Explaining Electricity Manipulation as an extension of Air Magic

Question

I'm currently designing a magic system themed around the four elements of nature (yeah, I know, so original) and I wanna take the Avatar: TLA/Korra approach where, in addition to the four elements themselves, the characters can also control other fragments of nature derivative of/associated with their assigned elements. So earth mages can control stone and sand, water mages can control water pressure, ice and steam, and fire mages can control flame and heat. I've only got air left to figure out now, and since I've assigned my fire mages with heat instead of electricity/lightning, I thought that my air mages would be prefect candidates for such an ability.

The problem however, is that I don't know how to incorporate electricity manipulation into my air mages skillset in a way that makes scientific sense. Ice makes sense as an extension of water-based abilities since if you can control water, you could theoretically control its temperature and lower it enough to the point of solidification (same goes for steam, but in reverse). My mages are basically like your run-of-the-middle air elementals in that they can control wind and can create/manipulate tornadoes and wind streams, but in what way would they need to manipulate their element in order to create and control electricity? I'm assuming things such as atmospheric electricity, air molecules, air current friction and air ionization may have some part to play in helping me solve this little query of mine, but I don't know nearly enough about any of these things to construct the answer I'm looking for.

Answer 1

Generating electricity using air requires friction. To achieve this you can have the mage rub two volumes of air. The faster the movement and the larger the surface area then the bigger the voltage generated. The effect can be amplified by loading the air with dust/water vapor.

Directing it is fairly simple if you can do that. Lightning will follow the path of least resistance. All you have to do is produce a path of low resistance from where you are generating it to where you want it. This can be done in two ways.

1. Produce a slightly dusty/humid path between your source of electricity and the target. Most of the electricity would follow it but there would be some arcing - this would look great but reduce the strength of the attack. The dust would also make it obvious what you are targeting, which may or may not be desired.

2. Surround your electricity generating volume in a hollow sphere of very high-pressure air and also produce a high-pressure air tube from it to your target. The lightning will travel down the tube and strike the target with nothing visible except the electricity itself.

Both of these effects will diminish with distance, and if you produce too much voltage then you are likely to just fry your mage.

Answer 2

If you allow overlap between types of magic you can easily solve this: lighting in real world is produce by moving water in the clouds produced by the updraft, thus related to air and water in your system.

It can also be produced by dust moved by strong currents, again overlapping air and Earth in your system.

Answer 3

I would think of this as an advanced technique, but if you have some clouds over head a skilled air mage can move the air in those clouds to build up a static charge. Once the charge is large enough a leader will start trying to find a path to ground, and a skilled air mage could guide this path of specialized air to ground thus guiding a bolt to the target.

So in some sense this would take time to build/charge up (spirit bomb anyone?) but it can obviously have devastating effects.

Answer 4

The natural derivative of air magic is pressure magic, not lightning. Electricity is probably a fifth fundamental element. It just doesn't happen to have any human mages who are skilled with it right now.

Answer 5

The answer can be found in one question: How much control does an air mage have over air?

You see, if an air mage has total (albeit limited) control of air, he can simply will the electrons off the atoms in the air, and since electrical currents are essentially diffusion, he can create the conditions for electricity.

This would require the mage to add electrons to air molecules near or around him (creating a positive charge), then create a channel of conductive air leading to the target, which has negatively charged air around him.

To do this correctly, your mage needs advanced scientific knowledge and a lot of caution (and skill or practice) to avoid discharging into himself. He would need to learn how to force electrons into the air, take electrons from said air, and how to turn air conductive (which, btw, would involve loosening the electron's bonds to their respective atoms and making them free to move within a given volume of air. This would require immense skill and concentration!).

Oh, and it's best if the target doesn't move unless of course, you're making that negative charge reside in said target's lungs, in which case you only have a limited timeframe before the target recirculates his air supply. I was unable to determine how this works or how long this takes, but it would make it a lot easier to hit the target!

This move will take some time to get ready, but a truly skilled mage should be able to do it within a minute or less, in my estimation.

