Quantum Powers

Game mechanics explained
The main characters are test subjects taken by the Sven Co-op Institute to one of their facilities where an experiment with Chubby the chumtoad goes seemingly wrong, putting the subjects in a coma.

Chubby the chumtoad's existence is a mysterious one, nobody knows how it got to the Black Mesa specimen holding pens, and as it was not in the facility's schedule, it was taken away to the black market where it was sold to the SCI.

Chubby was different from the rest of its species. Scientists discovered it possessed strange abilities revolving around a probable lack of aging or reset of aging. Further investigation concluded in that its cells had certain impossible features, that could be explained only with quantum physics. Removing aging would certainly be a very profitable endeavour and a step in the right direction for the evolution of the human race, or at least those that could afford it or needed to wield it, at first.

The SCI started the project and needed test subjects, but these would need to have specific features like being of an old age, possibly near death, yet at the same time if the experiment would end up being successful they would better choose people that would end up as useful assets. But nobody would be desperate enough to participate, so they had to add an extra feature which was to look for terminally ill people. And if combined with yet another feature the subjects should have, which was being younger rather than elderly, this would mean those people had enough of a life ahead to be desperate enough about getting a cure. So it was promised to the potential subjects they would be getting a cure if the experiment went right... although that was 99% unproven.

The main characters' abilities are eventually discovered by the mad scientists in charge after the experiment was deemed a failure. The only requirement for the incredible discovery was to kill the subjects. Other major characters also have similar abilities.

Player characters abilities:

 * Time dilation: Also mentioned ingame as "respawn".  This is an ability based on the Twin Paradox where the faster and the longer the distance, the slower time seems to pass, but if combined with the superposition principle the atoms go back in time to the point where they started. The player characters upon dying instead of their time stopping, their quantum body moves faster than anything and time travels back to a fixed point in time and space. How that fixed point works, is set, how it changes, or when it changes, is all a mystery on its own. Some vortigaunt says the reason behind it working is given by the far distant eyes, beyond the vortessence.


 * Superposition: The things players touch can be duplicated into a temporal version of those elements. Superposition is the existance of the same object at the same moment but both being independent of each other.


 * Cloning theorem: This is the impossible 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 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 present and change the events sorrounding him accordingly. His power not only makes him invulnerable but also can affect the entire world sorrounding him just by changing the outcome of events. This explains the load and save mechanic ingame.


 * 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.