The Logic of Time-Travel Stories

[Dave]

Having read/watched a great many time travel stories, there is an alternative to the immutable timeline which has already happened and is set in stone, and that is that certain events can be changed by the time traveller, but these have absolutely no real consequences because "Fate" would dictate that the future will adjust and never significantly differ from a set path. I don't know if this idea has a name. I've called it "Fate".

Personally, I don't believe in "Fate." I'm with Han Solo: "Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe there's one all-powerful force controlling everything. There's no mystical energy field that controls my destiny."

 

[Harpo]

 

[Ray Zdybrow]

Yes it's why it's called the Grandfather Paradox!

I liked the story in the OP, causation happens at the level of the story rather than in linear time (the parents disappear shortly after the grandfathers are killed, IN THE STORY, but long after the death of the grandfathers in linear time), illustrating that back-in-time travel happens in storytime and not our day-to-day time.

 

[Swank]

Most of the interesting time travel stories I can think of have no paradoxes. The travel causes a timeline.