Alternate Histories

Any event that appears to have caused a paradox has instead created a new time line. The old time line remains unchanged, with the time traveler or information sent simply having vanished, never to return. A difficulty with this explanation, however, is that conservation of mass-energy would be violated for the origin timeline and the destination timeline. A possible solution to this is to have the mechanics of time travel require that mass-energy be exchanged in precise balance between past and future at the moment of travel, or to simply expand the scope of the conservation law to encompass all timelines.

Some examples of this kind of time travel can be found in David Gerrold's book The Man Who Folded Himself and The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter, plus several episodes of the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation and the android saga in the Japanese TV series Dragon Ball Z