How to kill with Lightning Bolts in a sensible, no-nonsense fashion.

[Venusian Broon]

Assuming as Chrispenycate points out that your demons aren't encased in a Faraday cage...

Maybe your magician needs to 'paint' his targets first by altering the demons into 'a path of least resistance'. Perhaps, assuming that the thunder cloud above is charged negative, he/she would extract all the electrons from the internal liquids of the mouth/throat, down through the stomach and all along the rest of the digestive system, before exiting by the place where the sun don't shine. Then the big lightening strike will go through there internal regions on it's way down to earth and (perhaps) the heat generated in the internal spaces will cook them? (I'm sure there are objections to this - I'm sure I haven't quite thought it through.)

A side benefit to this is that the caster who has removed the electrons and kept them, should not take collatoral damage, being temporarily repulsive to the bolt. He can then 'magic' this smaller charge to earth by some other method to balance it all out...

or

At certain pressures and temperature Hydrogen is metallic. So perhaps the magician can cause a molecular line of metallic hydrogen to form clean through the demons body for a moment - assuming that demons, like us, are really bags of water then there should be plenty of H20 to break down to make it (well you said it's magic ), giving the main lightning bolt an internal conductive path. Perhaps even targeting important areas that when 'cooked' will kill the demon, or perhaps stop the heart through the large current.

Anyway just a couple of thoughts, that are perhaps a bit too convoluted

 

[nubins]

Also remember that if your soldiers are in armour (chainmail/platemail) I believe you can fling lightning bolts at them all day long and not cause them any harm, so you might have your wizard wait until the demons land to fight them, then rain down a lightning storm on them

 

[psychotick]

Hi VB,

I'm not sure that your first one would work simply because the demon isn't grounded. Making him more conductive won't change anything because while he may carry the voltage better, it still isn't going to go anywhere. Maybe you could have him made instead of conductive, charged. Can't remember if lightning is positive or negative, but say it's positive, if the demon was negatively charged then he'd make a perfect target. He'd be hit every time, and I'm not sure what the impact of all that voltage would be on his flesh,

Also increasing his conductivity would decrease the damage the lightning would do, simply because IIRC the damage caused by lightning is due to a current being carried by a vessel with resistance. In essence like a light bulb filament. Electricity passes through it but not perfectly, and the resistance of the filament is what allows some of that current to be converted into light and heat. If the wire was a perfect conductor there would be no light or heat. In the same way a perfectly conductive demon would not experience any burning.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Hi VB,

I'm not sure that your first one would work simply because the demon isn't grounded.

Well as soon as the bolt hits the ground, the current will go through him. (sort of impaling with a bolt of lightning) The point of my elaborate schemes was making the current go through a path that might damage flesh - my thinking was that heat damage was preferable. I agree with what has been said before about what happens normally - the lightning is more likely to take a path through air rather than hop on a flying animal. So I was thinking about magical ways of trying to induce it to go through flesh

Can't remember if lightning is positive or negative,

I think it can be both - i.e. a postive charged cloud is, I believe, also possible and this causes the bolt to go from ground to air.

but say it's positive, if the demon was negatively charged then he'd make a perfect target. He'd be hit every time, and I'm not sure what the impact of all that voltage would be on his flesh,

It's not the voltage but the heat (fry the sucka),

But thinking about it, the strong EM fields that are generated by a near miss may scramble the heart and cause it to cease functioning. You don't need to be struck by lightning to be killed by it - I've seen footage of a lightning strike at an African football game, it didn't strike anyone directly but it essentially knocked out a number of players within a certain radius, unfortunately killing the closest one.

Also increasing his conductivity would decrease the damage the lightning would do,

But you need a conductive path through flesh, cause otherwise you'd have an insulator and they'd be no damage as the bolt would be very likely just to miss, so by increasing his conductivity in an internal body path - relative to the air round about - and making a least one bolt to travel that route surely can only increase the damage.

In essence like a light bulb filament. Electricity passes through it but not perfectly, and the resistance of the filament is what allows some of that current to be converted into light and heat.
Cheers, Greg.

