In the near future: Europe is in chaos. Right-wing extremists have taken power in many countries. The democratic state that once was Germany has become a totalitarian system that persecutes dissenters, Muslims and homosexuals. Jan Schneider has stood as a lawyer on the side of dispossessed victims. When he learns that the regime wants to jail him again, he decides to flee with his family. His goal is the South African Union, which enjoys political and economic stability after an economic boom. A freighter is to bring him, his wife Sarah and the two children Nora and Nick together with other refugees to Cape Town, but the tugs abandon their passengers in much too small boats off the coast of Namibia.