5 Minutes into the Future: Voyager Space Station (Issue 5)

Horizon scanning real tech for your game

Join us Five Minutes into the Future and see what your game could be like!

“Top notch... Solid, clear and extremely cool.” Meguey Baker (Lumpley Games, co-creator of Apocalypse World) about issue 1 of 5MF.

“I highly recommend checking it out… great work and it's great to see more awesome sci-fi!” Gunnar Roxen (creator of Broken Shield) about issue 3 of 5MF.

What is Five Minutes into the Future? (5MF)

5MF is a zine. We scan the horizon for real-world cutting edge technologies in development right now. Each issue will present one piece of emerging-tech and some ways that you can use it in your roleplaying games.

See the preview video below for more.

This Issue: The Voyager Space Station

Issue 5 features The Voyager Space Station, a planned toroid ring space hotel, planned for construction in orbit in 2026. Voyager will spin gently providing gravity equivalent to the moon while it orbits at 17,000 kmh at 500 km from the ground.

Inside you’ll find how the technology works in real life, plus 3 foresight scenarios predicting the development of the technology, hyperlinked throughout to important information, like:

• Have astronauts had sex in space?

• Can you burp in microgravity?

• What happens when you die in a vacuum?

Issue 5 also includes 7 settings for your games;

• Casino Orbital - Can your disavowed group of spies prevent enemy agents from crashing the world's first live televised orbital poker tournament into the Earth? A techno-thriller setting ready to blast off.

• The Daedalus Incident - In space stations everyone can hear you scream! Advice on running Sci-fi horror in orbit.

• The Sky & the Sea - When an abandoned space station's orbit decays and it crashes into the sea a group of marine divers set out to loot it.

• Pirates of the Kármán Line and the Curse of the Black Swirl - A routine space-walk on an orbital tin-can goes horribly wrong when pirates attack. Can Clara make it back inside in time to save her crew? A setting and short story.

• La Noire Époque - In this apocalyptic setting international tensions lead to nuclear war, leaving the residents of the Aditi Nivaas space hotel to survive as the last spark of humanity.

• The Heavenly Raj - Welcome to the Chakra, a ring of palatial space stations surrounding Earth where bejeweled Rajas and Ranis are served by the inhuman bioengineered naukar, but will there be a rebellion in heaven?

• Calhoun's Folly - Join the archeological expedition to explore the last great space-station, Calhoun's Folly, a sealed commune of artists whose art became very dark before they went silent altogether.

And lots more, like:

• Station Creation - 12 random tables to help you create your own space stations - millions of possible combinations, and an example creation; the Phoenix.

• Imposter-syndrome: or how I learned to create chaos & love myself - Advice on running PC imposters and saboteurs in your game. 

• The Dilemma - A mini-game based on the Prisoner's Dilemma game theory, allowing large organisations like space stations to interact and conduct a Trade War. Will they choose mutual cooperation or sabotage and bloodshed?

With added crunch for using the technology in your games of:

• 5e D20

• Fate

• HexDNA, and

• Apocalypse World (Powered by the Apocalypse)

Other Issues of 5MF

Check out our other 5MF issues about real technologies and how to use them in your games:

Issue 1 - the Photosheet - a golden coloured sheet that, with no wires, uses just sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to produce liquid fuel.

Issue 2 - the Dream Incubator - a sleep sensor and app that can manipulate your dreams.

Issue 3 - Shape Memory Material - a 3D printed textile that can be folded into any shape, but when hydrated will transform into other complex shapes.

Issue 4 - NextMind Interface - a brain-computer interface that sits on the back of your head and reads your visual cortex, allowing you to control a computer with linked software just by looking at different parts of the screen.

Most of 5MF is system neutral. We present ideas to inspire you, suitable for a variety of modern and near future genres, including:

• modern,
• heist, 
• espionage,
• technoir,
• near future,
• superhero,
• cyberpunk,
• modern horror,
• hard sci-fi, and
• (post)-apocalyptic.

Join us as we explore what is just 5 minutes into the future.