Predestination Paradox

A predestination paradox is conceptually the opposite of a Grandfather Paradox. It is where something travels back in time and allows itself to travel back in time, where if it had not gone back in time it would not be able to travel back in time.

Depending on when and how, achronally, it went back in time will strongly influence the nature of the paradox. If the event(s) that prevent the entity from travelling through time had already occured achronally and the player was able to later prevent that event from occuring then the timeline will fluctuate like a conventional paradox. However, if the player is able to stop the prevention event(s) from ever occuring then the timeline is unlikely the fluctuate.

Predestination paradoxes are somewhat hard to define or to identify when they occur.

Examples

• A player builds a base with a single Marine and from that base builds an army. In the future the player uses that army to chronoport back in time and attack the enemy's base. In response the enemy uses a single Lancer that he had in the distant past to destroy the Marine that built the base. In order to protect his army, the player undoes his attack on the enemy in order to destroy the Lancer and protect the Marine. This is a predestination paradox. If the player had not protected the Marine then the base would have been undone and the army disappear. However, because the Marine had already been destroyed once, the timeline is likely to fluctuate.
• A player builds a base with a couple of Marines and Mechs. In order to increase his production capacities the player sends the builders back in time using a Chronoporter. During a failed enemy attack on the base, the enemy decides to change his attack plans and targets the Chronoporter, destroying it before the builders went back in time. The player then quikly orders one of the future Mechs to build a Chronoporter where the old one was located. The builders are still able to travel through time, and because no natural wave picks up the events in the past where the Mech used did not travel through the timeline will not fluctuate.
• A player builds a base to get ready to attack the enemy. Before they can do that the enemy attacks the base in the past destroying it. Before the timewaves reach the present the player chronoports their army at the base in the present back in time to defend the base. The base only continued to exist because units from its future version defended it, and the units only continued to exist because they defended the base. The timeline is likely to fluctuate slightly from the damage the units receive though.