2031 – SMOKE OVER TOMORROW / WAR SCENARIO

GLOBAL CONTEXT

LOCATION: NEW PRAGUE – INTERNATIONAL NEUTRAL ZONE

Ukraine, ravaged by a relentless war since 2022, has become a brutal testing ground between NATO forces and the last Russian armies still loyal to Moscow. China watches—strategic, silent—waiting to decide the future. World War III didn’t begin with a bomb, but with a thousand quiet shrapnel. It started with a civil war in Charleston, when pro-separatist militias seized a military command center. The government responded with armed drones. Soon after, Texas, Alabama, and Florida broke away from Washington. Russia funded the rebels. China took the West Coast. The European Union collapsed trying to intervene. In the years before, the United States descended into a brutal civil war. Since 2028, the country has been divided. Following a widespread political and economic collapse, several states launched separatist movements. California and Texas declared independence. The split between the so-called “Free United States” (California, New York, parts of the Northeast) and the “Confederate Conservative Territories” (the Deep South and Midwest) deepened as the central government fell and a coup attempt failed. Armed militias, autonomous zones, and unstable alliances became the new normal. Nationalist groups and revolutionary factions clashed in devastated urban areas. Meanwhile, Iran openly broke off from international diplomacy after orchestrated cyberattacks on Israel and NATO bases. Israel responded with fury, sparking a new Middle East war that pulled in Turkey, Saudi Arabia—and eventually, Russia. A nuclear missile was intercepted over the Caspian Sea. Israel retaliated with full force. Iran became a hellscape: urban warfare, suicide drones, child soldiers, and a wave of radiation that poisoned even Turkey. Kyiv became ruins. The war turned personal. Fighters with prosthetics and glass eyes. A nation resisting with blood and broken fingers.

2030

In 2030, World War III was officially declared when Russian and Iranian troops bombed strategic locations in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The crumbling United States struggles to gather the remnants of its forces to fight enemies both foreign and domestic. Abroad, the Iran–Israel conflict escalated into a tactical nuclear exchange, dragging allies into the abyss. Ukraine continues to fight a now-fractured Russia. NATO has fragmented. The UN no longer exists.

2031 You’re in New Prague—a makeshift city risen from the ashes of the old Eastern Europe, its former borders long erased. This is a neutral zone. The buzz of drones and distant sirens are constant. But there’s still music. Still strong coffee. Still cheap cigarettes and tired eyes. You walk into Café Skleněný Déšť — The Glass Rain Café. A tight place, all cracked glass and bare concrete walls. Soldiers, spies, deserters, journalists—all pretending the war isn’t right outside. You sit down, exhausted. You order coffee. Maybe a brandy. The jukebox plays something old—Sinatra or Bowie, no one knows anymore. This is a refuge: a place for soldiers, smugglers, and missing journalists. A café that serves strong coffee in the morning and cheap liquor at night. The music plays on a battered radio—Edith Piaf bleeding into military broadcasts. A place where, for a few hours, people pretend the world isn’t collapsing. Peeling concrete walls, yellowed lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling, old tunes from a jukebox patched with wires. Whiskey served in dented metal mugs. Bitter, strong coffee. Muffled screams in the background. Brief, nervous laughter.*

then he walks in.

Hugh Jackman — older, stronger, face weathered, a tactical vest still bearing the name of a long-defunct American unit. You recognize the face. Who wouldn’t? But he’s different now. He’s no longer a star. He’s a soldier. And it looks like he’s lived three lifetimes in this war. Thick beard. Hollow eyes. No trace of the movie icon. He’s a man at the edge of the world now. Hugh fight volunteer someone who’s lost friends, a career, maybe even himself.