Quantum Slime

* Slime Rancher 2
* Slime Rancher
* Secret Style

## Information

**Quantum Slimes** are Slimes that are commonly found in The Ancient Ruins and by the Dervish fountain in The Glass Desert. They have the ability to teleport to the location of their ghosts when agitated.

## Slimepedia Entry

***Slimeology:***

*Quantum Slimes appear to have resulted from some sort of event that took place in the Ancient Ruins long ago. At all times, the quantum slime is capable of emitting other possible realities of their being. Called 'ghosts', these other realities can come true, with the quantum slime aligning with the reality of the ghost, effectively teleporting.*

***Rancher Risks:***

*Quantum Slimes can be one of the most difficult slimes to manage, given their unique abilities. A rancher needs to learn to detect when quantum slimes are primed to take over the reality of a ghost, and act quickly, such as feeding them or splashing them with fresh water as a temporary measure.*

***Plortonomics:***

*Quantum plorts are believed by many to hold the secret to infinite resources. Given the quantum slime's ability to change reality, it's theorized that unlocking the potential of quantum plorts would allow for a technology that converges the realities of other entities into our reality and- well basically we're talking about cloning stuff. Infinite energy, chickens, whatever. Probably no harmful side effects to this at all.*

## Behaviors

At all times, Quantum Slimes create ghost copies of themselves, internally known as "qubits", regardless of their agitation. Quantum Slimes have the capability of swapping places with one of their qubits when sufficiently agitated.

Qubits on their own are harmless, and are simplified copies of the slime which remains stationary until it despawns, is destroyed, the original Quantum Slime is removed from the world (storing it in the vacpack, slime sea, etc.), or is replaced with the Quantum Slime that produced it. Qubits when produced travel for up to 5 in-game minutes in a linear path in the direction the Slime was facing or moving when created. The qubit will naturally despawn on its own after 16 in-game minutes.

The rate of qubit production increases as the Quantum Slime becomes more agitated.

* At 0% agitation, it produces one qubit every 20 seconds.
* At 100% agitation, it produces one every 5 seconds.
* The Quantum slime will begin to swap places with one of its qubits at 20% agitation, making it one of the more notorious slimes to ranch.

Splashing the Quantum Slime with water or ancient water will destroy any active qubit linked to the slime, and will surpress its ability to create them for 20 in-game minutes.

A Quantum Slime swaps places with one of its qubits.Splashing a Quantum Slime will remove all of its qubits.
The Quantum Slime otherwise shares basic behaviors with other slimes: it hops around aimlessly until it begins seeking out food when hungry, and will seek out plorts it does not produce to induce transformation into a largo. Quantum Slimes can respond in awe at a freshly-transformed largo and a slime activating a Slime Stage, and pure slimes have the ability to stack with other slimes unless it becomes a largo. A Quantum Slime can be applied with Fashion Pods and can respond to Slime Toys, with it favoring the Puzzle Cube or a DLC Slime Toy if it is wearing its associated Fashion Pod.

## Changelog

* **1.4.2** - Fixed a very science-y issue with quantum slimes. (It would take at least 6 years of University, plus a deep understanding of Slime Science to understand it fully, so we’ll just call it the “Failure to Duplicate Phenomenon”)
* **1.1.0** - Quantum Largos may show their teleportation particles at all times, even when not agitated. Undocumented in the patch notes, so this is possibly a bug.
* **0.6.0** - Now Quantum Slimes can still ghost out of their corral, however they will never teleport onto other slimes' corrals, making them much easier to manage.
* **0.5.0** - They are now released and are able to be obtained legitimately.
* **0.4.3** - Added into the game's code. At this point, it's mostly finished.

## Origin

The Quantum Slimes' behavior of producing ghosts with somewhat unpredictable results on where the ghost will end up, and deciding whether or not to teleport to the ghost's location based on its current Agitation level, especially in cases where multiple quantum slimes may be present, may be a reference to Path integral formulation of quantum mechanics; the method to predict where particles will end up from point A to B. The Quantum Slime's Slimepedia entry mentioning the use of Quantum Plorts to bring in resources from alternate realities seems to be heavily based on the many-worlds interpretation, more well known as **multiverse theory**. The Quantum Slime's Slimepedia tagline - *a slime that really shows its potential* - is a reference to the concept of quantum potential. Their ghosts being internally referred to as qubits refers to qubits of quantum computing.

The Quantum Slime's Secret Style - Monochrome - may be based on the quantum theory of monochromatic light. Its grey coloration is more literally based on monochrome, being various shades of grey.

## Trivia

* Quantum slimes were added to the game's code in 0.4.3, but were only obtainable through mods.
* The Butterscotch Slime Lamp has the same "glitchiness" that the Quantums have.
* They share the same particle effects as Phase Lemons when they are about to teleport.
* A Rad Quantum Largo's ghosts will appear with their radiation aura, though will not cause the radiation meter to increase.
	+ The same belongs to Quantum Boom Largos, as their ghosts will still try to explode.
* The ghosts that a Quantum slime produces are internally referred to as Qubits.
* Quantum slimes must be touching the ground in order to produce a ghost.
	+ Although their very next action may be a jump, sending the ghost along in that direction.
* Prior to 1.3.1, Quantum Slimes counted as Pink Slimes towards the Omnivorous Achievement. This is because it was coded with the Pink Slime's food type tracker, despite being coded to only eat fruit.