Difference between revisions of "Excruciator (Ur-Quan)"

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An '''Excruciator''' is a device created during the [[Ur-Quan Slave Revolt]], devised by the [[Ur-Quan]] as a shield against [[Dnyarri]] mind control and essential to the success of their war effort.
  
:''This page is about the Ur-Quan torture device. For information on the Ilwrath use of the word "Excruciator", see [[Excruciator (Ilwrath)]]
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The operating principle is based on the fact that while a Dnyarri is manipulating a slave the Dnyarri, to some extent, shares the slave's sensations. Intense physical pain experienced by a slave can cause the Dnyarri enough stress and discomfort to cause it to involuntarily lose its psychic control.
  
An '''Excruciator''' is a device meant to be worn (or perhaps implanted would be a better word) which inundates the recipient's brain with unimaginable pain. It is usually called by the definite article (The Excruciator) rather than the indefinite (An Excruciator) because of its deep historical significance (like ''The'' Model-T).
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After [[Kzer-Za (Character)|Kzer-Za]] announced this fact to the Ur-Quan population, Ur-Quan slaves began finding ways to break through their masters' control to inflict injuries upon themselves to weaken the Dnyarri's grip. As time went on the stubborn Ur-Quan slaves developed ever more and better means for doing so, until finally enough freed space and resources had been captured from the Dnyarri that Ur-Quan rebels were able to design and mass-produce devices that could be implanted in the brain, causing immense amounts of pain but no damage to the body. A well-calibrated Excruciator could keep the pain level just low enough for the determined, psychologically strong Ur-Quan to maintain a basic level of functioning while still making the task of maintaining control intensely difficult for a Dnyarri, particularly as the Dnyarri had at this point grown soft and complacent after generations of holding power.
  
When the [[Ur-Quan]] martyr [[Kzer-Za (Character)|Kzer-Za]], for whom the [[Ur-Quan Kzer-Za]] name themselves, discovered that pain was the only way to be free of [[Dnyarri]] compulsion (thus beginning the Dnyarri Slave Revolt), he inflicted this pain upon himself with acidic poison. This tactic, while greatly successful, had the downside of guaranteeing his death.
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With an increasing number of Ur-Quan shielded by the Excruciators, the overly stretched Dnyarri forces were unable to maintain their control and were quickly slaughtered. The bittersweet irony of using almost constant self-torture to defeat their enemies was one of the major factors that marred the collective Ur-Quan psyche after the war and led to the development of the [[Path of Now and Forever]] and [[Eternal Doctrine]].
 
 
Later on in the revolution it was, oddly enough, a black Ur-Quan (later to be known as the [[Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah]]) who perfected the Excruciator. The device was non-lethal and the pain it gave to its subject was incredible.  For years all Ur-Quan (and assumedly the other races of the [[Sentient Milieu]] whom the Ur-Quan liberated) wore this device as the only way to combat the Dnyarri.
 

Revision as of 10:42, 13 March 2005

An Excruciator is a device created during the Ur-Quan Slave Revolt, devised by the Ur-Quan as a shield against Dnyarri mind control and essential to the success of their war effort.

The operating principle is based on the fact that while a Dnyarri is manipulating a slave the Dnyarri, to some extent, shares the slave's sensations. Intense physical pain experienced by a slave can cause the Dnyarri enough stress and discomfort to cause it to involuntarily lose its psychic control.

After Kzer-Za announced this fact to the Ur-Quan population, Ur-Quan slaves began finding ways to break through their masters' control to inflict injuries upon themselves to weaken the Dnyarri's grip. As time went on the stubborn Ur-Quan slaves developed ever more and better means for doing so, until finally enough freed space and resources had been captured from the Dnyarri that Ur-Quan rebels were able to design and mass-produce devices that could be implanted in the brain, causing immense amounts of pain but no damage to the body. A well-calibrated Excruciator could keep the pain level just low enough for the determined, psychologically strong Ur-Quan to maintain a basic level of functioning while still making the task of maintaining control intensely difficult for a Dnyarri, particularly as the Dnyarri had at this point grown soft and complacent after generations of holding power.

With an increasing number of Ur-Quan shielded by the Excruciators, the overly stretched Dnyarri forces were unable to maintain their control and were quickly slaughtered. The bittersweet irony of using almost constant self-torture to defeat their enemies was one of the major factors that marred the collective Ur-Quan psyche after the war and led to the development of the Path of Now and Forever and Eternal Doctrine.