I have quoted this curious passage before:
"...this segment of space-time was unstable; the less they from the future moved about in it, the better." (p. 516)
What will happen if they move about too much? One of them will:
unintentionally initiate a divergent timeline;
continue living in that timeline;
therefore, disappear from the original timeline.
What will happen to most people in the original timeline? As far as I can see, they will continue to exist in their timeline. That entire timeline will have ceased to exist from another point of view but not from their point of view. At most, they will notice that one or two individuals have mysteriously disappeared.
This is my interpretation which differs from the way the issue is expressed in the series. My interpretation depends on two temporal dimensions at right angles to each other. If we draw a diagram, then a straight line representing the original timeline continues to extend up the page even though a second straight line representing a divergent timeline has been drawn parallel to it. A point of view moving across the page from left to right sees first one line, then the other, whereas a point of view moving up the page along the first line continues to see that line.
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