Outlander was similar to Kindred in the way that they go back in time and not worry about the butterfly effect drastically changing their future. Usually the common trope for going back in the past is not make sure that you don’t mess up or change any part of the timeline. Neither of these women even considered this as a problem. In fact they both went out of their way to change and manipulate the past with no concern for the future.
In Kindred, Dana’s whole purpose of going back into the past was to change it. No. I suppose it was more to keep it the way it was. If she was born that means that Ruphe lived and she succeeded in her mission. Her lifetime is like a constant loop. He has to live so she can be born but unless she was already there then he can’t live. She interacted with people in the past and gave out medicine when she could. Her purpose was to make sure Ruphe lived, but she also interacted and influenced other people’s lives as well. When Ruphe got jealous of her talking to the other slave, Ruphe sent him away. That action placed him in a separate place with different people. It should have had a butterfly effect with the future. If Dana was there to change the past, then that meant that things could be changed. No one mentioned this as a problem though. Later when Dana killed Ruphe, all of the slaves were sold off to different people. This action had to have changed the way things were. There should have been people who were born who then weren’t, or other people who suddenly popped into existence.
When Claire went back into the past, she helped and healed people with no worries on how that would affect other people’s timelines. In a later episode, she saves a little boy’s life. That boy would then grow up, get married, and have children. Those children theoretically shouldn’t have been born. This could have drastic effects. She also marries Jamie. This would have changed his future and past. She wasn’t even really supposed to change anything. Unlike Kindred, she didn’t start off with a distinct mission to meddle. Yet she did it anyway.
Theoretically, there should have been some sort of change detected when they each got back to their present time. There could have been a separate timeline Dana was changing. Meaning she wasn’t even working with her own past, but a separate timelines past. Either way should the fact that she could change the future means that she should have been more careful in what she was doing. In Outlanders she was also changing the past. She saved lives and warned people of germs. She tried to change their views on medicine. She challenged authority. All of these things should have drastically changed the future. Due to the butterfly effect any number of problems could have offered. This idea of the butterfly effect was never brought up or questioned in either of the works.