GM IDEAS: Was 7,000-Year-Old 'Spaceport' In Iraq The Work Of The Engineers?

Kazem Finjan

For those of us who love the whole Ancient Aliens deal as inspirational material for our roleplaying game campaigns, we have a new font of ideas in the shape of Iraq’s Transport Minister Kazem Finjan.

During a press conference in 2016, he broke the "news" that in 5,000BC the Sumerians had the world's first spaceport, in Dhi Qar, and used it as a launchpad for space exploration and the discovery of Pluto!

See, we don't need to make this stuff up: we have global politicians to do that for us!

GM IDEAS: Proxima b...

An artist's impression of the surface of Proxima b                 Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

In case you missed it in the last couple of weeks, a potentially-habitable Earth-sized world has been found orbiting around Proxima Centauri, a mere 4.23 light years away (or 40 trillion km).

Sure, that's several thousand years away travelling with current technology, but hopefully this will spur both government and private space initiatives to press on with developing the next generation of propulsion systems.

You can read all about this exciting discovery at the BBC News website here and learn all about "other Earths", potentially habitable exoplanets, in this infographic from Futurism.

All of the planets listed at Futurism have the potential for adding a touch of 'realism' to the homeworlds of any alien races your player-characters meet, be that in pure sci-fi adventures, superhero games, or just unexpected alien invasions of Earth.