Alignn said: Well... technically you'd be safer wearing full armour, since it'd just lead the electricity through the plates rather than your flesh.
The law of junctions requires that some of the voltage passes through you too, and armor doesn't do a whole lot against the overpressure and the superheated bolt of plasma striking you...
Alignn said: But it helps, considering the option is it directly striking your skin.
No, it doesn't.
You see, when struck by lightning, the electric charge directly only does about half the damage: due to the extreme voltage, the skin-effect takes over, and the majority of the current is restricted to the first 1-2 mm of skin depth, resulting in characteristic branching burns, or even flashing around Saber in a sort of aura as the air reaches its breakdown voltage rapidly, turns conductive, and shunts at least some of the energy away from her body. Most of the damage comes from the involuntary muscle spasms triggered by the voltage (but since neurons signal in the uV-range, even a AA cell can trigger a muscle spasm), the overpressure of the expanding air (burst eardrums, pulmonary damage, and concussion are fairly common), and the magnetic field generated by the moving charges that induce electric currents inside the body (these currents, along with whatever passes through the body from the bolt itself, initiate a process called electroporation, where the voltage perforates the cell membranes in the body, causing widespread damage, mostly to the nerves and muscles).
Metal objects actually enhance the damage, due to attracting the bolt, then conducting the strike's energy into contact with the body, and concentrating it, preventing the charge from flashing around the subject, forcing more of it through the body, resulting in more internal damage.
I see... why does it 'flash' around you rather than pass through the body? Is air simply easier to ionize?
Why does armour force more of the current to pass through your body? And is this working under the assumption that you'd be wearing armour over your bare skin rather than some cloth (or leather) covering underneath?
Alignn said: I see... why does it 'flash' around you rather than pass through the body? Is air simply easier to ionize?
Depends, mostly on the skin resistance of the human in question (which itself depends on many factors, including how thirsty you are!). If you present high resistance, for example because your skin is dry and you're pretty thirsty, and a myriad of other factors, the electric field has enough time to ionize the air to a sufficient degree to break down its insulating property.
Alignn said: Why does armour force more of the current to pass through your body? And is this working under the assumption that you'd be wearing armour over your bare skin rather than some cloth (or leather) covering underneath?
Because the metal attracts the electric field, preventing it from building up enough strength to break down the air into a conductor. By the time the field would be powerful enough, your body is already a conduit to ground.
And yes, the assumption is that at least at one point, the armor contacts the skin. Underclothing would impede conduction, but any insulator breaks down against high enough electric field. Considering that the metal plates/bands/rings/scales (depending on the sort of armor used, though Saber herself seems to favor incomplete plate mail) form a circuit at least through casual contact (which can be easily welded into place by the current), as well as the fact that the field strength depends on electrode shape, the corners of her breastplate would likely build up the sufficient field to punch through her dress, incinerate it at those points, then begin full conduction.
Ipswich67 said: What about like a full-body Faraday suit? They're supposed to protect up into the Megavolt range right?
That entirely depends on how you construct it. Make it from heavy-duty wire, and bolt it to nice big busbars connected to three or four large diameter copper pipes driven two meters into the ground, and you could even weather out a spellcard from Nagae Iku with minor hearing damage, and a headache from all the flashes.
ThunderBird said: That entirely depends on how you construct it. Make it from heavy-duty wire, and bolt it to nice big busbars connected to three or four large diameter copper pipes driven two meters into the ground, and you could even weather out a spellcard from Nagae Iku with minor hearing damage, and a headache from all the flashes.
ThunderBird said: Because the metal attracts the electric field, preventing it from building up enough strength to break down the air into a conductor. By the time the field would be powerful enough, your body is already a conduit to ground.
Well, I meant more why does it not simply pass harmlessly through the metal "shell", assuming full plate armour.
Alignn said: Well, I meant more why does it not simply pass harmlessly through the metal "shell", assuming full plate armour.
Law of Junctions: in an electrical circuit, only an open circuit presents infinite resistance, therefore conducts no current. Now, the current depends on the resistance, since the driving voltage is a given. According to the United States National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety, "Under dry conditions, the resistance offered by the human body may be as high as 100,000 Ohms. Wet or broken skin may drop the body's resistance to 1,000 Ohms," adding that "high-voltage electrical energy quickly breaks down human skin, reducing the human body's resistance to 500 Ohms." Given a full plate mail, that will[/] shunt much of the current across itself, sparing the person inside (provided the metal doesn't contact the skin anywhere) much of the energy damage, but not the concussion.If any part of the skin touches the metal, this turns into an electrical junction, and at that point, the current will split according to the ratio of the resistances. The plate armor may have a resistance of as little as 50 Ohms, one tenth of the current will still pass through the person, and considering a lightning strike, it's still one hell of a charge to go through you...
Aah, that makes sense. Really, I've only known high-school physics or something (not sure how to translate "Gymnasiet"), I still remember being confused how the electricity somehow "knew" which path to follow if presented with two wires, one which had a resistor on the end and one that didn't. Makes much more sense that it splits proportionally.