Precisely - that's essentially the idea that I put down. In the second attempt at it I just want the 'metallic Hydrogen line' to be conductive then we'll slam up to 300 kA of current through it with a bolt. It and the surrounding tissue heats up to 30,000 K (your magic will of course get the right density/properties of metallic hydrogen to heat up to this level ) - and if you've put this line through important organs - then by my furious handwaving, one partially cooked and dead demon.

If the wire was a perfect conductor there would be no light or heat. In the same way a perfectly conductive demon would not experience any burning.

Well, I never said the magical hydrogen path, nor the route through the digestive system should be a perfect conductor .



Reading through this, I am suddenly struck what an odd thing to be thinking about on a Saturday afternoon...

 

[Tecdavid]

Reading through this, I am suddenly struck what an odd thing to be thinking about on a Saturday afternoon...

Isn't it glorious!?

Really though, this is all very helpful! So, what we can deduce for sure is that something will have a tough time being scorched by lightning if it isn't grounded. Something about the airborne creature will need to be manipulated to help it happen. Finding a solution to this will be pretty tough, really, since the story in question is for Young Adult readers who probably wont know all the nuances of lightning, and might just get confused if I try overcomplicating this. What if the lightning-controlling character were to not only direct the lightning toward their foes, but have it continue downward toward the ground, too? After passing it through the target, that is.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Isn't it glorious!?

What if the lightning-controlling character were to not only direct the lightning toward their foes, but have it continue downward toward the ground, too? After passing it through the target, that is.

Actually this is how I imagined it had to be from the start - that it will look like the demons are being 'impaled' to the ground with bolts when it happens.

To get a current flowing - the charge has to be earthed at some point, so your lightning character is manipulating the scenario in some manner so that on its way down from the cloud (or up from the ground ) it will have to pass through some critical bit of the target body.

The light bulb analogy is a good one - think of your lightning magician doing it in two steps. First he transmutes a tiny part of the demons body into a conductive filament of some sort (in some hand wavy way ) which offers a highly desirable least path of resistance to a bolt compared to the air/water/salty water (whatever!), and goes through critical organs. He then calls the lightning down to one of the filament ends and the resultant current passes through it, making the filament superheat. Lightning bolt then happily continues down to earth out of other end of said filament. Demon hopefully then falls from the sky smelling faintly of burn and death.

 

[Biskit]

First he transmutes a tiny part of the demons body into a conductive filament of some sort (in some hand wavy way ) which offers a highly desirable least path of resistance to a bolt compared to the air/water/salty water (whatever!), and goes through critical organs.

I like the logic but I think you now need a good reason why this would work.

If the 'lighting operators' can do all this to a demon, why do they need the lightning? Why not just convert the vital demonic organs into something non-functional? And if demons are that vulnerable, and can't prevent it happening or fight back, they must be pretty feeble demons. It all feels like a clever solution that has down-graded the (I assume) terrifying demons.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I like the logic but I think you now need a good reason why this would work.

If the 'lighting operators' can do all this to a demon, why do they need the lightning? Why not just convert the vital demonic organs into something non-functional? And if demons are that vulnerable, and can't prevent it happening or fight back, they must be pretty feeble demons. It all feels like a clever solution that has down-graded the (I assume) terrifying demons.

I'm one step ahead of you and prepared to answer your pertinent question, 'cause I was thinking along these lines too .

Whenever I plan something for a WiP I always ask the question: 'Well, if I allow my characters to do X, what does this mean in the broader context of my story.'

1) It's not my WiP and I don't know how Tecdavid's magic system works, so I have no idea if my suggestions are feasible or suit his universe
2) The brief was to make lightning kill flying demons...in some sort of 'explainable' manner. But we're given the use of magic, so I figured anything is game. And it sortof uses real physics to make the explanation to work. I have very little other information to guide me!


But if I were to take it to the next stage, a possible solution could be that even the most able of lightning practitioners can only transmute a miniscule amount of space/matter into a filament, say equal to the volume of a couple hundred human cells (but when stretched out into a long very thin line it'll be about a metre - should be more than enough to skewer a humaniod demon??), and only hold it for mere seconds. Therefore merely concentrating on a small spot effectively does nothing....

Anyway I refer you back to point (1) above.

