I have often chaperoned school trips for our children throughout their educational years. These school trips are easy to arrange since gnomes have the ability to instantaneously transport ourselves around the universes.

  Merely visiting a location within the same time period where the travelers reside does not require special permission on most worlds. Galaxy Guides and star maps are all any tourists need to safely travel within their own universe and their usual time period.

  However, time travel is a more difficult proposition.

  Surprisingly, time travel is not dangerous. Teachers and students merely generate individual protective time pods around themselves. If a leak or problem is ever detected, the pods simply return the users to their home planet within the correct time period.

  Time pods keep time travelers slightly out of phase when they are roaming, just enough for them to walk around and invisibly observe a place and people. The slightly different phase means they cannot be seen by the general population. Experienced time traveling adult gnomes can keep their physical bodies out of phase through simple concentration, but that gets tiring. Pods are more comfortable.

  The pods have some other important advantages, too: they keep the occupant from not only being seen in the time period being visited, but also from being heard. It likewise keeps the visitor from touching or changing anything.

  Without pods, there would be grave danger of timeline changes. This is more likely than you would think. Most visitors do not plan to change decisions or events, but the temptation can become overwhelming. There is a reason for this, as you will see.

  Before time traveling, our students learn about specific time periods or civilizations or entire planets. They thoroughly study the subject, following a civilization through its rise and inevitable decline. Students read, attend lectures and take tests.

  When the students pass their preliminary requirements, they are rewarded by actual visits to the civilizations they are studying. We don’t just read about history, our students actually go to the worlds we are studying and see firsthand what happened there.

  Researchers and students alike react strongly when they see the actual individuals, politicians, and societies. They have so far only seen rather dry and factual presentations of historical events. They become quite angry when they see the foolish deeds being perpetrated by a planet’s inhabitants. The actions are so clearly not in the society’s best interest that it’s astonishing. It’s extremely difficult to observe a scene when you so badly want to stop the self-sabotage. However, there are very severe penalties for any sort of time vandalism. Being a student is not an excuse.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  This explains why the time travel pods are essential when time traveling. Even adults can get overly excited about what is really no more than just a play or a movie to us. It’s useless to get caught up in a scene because as mere viewers we must not change anything. Still, many people forget they are just watching and are not in fact participating.

  There is a very interesting but rather distressing course that is wildly popular. It is called “Decline of a planet: case study Earth”. It follows the tangled threads of societies, religion and politics of Earth’s history from the earliest empires to its sad but logical present-day condition.

  The arcs of civilization on Earth are very compelling. We track Earth’s rise from the start of the earliest Akkadian Empire. The next chapters cover the development of Assyrian, Egyptian and Roman civilizations. We are always fascinated by the ingenuity that allowed these great civilizations with their grand buildings to be built so early in human development.

  As the historical records move forward in time, growing populations cause new problems. Advanced technologies solve some issues but create severe environmental complications.

  Students find the constant despoiling of Earth very distressing. Natural disasters, overpopulation, overuse of resources, lack of education, dysfunctional decisions, and frequent wars throughout human history are difficult for gnomes to study. Visiting Earth as the final part of the course is fascinating, but can make us shout out and bang our fists in frustration. This is where the time travel pods are important to keep us from being seen or heard by the planetary inhabitants.

  Despite our discomfort throughout the Earth case study, we think learning about the powerful examples of mismanagement are important for our students’ education. Theories of planetary development and planning are compared to reality. The bad decisions and unintended consequences of societies are exposed and analyzed quite mercilessly.

  Tracing the terrible examples of Earth’s misguided priorities and decisions are part of our educations. Kingdoms and empires and democracies all start with great promise, but can end in a downfall rife with catastrophe and disaster. It can be quite shocking and agonizing for us to see it, but learning this history is essential to avoiding mistakes in our own futures.

  Fortunately, all is not lost on Earth. The current inhabitants are working as a single group to undo millennia of damage to the planet. Reclaiming Earth will take time, however. That battered gem of a planet deserves all their efforts and more.

  Learning about failed civilizations is important when gnomes are creating new and hopefully successful worlds. It helps teach our children to value careful planning, personal humility and strict honesty in our work and within our own gnome civilizations.