Quantum Powers

## Game mechanics explained

The main characters are individuals selected as test subjects by the Sven Co-op Institute and brought to one of their facilities for an experiment involving Chubby the chumtoad. Unfortunately, the experiment seemingly goes awry, causing the subjects to fall into a coma.

Chubby the chumtoad's origins remain shrouded in mystery. No one knows how it ended up in the Black Mesa specimen holding pens. As it was not part of the facility's inventory registry, it was smuggled away to the black market by one of the scientists, where the SCI acquired it through a purchase.

Chubby stood out from others of its kind. SCI scientists observed that it possessed peculiar abilities related to a possible halt or reset of the aging process. Further exploration revealed impossible features in its cells, explicable only through quantum physics. Eliminating aging promised to be a lucrative venture and a progressive step for human evolution, particularly for those who could afford or needed it initially.

The SCI initiated the project and required specific test subjects: Individuals who were elderly, possibly approaching the end of their lives, yet simultaneously valuable assets if the experiment succeeded. However, finding participants willing to take part was a challenge. The solution laid in targeting a different group: Terminally ill individuals. If they were younger, it meant they had more life ahead and were desperate enough for a cure. Potential subjects were promised a cure if the experiment succeeded, although the certainty was a mere 1%.

The remarkable abilities of the main characters are eventually unearthed by the overseeing mad scientists, despite the experiment being officially declared a failure. The revelation comes years later, purely by accident when the subjects are unintentionally killed when woken up from cryogenic sleep.

Additional significant characters also possess comparable abilities.

## Player characters abilities

* **Time dilation:** Also referred to in-game as "respawn", Time Dilation is an ability grounded in the Twin Paradox. As per this phenomenon, the faster and longer the distance traveled, time appears to pass more slowly. When combined with the superposition principle, the atoms undergo a quantum leap to a predetermined point where they previously existed. Upon death, player characters trigger a quantum reaction. The electrons in their bodies defy the laws of physics, executing a quantum leap that resets them to a healthy state, transporting them back to a fixed point in time and space. The mechanics of this fixed point remain mysterious; its constancy, alterations, or triggers are unknown. Perhaps it's linked to a critical "fixed event" in the timeline, necessitating their presence at that specific moment and location. The authority dictating these rules is uncertain; some vortigaunt suggests that the far distant eyes, beyond the vortessence, hold the explanation. This explains the player characters' infinite respawning after death during gameplay.

* **Superposition:** Objects touched by players can be duplicated into a temporal version of those elements. Superposition denotes the coexistence of the same object at the same moment, both independently existing. This clarifies how player characters can simultaneously collect identical objects such as health, armor, weapons, and ammunition, which also reappear.

* **Cloning theorem:** This serves as the implausible counterpart to the no-cloning theorem, where the copy of an item through superposition somehow is also connected to the player as a quantum entangled object and thus shares the position and the abilities of the Time dilation. This explains how player characters can respawn with equipment.

## Other characters' abilities

* **Gordon Freeman - Retrocausality:** Gained from being the patient zero in the resonance cascade, this power makes Gordon able to see the future, live through it, go back to the past, even after death, and change the events sorrounding him accordingly. His power not only makes him invincible, but also can affect the entire world sorrounding him just by changing the outcome of events. This explains the load and save mechanic in the original games. This is why G-Man is interested in him, because he can see Gordon reacting as if he knows the future, on top of other reasons.

* **Alyx Vance - Quantum Entanglement:** Upon certain death, the Vortigaunts merged Alyx's lifeforce with Gordon's through the vortessence. This created an entanglement between the two, meaning that their lives are shared, and so are their abilities. Alyx now also possesses Retrocausality through the Quantum Entanglement. This was an event nurtured and waited for by the G-Man to replace Gordon Freeman if needed be.

## References

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https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-time-twist-offers-a-way-to-create-schroedingers-clock

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