@sharafzaman What do you think the limit is?

@ACuriousMind Reading this is ruining ME2 for me...

i think limit is an operator that tells us behavior of a function close to that point

@sharafzaman No, what do you think $\lim_{x\to 0}x^{-2}$ is?

@0celo7 i think it should go to infinity

@sharafzaman Ok, but that's not a real number.

yes!! i agree

Your definition of limit might explicitly exclude infinity as a possible value for a limit.

I'm not sure how it works in the $\epsilon-\delta$ version, but in my high school course it was perfectly fine to say $\lim x^{-2}=\infty$ IIRC.

I think for $\epsilon$-$\delta$ to make sense, the limit must be a real number.

why are you giving it in code i can't get it

We're starting functional limits on Tuesday in my analysis class.

@sharafzaman What?

$x^{-2}$ something like this

1) Not my problem you can't read TeX. 2) Not my problem you can't figure out how to render it.

1)

what is TeX

lol

Y?

@0celo7 Your abducted crew is mostly dead when you take your time, and mostly alive when you don't

@ACuriousMind Abducted crew?

@0celo7 It shouldn't ruin it - and he explicitly says it shouldn't. It's still good - the whole point is it could/should have been something different/better to be actually a sequel to the first part

do everyone here know each other

@0celo7 The collectors take your crew at some point (e.g. your medical officer, who you later find in those tubes)

except me!

@ACuriousMind Oh, right, but not the squad?

@sharafzaman In the sense that most people here are "regulars", yes, but not in real life, if you mean that

I don't remember them being taken.

@0celo7 No, not your squad

OH! I C!!

@ACuriousMind He has a good point -- getting together random people makes no sense when we have 0 intel on what we actually have to do.

@0celo7 One can define the "extended reals" $\mathbb{R}\cup \{-\infty,\infty\}$, where that makes sense

And Jack is a terrible squadmate, why would you ever trust her?

@ACuriousMind Yes. That's exactly how I would have done it.

@0celo7 Yeah, I linked that because he makes a lot of good points, and verbalizes what irked me about the plot better than I could have

help me know this language plz

@sharafzaman Here's a basic tutorial, and here's how to render MathJax/TeX in chat.

> And the Ewoks overcome the Empire because of George Lucas’ love of merchandising.

Hehe

@Danu Seven things in there from my point of view

> But the Collectors do show up, and they do kick-start the plot by attacking the Normandy, which is… strange, given what we learn about them later.

@ACuriousMind I think you once raised this objection.

@Danu lol

> From what we see in-game, we can’t even tell if this was a deliberate attempt to kill Shepard, or if the Collectors were just flying around blowing up ships for the lulz and Shepard got in their way.

:/

Does ME2 suck

Oh wow, he's destroying the main plot.

@0celo7 Its main plot sucks. The gameplay is better than the first (excluding the strange decision to introduce ammo that only spawns when you need it), and its saving grace are the companion missions, which are mostly well done

Was the main plot of 3 better?

Hahahahahahahahaha...no.

Shit, what was the main plot of 3?

> Imagine how much more punch this scene would have if we were meeting an established mysterious figure like the Shadow Broker, instead of one introduced literally in the last sixty seconds.

Oh, wow.

the good parts of 3 are the Geth/Quarian conflict and the Genophage story

If TIM were the Shadow Broker, the plot would be 10x better. Instantly.

Wait, @ACuriousMind

What are the requirements for electron capture? Doesn't it have to do with binding energy?

@0celo7 why not just make him a Reaper too while you're at it

@SirCumference Like all such nuclear reactions, it can in principle happen when the resulting state has less mass (so it has to do with the binding energies, yes)

he's already got a lot of hats and its not like the aliens couldnt do data collecting before him

@user507974 I'm not convinced he wasn't indoctrinated the whole time.

@ACuriousMind So what would allow it to happen? It can't happen on all atoms and isotopes, can it?

@0celo7 did you end up seeing the video about indoctrination theory

i just dont want to post major spoilers in the comment area

for folks who havent played

@user507974 No.

@SirCumference Well, you have to inspect the daughter nuclid that would be created by electron capture, and figure out whether it has less mass than the parent.

I need to do homework now, actually.

But I must read @ACuriousMind 's article.

@ACuriousMind How much longer is this?

@0celo7 35 posts until now, I think 46 are planned

@ACuriousMind All right, and if it does?

@user507974 I think we've spoiled pretty much the entire game scattered somewhere in this chat

@SirCumference Then electron capture is in principle an allowed mode of decay

What would happen to the mass?

@SirCumference It becomes energy (in the form of the daughter nuclid being in an excited state and the neutrino getting kinetic energy)

$E=mc^2$ and all that.

OOOOH

@ACuriousMind Ok, I'd better stop reading. Time to do algebra homework.

Well, can I have an example of an isotope like that? When would the daughter have less mass than the parent?

@SirCumference Negative mass isotopes.

@SirCumference Wikipedia has some examples

@0celo7 Never heard of it

@ACuriousMind Do you know if someone has done a similar analysis of the AssCreed games?

@ACuriousMind Well then. Before I summarize the theory I personally think the Indoctrination Theory makes sense because Bioware was really drawing a lot of attention on narrative driven gameplay and getting hype around ME3, so they wanted to try and change the model for games (and EA wanted to try and change the consumer market by introducing a DLC ending).