Hopefully some of my inane thoughts may help Tecdavid come up with his own more satisfying solution.

 

[Darth Angelus]

Sorry about late post, I have been busy with other things than this forum for the last few days.

I made one post in this thread already, and would like to add upon that, after reading it more carefully and thinking it through.

I don't think what you suggest would quite work, physically. That is, the rain wouldn't make a difference that is great enough to enhance the lightning to kill a number of airborne creatures. Now, I am not a physicist, but I am 80-90% sure of this. Here are the two main reasons...

1. Water is not fully a conductor. Yes, we do learn of the dangers of water around electrical sources, because of its electrical conductivity, but believe me, its electrical conductivity is still far, far lower that that of metals, which is what is used in electrical cables and wires, which is our way of intentionally making the current to go in a certain, specific direction. And this would not really be water between the demons, just moisturous air, making conductivity even lower.
In short, I think this idea overestimates the electrical conductivity of water.

2. Calling down rain would drench an area, which would not give the current any one specific path. This would likely cause a spreading effect, making the concentration of electrical energy per area or volume to drop rapidly, making it less lethal. I can't say I know how to express this idea technically, but I believe the reasoning stands. I think that once the lightning bolt has hit its first target, it is highly possible that a lot of the spare electrical energy would go in other directions than the other targets (perhaps on to the ground, if for no other reason because that would be less resistance than jumping to other demons first and then to the ground). The only way I can see to solve this is for the caster of the lightning to paint a path of least resistance (as VB described it) where he or she wants it to travel, but if they could do that by force of will, the rain would not be needed, because that is all that water does anyway, altering the resistance.

Like I said, I am not a physicist, so take my ideas for what they are. However, I do believe this is how it is.

Besides, lightning is generally accompanied by rain, in real life, but I can't remember ever having heard of a whole group of people dying from being hit by lightning, like this.

In short, I think a much more precise direction of the current than the rain could accomplish would be needed for it to have this effect.

 

[Biskit]

1) It's not my WiP and I don't know how Tecdavid's magic system works, so I have no idea if my suggestions are feasible or suit his universe

Definitely a big limitation on offering advice.

I occurs to me that from a logic/consistency point of view, it might be best to stop treating demons as a 'black box' and given them internal mechanisms that make them vulnerable to this sort of attack. After all, if demons were naturally good conductors and it just needed a little nudge… But that's up to the world-builder.

From a little reading around, the conductivity of molten sulphur is a variable thing, but most of what I have come across did not put useful numbers on it. However, under the right conditions, molten sulphur is red (if you're not bothered about being able to breath, you can demo this easily enough by heating up some sulphur) and the red colour is due to transitions of free valence electrons as the S8 sulphur rings start to break leaving 'trailing ends', and this also ups the conductivity. I don't know whether this would be enough (assuming your average demon is full of molten sulphur) to give a good conduction path.

 

[Venusian Broon]

further thoughts struck me, like bolts out of the blue, Tecdavid.

Your lightning man from your description at the starts appears to have the ability to direct lightning bolts to a pre-determined point of space. Which appears to suggest that he is able to manipulate the least path of resistance through pretty big chunk of air. What is then a few hundred kilos of flesh, water and bone tightly bound in a small space? Nothing much. Presumably whatever allows him to get it to the demon will allow him to trace a path through it too.

Damage from lightning is not just from current running through the body: there is heat as I've belaboured above, Electro-Magnetic pulses, ground strike effects (perhaps not relevant in this case, but good to know!) and secondary trauma (blunt damage caused by the shockwave and other effects that the lightning does to other objects.) That could give a repertoire of various 'trick' shots to maximise the damage of each effect (You can also bounce lightning off odd surfaces which might be handy.)

However, it appears that the mortality rate from lightning hits is actually quite low. The best stats I can find say 80% of those hit by lightning survive. Perhaps not the greatest tool for slaying demons.

But, it would wager that most strikes have a bigger probability of incapacitating or stunning - making it easy for someone to come up later and bash them in properly. Plus if you are giving the practitioner of lightning magic control on where it will travel to, then surely they will aim for the vulnerable points of the demon to do the most damage...