[ Rau meets that glance totally deadpan, and not just because wearing a mask makes it easy to be deadpan about most things. Entropy as a long-term law of thermodynamics is too distant to be particularly interesting to Rau, actually. Stars growing cold billions of years in the future is less fun than humanity blowing itself up now. Entropy as a social and political concept, on the other hand -- ]

Entropy can be disorder, as well. Decay seeping into a system, creating chaos or stagnation or both.

[ He's not chiding Gil for thinking too much like a scientist, though, and his tone is more serious than challenging or bantering. Without more information on Nemesis, it seems genuinely important to think about entropy in the broadest sense of the term. (Also something something city bureaucracy something something regulatory capture as an example of entropy.) Rau settles back, thoughtful again. ]

In either case, the existence of Requiem and souls would seem to be stalling some process.