: Using elemental control to aid in daily life? My sister is writing a book which incorporates elemental "magic" or control. Each person can use one of the four elements. We want to ensure that

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If everyone had one of these powers, you would imagine human development to have taken a very different path.

Example: The Air people would have mastered flight before written history began. The Fire people would definitely have been cooking from the beginning. They would have fire hardened spears right from the get go as well.

The Water guys would have discovered the ability to make igloo anywhere, taking care of shelter. The earth guys (I never understood what earth power is) would probably have a similar fast shelter building ability. They probably could fashion giant fortresses of stones long before humans (without powers) could build the pyramids.

You would imagine they would cooperate, Fire and Earth could forge steel. Stone, porcelain and ceramics would probably be the dominant building materials.

Hunter gathering would be pretty trivial, when humans can fly and drop sharpen iron spikes from height great enough to kill even the biggest beast in but moments.

Wars would have been fought in a 3 dimensional way since the beginning of time. Forts of giant stones would probably be needed to protect oneself from the enemy's fire troops and Air troops.

And instead of a fossil fuel based world, this world would probably be far more steam punk. Electricity might still be nice to have. Even if you have fire guys, you can use heat to power engines to generate electricity. And you can't get to the modern age without electricity.

But still heavy machines powered by heat and steam would make a lot of sense.

Entire ice cities can float in the vast oceans.

you can go totally crazy with this concept.

PS. you might want to introduce some limit to your elemental powers. Otherwise it would be chaos.

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