Essentially the indoctrination theory concludes that from Shepard's many interactions with Reapers he is actually slowly indctrinated until in the final sequences of the game where he actually starts to mentally succumb to it. The child you keep seeing is an illusion, we start playing shepard dream sequences, and there is a similar surreality about the last 15 minutes of ME3.

Either you already said that before, or I've read that somewhere else

Of course the child is an illusion -- you don't think there is actually a child there?

I meant every occurance of the child

Someone said that was the inital plan in development, but was scrapped relatively late

@user507974 The child only occurs in dreams.

By relatively late I think they mean post outrage

Once again, what is a dream if not an illusion?

@0celo7 the beginning of the game on earth?

@user507974 Hmm, that's a bit of a stretch.

It's perfectly reasonable that a child gets killed in an invasion.

@user507974 No, the final game clearly has Shepard not indoctrinated - why would you then get to make the final choice?

@0celo7 Ooooh, wait until you get to "Some Kid Died!"

@ACuriousMind Huh?

The final choice was basically destroy the Reapers (break free of influence)

I think he talks about "assumed empathy" even earlier, though

@ACuriousMind I wasn't smart enough to follow that.

i forgot what was the blue options name

I'm not smart enough to follow most of what he says.

"control"

Control, destroy, synthesis, none of the above.

@0celo7 In the non-extended cut, there was only control and destroy, I think

@ACuriousMind Hmm, not even synthesis?

@user507974 That gives the writers too much credit :P

synthesis occurs only if you do everything in the game, which takes a long time

and represents full indoctrination

It doesn't make sense, why would the reapers control you and then make you destroy them?

They're masochists.

its not that they are controlling you, its that the entire last scene is playing out in your head

The "real" ending is destroy with max military strength.

@user507974 Huh?

So you just die next to Anderson or something?

@0celo7 no, the entire last scene as in from after you get hit from the beam

Btw, killing Anderson was a dick move.

@user507974 So...you die on Earth?

a big hint for this was also the fact that if you chose destroy with max military strength you see shepard breathing

aka, you would wake up having resisted indoctrination

@user507974 Yes, this is why that's the best ending.

What?

I'm confused.

and now you must go on to actually destroy the reapers

So the whole thing with TIM, Anderson, Shep and Star Child never happened?

@0celo7 The point about "assumed empathy" is that the motivation for you to follow the plot of 2 and 3 are, respectively, the colonists and the child (or rather, humanity which it represents). But you never meet the colonists except for that one dickhead, and you never have a meaningful interaction with the child before you leave it on earth to presumably die.

So you, as a player, are completely disconnected from the motivation of your character. You're assumed to have empathy with people you, as a player, don't actually care about.

@user507974 Uhhh

@ACuriousMind Sorry, one last question. Will electron capture only happen if the resulting nucleus would have less mass than the original?

Hmm, I see what you're saying.

So what happens if you pick control/synthesis?

Are the cutscenes that happen then fake? Imagined?

@0celo7 yea

they are shepard falling victim to indoctrination

Contrast this with ME1, where you get to meet the colonists in Zhu's Hope before they're turned into plant zombie. You, as a player, met those people, and they told you something about your lives, and how hard it is, and you probably even helped them. Empathy is not assumed here, it is built.

@ACuriousMind Curious: is the child a girl if you play as a male?

@0celo7 Nope

@ACuriousMind Ok, German detected. Children are not neutral in English :)

Someone was asking about detecting Germans

@ACuriousMind Ok, I was smart enough to pick up on that.

@SirCumference Electron capture can only happen if the resulting system has less mass than the original system. But the original system includes the electron.

there was a lot wrong from a narrative standpoint with ME3 because Drew Karpyshyn left ME at the start of the third one

All right

Thanks

I don't get when people say that the ending of ME3 did not fit the story or whatever

I just thought the endings were shit

The game doesn't matter

And I'm certainly not savvy enough to pick up on tone/whatever in stories

there are different types of sci fi

star wars vs star trek

@user507974 See, I don't get that

Both are just space things to me

star trek tries to go for a technically and logical growth of the modern world, star wars is a space opera using fantastic imagery to portray its story without real interest in accuracy

@ChrisWhite There's an awful lot of space fighting in it

@0celo7 It...fits the story of ME3, I guess. It doesn't fit that of ME1, and ME3 generally has the problem that ME2's plot is just completely irrelevant to it

@ChrisWhite Doesn't sound template-y. I'd leave one or two tongue-in-cheek links to some punctuation guide.

@ACuriousMind Yes, I now realize than ME2 is irrelevant to the other games.

Basically I loved ME2 but felt with that game you needed to make mass effect a tetrology

I have also realized that AC Brotherhood is irrelevant to Ezio's story as a whole.

@user36790

AC Brotherhood had two important things happen: Ezio tells Desmond where the vault in America is, and Ezio becomes Mentor of European Assassins

@IͶΔ you needed a whole game dedicated purely to the time between the arrival of the Reapers proper where you discovered the Crucible or some less dues ex Machina solution

Hmm, well, there's also the business with the apple.

But those damn Apples are everywhere.

the crucible is literally dues ex machinae

@ChrisWhite Does Starcraft feel chessy to you?

The real shit show is AC3, the only important thing that happens there is they find a key

@0celo7 You could easily transplant Star Wars into a medieval fantasy setting. It doesn't matter to the story, or its themes. You cannot do that with Star Trek, as one of the main themes is it is indeed the future evolution of humanity, and the way our advanced civilization would behave when interacting with others