I didn't play much Shadowrun, but I read a lot of the fluff and a lot of the fiction that (I'm told) influenced it (Gibson, et al.), and the way black ice always worked in my mind was not lethal voltage but rather it reprogrammed your nervous system, shutting down body functions.

Truly lethal ice would shut down the heart or cause never-ending seizures or something. Less lethal would put you to sleep, nice and convenient for the corp's security team to come pick you up.

And yeah, the main reason I had to come up with this is because electronics don't work that way and I don't have Suspenders of Disbelief strong enough to take it at face value.

--sofaspud
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