Ok, short version. Among the many speculations within my speculative fiction novel concept are a group of people who, among other general enhancements, can generate electricity using specialized organs in their body a la electric eels/rays etc. They were scientifically designed to assassinate godlike figures whose closest approximation would be a dresdenverse wizard not bound by the first law. Time has passed, their original purpose has been forgotten, and now they serve as super powered bodyguards and assassins for the nobles of an iron age style empire.
What I'm looking for is someone who understands the science well enough to tell me what will or won't work. If you can't help me there, I still wouldn't mind hearing from you since I generally work best when I can bounce ideas off multiple people.
Some of my questions include:
Why don't electric eels shock themselves? I've heard various theories about this, but nothing really convincing.
The eel's entire organ structure is packed into the head, and heavily insulated. The other 80% is made up of basic body structure and three electricity generating muscle bundles that control the flow of sodium within in such a way to generate bursts of electricity, basically like a battery. There is no path for the electric discharge through the skull, and the rest of the tissues are built to survive its own power levels without harm.
Would it be possible for a sixth sense similar to the Electric Eel or Shark's ability to sense bio electric fields to function outside an aquatic environment?
Yes, in theory. The Echidna Family, (most notably the platypus) are teh only known mammals to have the ability. The water makes for a far better conductor than air, but thats a problem of scale not design, and you are throwing scale out the window a bit for this anyway. Its also worth noting that the same gene responsible for electrolocation in the facial skin of sharks is present and actively affecting facial features in humans.
Could electromagnets be reliably weaponized in the form of armor, such as a bracer? What I mean by this, is could you design a solenoid to fit inside a piece of armor or weapon that could be activated in various ways to either attract or repel other ferromagnetic materials? Could said solenoid also function as a small, but functional gauss cannon?
Again, yes in theory, but the realism of the actual energy requirements would be stretching realism.
How would someone actually kill via electrocution if that were the aim? Would it require multiple contact points, or could a circuit be formed using a single contact point such as a hand placed flat against the other person?
Brain, Heart, Or Massive tissue damage. Brain and heart are both very fragile electrical systems that can be shorted out. The last requires extremely high Current (the amount of electrons in flow) as opposed to
voltage (the pressure difference that is causing them to move).
Remember: high current is what causes the heat, high voltage is what lets it jump.
Assuming a person could generate a powerful and sustainable electric current inside himself, would he be able to create a magnetic field strong enough to affect ferromagnetic materials such as swords and armor enough to be of use in a combat situation?
Assuming the power level is there, sure, but they would need to be modified to spin the electricity around material properly. The basic rule thumb (hehe, punny) is that if you make a phonzy thumb, the electricity needs to spin in the direction of your fingers to create a magnetic field in the direction of your thumb, and vice verse.
How do magnetic materials actually function, and what determines which side attracts and which repel?
The short answer is that when the molecules within the material all align in one direction, all their individual charges add up to a big one, and that passing electricity around/through a material is one way to accomplish that alignment. you'll need wikipedia for a long answer.
What is the difference between static and current electricity, and would it be possible to achieve "miniature lighting" affects from organs similar to those on the Electric Eel?
Its not a matter of scale, its about the type of flow. All electricity really is is an imbalance of electrons in a bunch of molecules, moving to try to even back out again, just like an imbalance of water levels will flow through a tube to try to level out. Static electricity is when a natural buildup of charges on one side of a barrier (usually air) breaks through and reaches equilibrium in a shot. Current (which just means electric flow) occurs when the flow is slowed down, or else when something is maintaining the imbalance (like continued chemical reactions inside a battery).
What I think you meant by "Current Electricity" though is AC power, what you get out of the wall. That mean alternating current, and is different from DC current (ie. static electricity, battery power, Eels, etc) in that it reverses direction back and forth. DC power always flows in one direction, and thus always requires a complete loop. AC power is created using rotating magnetic fields, and as a result shifts direction back and forth at high speed, which gives it some differing properties. The advantages of one vs the other have been argued literally since it was invented (see Telsa, Edison and the War of the Currents), but for your purposes there is one big thing: DC Current requires a return loop, which is why tasers shoot two wires; AC can flow as long as you are in contact to the Earth (termed "grounded") which can soak up all the electricity you could ever create; the electrocuting water cannons they use for crowd control work on AC. DC can use ground as the return path instead of a 2nd wire, but its trickier.
Assuming they could make the voltage level theyd need (around 1000V/mm iirc), mini-lightning effects would be possible so long as he can create a loop. So from finger to finger would work, but would only use the tissues in his hands. Hand to hand could work, but then the current is using a path through his chest/heart, which may make for a fun danger, but something he could train to overcome i expect (eels have remarkable control of power intensity and flow).
Most of these are designed to ensure I don't embarrass myself too badly when I write my action sequences, but I'd love to hear any tidbits you could offer, such as strange side effects, dietary requirements, etc.
People get caught up in the dietary needs of superpowers, and forget that its not a straight calorie mechanism. For an Eel-man to generate the equivalent of a 1000 calories of electricity, he wouldn't necessarily need to have consumed enough eggs to equal that energy and then digest it in the same way you would for blood-sugar. Instead, he'd need to make sure his diet included the massive amounts of sodium and whatever other chemicals are present in the biological battery tissues inside him. Superman is solar powered, which is why he can lift buildings without consuming a cattle farm every day; it's a completely different biological method and system.
Edited for scientific accuracy
