Patent

The lightwhip had been a breakthrough in punitive technology when it was invented by Raddocker Ebediah Wheazler in OD 42. Capable of inflicting anything from a first to a fourth degree burn, it gave the user a previously unknown level of control over the level of damage a strike would do.

Previous to its invention, flagellation-related injuries and deaths were not uncommon in the slave camps, with some workers going out of service for even a week at a time just to recuperate from the damage, while many others perished altogether.

But with the lightwhip, a "lite" setting could be used instead, at least when the infraction to be punished was very minor. This was especially useful in retaining the unblemished skin that was so important to the maintenance of a valuable (and still fungible) pleasure-slave. The result would be a series of temporary red marks, along with a stinging sensation that would last for days, but the victim would be more or less permanently undamaged. Of course, a slightly higher setting could be used to inflict a more painful, but still more or less harmless, result. 

At much higher settings, however, the lightwhip could compete with (and even outperform) its ancient basis. At its third setting, minor electrical burns could be experienced, leaving bulbous blisters on the skin, making it painful for the victim to even lay down to sleep. At the fourth, serious burns capable of permanent scarring would likely be experienced, and at the fifth, they definitely would be. This latter level was more or less equal to the damage inflicted from an old-fashioned leather whipping by a man of average strength.

The sixth setting on the lightwhip in many ways transcended the damage one might receive from an ancient leather-whip, at least in terms of pain—though, rather than leaving a trail of blood which could cause serious injury and lead to the victim fainting or dying, the lightwhip would cauterize the wound at the very same time it left it, leading to a much lower rate of fatality—though the scarring would be much the same. Setting seven was equivalent to a serious burn, and setting eight was capable of leaving the skin permanently blackened. Setting nine was not unknown to lead to amputations, if one hoped to keep using the worker, and strikes from setting ten could sometimes affect more of the body than simply what was hit—victims could be seen to smoke and sputter, as if electrocuted, and the few survivors often sported scars in the patterns of lightning. It was not unknown for this latter setting to be employed in combat, though a setting over ten was more associated with this use. Used like this, the whip almost certainly shorted-out the central-nervous-system on impact, and when used in overdrive, could cut a man in half.

When it was first developed, the lightwhip had been billed as a humane alternative to the barbaric leather of the past, and F.S. citizens never tired of reminding the few dissidents who attacked the implement as cruel that, were they to ever fall into the hands of the goylots, they would be wishing for the privilege of a lightwhipping. Instead, they were likely to receive a good old fashioned leather one—probably made from the skin of the poor bastard they’d whipped to death last.

Raddocker E. Wheazler won the Schpeldman World-Peace Prize in OD 45, after his invention's heavy use by the F.S. in the goylot rebellions. He always maintained that his first intention had always been to provide a more humane whipping experience for the millions who had made the mistake of crossing the Final States and the Nivchar-Am-Segulah.

"We can never be too forgiving," he had said, as he accepted his trophy, "Even against those who would never deign to forgive us—were we to need it. Remember how the Nivchar forgave us for our many crimes against them—and continue to forgive us, I might add—every day, merely by letting us live another day."

Wheazler then launched into a lengthy and eloquent speech on the nature of sin, and his hope that the original sin of the Arkides could be someday totally forgiven (though it could never be cleansed completely) by the Nivchar. The room burst into applause at its conclusion.

When Wheazler was found dead in OD 50, having whipped a slave to the point that her sweat had traveled along the light and electrocuted them both, it did not make the news—though it did lead to several changes to the design of his invention.

At the time of his death, Wheazler possessed the largest collection of antique leather whips in the world.