Not Dead Yet
I have unwittingly discovered a new torture device. Take whatever group you wish to torture and put them to work on a project. Give them a very definite deadline. Force them to work long hours, with constant promises of reward and potential future opportunities. When the deadline arrives, keep everyone awake and ready in case of any problems, for three days. Finally, instead of granting any sort of break or relief, put them back to work demanding more of their time, energy, and will to live. After a week of that, they will be willing to do anything.
While anything can be potentially bad for you, the Evil Overlord, for an individual skilled in torture, this can be a great asset. You will quickly recognize the breaking point, and be able to direct the pending explosion skillfully to achieve many of your goals. Goals that include removing the competition, getting media attention, or even just practice. The point is, you have now learned about a very effective torture tool. Any victim who happens to survive this torture method, will be able to wear the mantra, “I’m not dead yet.”
Machiavelli would certainly be proud.
A great read for any budding Evil Overlord.
there is however the potential flaw of creating a group of people who now believe they can survive being tortured by you and if they indeed feel they have earned the montra “i’m niot deat yet” you could have a large group of skilled people with nothing to lose creating an uprising agaisnt you. that and they could sabatoge the project mid way through if its something remotly important.
It is rather quite simple. Take these “elites” and put them to use. Make them your special army, like the Sardaukar in Dune.
To respond to the Prince of Darkness, yes, I agree this could become an issue, but as we all know, work can be addictive, and like all addictive substances, the body adjusts to constant use/abuse and therefore requires increasing the doses. So it does not make sense to simply repeat the same workplace tactics, but the Overlord-in-training must cxonstantly tweak the system, adding more and more, and stretching his team/victims beyond their abilities to maintain their collective “buzz.”
The trade off to maintaining this collective “buzz,” is that overdose is soon to follow. Uprising is stopped before it even gets off the ground. The future Overlord now has all sorts of options. Use your imagination.