Peer into the Past

Professor Xim is teaching students Shalamar and Laynard about the dark past of humanity, before the glorious New Republic made everything better.

Professor Xim uses the time telescope to teach his students about how unfair the past was. Beanbags and back-rubs in the Dark Satanic Mills, the agonies of gender politics in the Middle Ages, King Henry the Trump’s fake news rant and Hitler worries about IP.

Students from the future use the time telescope to learn about the strange urges of people in the past: crisps, innuendo, building walls and procreation.

Peering through the time telescope from the future, students learn about the limits of free speech in Cromwell’s England. An enlightened mill owner introduces mindfulness to his child workers. The world’s first crypto-currency is introduced in 17th century Holland. Professor Xim defends himself against of robotism. Henry VIII, the original ginger narcissist, rants about Catholic conspiracies, sounding uncannily like President Trump. Karl Marx is a ruthless materialist when it comes to copyright.

Professor Xim teaches Shalamar and Lanyard the perils of time travel; they explore the reign of Queen Boudicca and have a memorable encounter with a First World War poet. The world as we know it was destroyed in the reckoning, heralding the birth of the New Republic where everything is much better now. Professor Xim uses the time telescope to teach his students, Shalamar and Laynard about ancient times. The lesson doesn’t go exactly to plan. But they do discover why time travel wasn’t perfected until the 21st century. It turns out that debates over unisex bathrooms are nothing new. Britain was trying and failing to leave a European super-state over 2,000 years ago. Gladstone was more bothered about saving fallen women than giving them the vote. Wilfred Owen’s poetry wasn’t as popular with the troops in the trenches as he thought. Can they learn the lessons of history? Will history simply repeat itself? Or will history simply repeat itself?