Dealing with a time paradox with my world
I am looking more for a sanity check to see if what I am thinking is reasonable (and possibly some hints to improve things).
In my world which is centered around Earth starting in 2040 CE to approximately 2200 CE (it continues but I've not got to that part yet), time travel is possible but it is limited to races where their technology is essentially magic. For my purposes, there is only one race that can do it (and only do so for pseudo-religious reasons). The problem is that I created a bootstrap paradox.
In the past, there was a a pair of anachronisms: a battle suit from 90 years in the future and the wreckage a ship of the time traveling race. In both cases, the anachronisms came to be due to mishaps; none of it was intentional. These anachronisms were so badly damaged, there is no way they could be made functional. These items were researched which result in accelerated technological advances. I can easily see how this is a case where one event can lead to another which really lead to the first.
To address the paradox, my thinking is this.
* There was no conscious decision that resulted in the anachronisms and they did not change the past directly. In other words, the events leading up to the mishaps would happen regardless. * The anachronisms did not allow for the creation of technologies that would have not been invented otherwise. The only influence they had was that made certain technologies to be invented earlier or advanced faster.
As a consequence of these bullet points, I'm wanting to consider the paradox as one that does not alter the past in any meaningful way. I feel like this might be stretching things a bit as well as opening a can of worms which is why I am posting this.
For reference, the following are the high level description of some key rules of time travel in my world as viewed from the perspective of those in the time traveler's present.
* Time travel to the future is not possible. * The past cannot be changed. The actions of time travelers are things that had actually occurred in the past. * Time travelers cannot affect the past such that it results in the reason for traveling to not be necessary (such as the cliched killing a certain mid 20th century tyrant).