude, peace, and research into the oceans. As well as research into these inventions," Nemo pointed to a machine of gigantic wheels that provided electricity to the entire pontoon city. "We have created a speedboat that can reach speeds of 126 knots an hour at its maximum, we have this generator which can power an entire city, maybe even a city like the ones you have built, we have mastered saltwa and the fastest submarine in the world and we would be willing to give these things to you, at no cost."
"On one condition..." Amphitrite continued "we would give these to you and even send our engineers to build more but you must only use these things for peace. The humble profession of oceanic research and peacetime applications are to be the only use for these inventions. We also feel that your scientists would benefit from our technical colleges where we have built many things that no human could even dream of."
Intoxicated by the beauty of the surroundings, an oasis of life in the middle of the blue ocean where the fish only lived and the futuristic innovations of the city's residents, the world's leaders milled over with each other and their advisors. The human science teams knew so much but at the colleges at Point Nemo, they found many projects that would have many uses for humanity. In spite of the isolation from their friends and family, the young scientists and engineers wanted to learn the arcane secrets of jet propulsion and physics that only the anthros knew of. After spending two days, every human in attendance wanted all the inventions that they saw and they would get them for free. Without even a word of thanks or congratulations for the wonderful inventions that had been created, the human delegations from the many different countries left. A few humans stayed behind to spend a decade learning the ways of the Nautilans and thus became the only human members of a society that consisted of sentient otters, wolves, foxes, and bears, all living lives of deep introspection and research that comes with being alone in the middle of the ocean. Somewhere in his heart Captain Nemo knew that the humans would be appreciative of all the technologies his nation had bestowed the humans with. They were the gifts of the sea.
Three years later...
An intercepted radio broadcast from Chile confirmed Nemo and Amphitrite's worst fears- new technology had been discovered in a gigantic naval battle somewhere in the Atlantic. And though none of the humans on the broadcast knew where those weapons originated, the Nautilans knew. They had broken the one condition- within hours, the human scientists though still in research were escorted back to Chile, never to see their gorgeous ocean paradise home again. An official decree by the Nautilan government to all the nations was made that humans would never again see the pontoon city. Point Nemo lies on the ocean thousands of miles away from the nearest shoreline and for our foolishness, only a few fortunate scientists will ever know anything about how the citizens there live.
Isolation. Hermitage. Remoteness. Solitude. All these words and many more came to mind for the anthropomorphic animals who lived in the city of Nautilus. There is a growing civilization there that has been based there for two centuries and we humans know nothing about them. And now that they know the murderous intentions of the humans, they will forever be isolated in this natural prison of water, thousands of miles from anyone else, to continue their noble research. And that is how it is going to be.