Sorry if this isn't posted in the right place - I couldn't quite figure out where to put it. Also sorry if it's too wordy, but there is a TL-DR at the end that gets to the core inquiry. Thanks in advance for any input! I’m working on a story in which my MC is kidnapped and tortured by Big Bad. The catch is that Big Bad doesn’t want to actually damage MC, so he’s using multiple techniques that will cause maximum physical pain without causing permanent damage. Skin damage is fine as long as it will eventually heal (scars are irrelevant to the equation) and impact damage is fine as long as nothing irreparable happens. My biggest obstacle right now is Big Bad’s use of electricity. He wants to completely avoid the possibility of killing MC while still inflicting as much pain as possible, and this leads me to needing to understand electrical properties well enough to assure the other characters and the reader that this will be a painful process, but shouldn’t be life-threatening. I’d like to sound like I know what I’m doing, so I’ve done a ton of research on ohms and current and voltage and AC vs. DC, but since this is a rather unusual situation to encounter in real life, I can’t find anything about how someone might manipulate voltage to be painful but not permanently damaging. I’ve looked up games involving electricity and communities who use electrical elements recreationally, as well as straight-up break-downs of how electricity works, but I still don’t have enough information to feel confident in my set-up of the situation. I also consider it a possibility that the information I need is all right there, and I just don’t understand it well enough to apply it to my niche situation. Less vitally, I’ve come across many implications that entry and exit points for the current are very important in avoiding damage (like to organs or brain), but I haven’t found anything about where would be a safe point to enter and exit for maximum body coverage. As I have it set up now, the current connects all four extremities (two wrists and two ankles simultaneously) toward this purpose, but I am willing to sacrifice the full-body sensation if the only practical way to execute the process is one limb at a time. Also, if I did change to one limb at a time, would this guarantee avoidance of organ/brain damage, or just lessen the risk? Or have no effect on the risk factor at all? This is a sort of superhuman MC, so he’s able to take slightly more than expected from a normal human, but while that does have some bearing on the situation, I refuse to use it as a free-for-all and stick to human conditions as much as possible. I say this to encourage some limit-pushing, but I am mostly interested in how this affects the human body, and I can later decide from there if MC can take more than that or not. TL-DR – How can I balance electrical current and voltage to torture a character the torturer doesn’t want to kill?
I would personally use an electric fencer. They're what give electric fences their kick. Entirely non-lethal because by law they have to be, but do contain enough of a kick to knock a full grown man out cold if applied to "sensitive areas." Growing up on a farm I've seen this happen... more than once.
When it comes to electricity, it is not the voltage that kills a man, it is the amperes. Electricity activates muscles and causes them to contract as it simulates a notification from the brain to do the same thing. Generall speaking, you can be shocked with millions of volts and not really suffer any major damage so long as it is in the right places. Only 0.42 (or 0.47) mA are needed to kill someone across the heart if I remember correctly from my enginerring days (feel free to correct me if wrong). When it coems to torture, there are quite a few ways to torture someone without actually doing anything to them. Put a man/woman in an empty room, with no light, no sound, no furniture, no food and no drink and see what happens. A single night can be enough to cause some to go insane, it is known as total sensory deprivation and can be very powerful (for good or bad, depending how it is used) Certain types of drugs can also be used to induce pain. It doesn't actually do anything to the body but tricks the brain into thinking it is in pain. but if you set yourself on electricity, then you need to keep in mind that it needs to be a complete circuit, otherwise it will not do anything. Also, electricity will take the path of least resistance. So, you could for example plug in an insane amount of amps across you arm, assuming that the "+" and "-" points (or otherwise if using AC) is not across any vital areas. You could destroy the muscles, nerves or other tissues. The problem with electricity is that it can very much cause permanent damage and it can be quite devestating but can also be almost harmless if used correctly. I'm not an electrician, but I did do 2 years of engineering (quite) a few years ago. If skin damage is not an issue to your MC you may want to consider 1st or 2nd degree burns. They are really quite painfull (speaking from experience) and if used as a torture tool could result in quite a lot of pain.
Thank you guys so much! Your responses help me feel much more informed and confident with how I can handle my scenes!
One of the most interesting things about electricity is that people keep engineering it, teaching it, and generating it but they don't really understand it. I agree with much of what has been said, Volts jolt, Amps kill. Electricity has to have somewhere to go for it to be dangerous. Keep it away from the heart and the brain. Maybe think "Frequency" and read up on good 'ol Niki Tesla.