Answer 6

You could take a less controlled approach and have them manipulate weather by setting up various chunks of air in certain ways to do things like generate storm clouds, this also opens up the idea of meddling with cloud generation in more unnatural ways by abusing their control of air to force currents to do things they don't naturally want to do.

Another option: Avatar being your source for inspiration, its worth noting they don't go off science. The elements and control are based on state of mind, fire is passion and rage and lightning is a cold and calculated rage where as fire is more wild untamed and free. Earth is quite literally grounded and in touch with the world. Air came from the air nomads that wandered far and wide among the mountains and carried little, light and ever shifting by nature. air bending isn't control over nitrogen oxygen carbon-dioxide etc. but rather the embodiment of the nature of the element to a level of spiritual connection and embracing and then manifesting that bond. If you choose to take this approach, find a reason for it to fit your definition of air. to them lightning fit with fire because it was essentially concentrated and focused emotional outburst. But to you perhaps air is as fire was a force that keeps us alive; not as a burning spirit inside but as a great force we must be tapped to to live. Or perhaps air has a holy aspect, being the only thing separating the earth and sea from the heavens and lightning a divine smite. The world of Avatar falls apart if you take if from a strictly science perspective and that's fine, it was never meant to be about science but instead their magic is magic and can't be chopped up logically.

Another kinda fun idea might just be because they can manipulate loose floating particles they can manipulate loosely bonded electrons and then by concentrating in one place cause the necessary difference in charge to cause a bolt.

Answer 7

Electricity (well, specifically lightning), is caused by the release of positive charge from storm clouds into the negatively charged ground. So you could theoretically manipulate the electrical charges of a cloud to effectively summon lightning. You could also speed up the electrons in the air atoms so you can create electricity wherever you want.

Answer 8

I don't have enough reputation to comment on another comment, but yes, the technique would be useful indoors as well because it is created due to interaction between the ground (or possibly an object? I'm not sure) and clouds involving positive and negative charges. Generally, there is humidity in a room which is caused by water vapor in the air, and clouds are made out of that but only when it is condensed onto particles (it has to be cold enough). So if it is the right temperature and there are dust and other particles in the air, the mage could create a cloud, possibly even help it generate electricity, and create lightning, or you can use a better explanation to create a better aesthetic/method of creating lightning by will.

Answer 9

Drilling the phalanges of the sky.

Water magicians learn the purity of form, a world reflected in a single molecule that links with itself in infinite variation. Fire magicians learn the purity of essence, the heat energy that pervades all things. Earth mages learn the purity of origin, the substance of the planet of creation. And air mages learn the purity of change - the ceaseless motion of particles, not taken in terms of magnitude, but of direction and control.

The air mages long ago came to understand the elements and molecules of the air, not originally as chemistry but as dance and song. Nitrogen, the eternal male, oxygen, the eternal female, the third-sex shamans of argon and neon that glide among them in contemplation.

And so they drilled, mage and air, together. Scissor march: men apart, women march between, N2+2O2->2NO2 in chemistry terms, though the air mages know how often it is truly N2O4. Square the triangle: 3O2 -> 2O3. Stunning scissor: 2N2 + O2 -> 2N2O. Such tools are immensely powerful, making the air noxious or even anaesthetic, dispersing enemies or incapacitating them. But the air mage dislikes them because they go against the natural order of the air; they consume energy, make entropy; it is a dark working.

So much better to scissor march to the ground, turn NO2 to NO2-, reverse scissor march, 2NO2- -> N2 + 2O2 + 2e-. Let the electrons return whence they came, leaving behind air nearly as clean as before, save only for the encouraging scent of roasted enemies that have ridden the lightning.

Explanatory note per request: Air is made up mostly of molecular nitrogen (two atoms of nitrogen stuck together) and molecular oxygen (two atoms of oxygen). If the airwitch can control how all the atoms move, he can bring the thermal vibrations together to split these molecules and reform them. The molecules of the air are compared to a phalanx of men, and one of women, undergoing the same marching maneuvers side by side in formation; plural "phalanges".

Ways to rearrange the atoms into new molecules include nitrous oxide ("laughing gas", anaesthetic), nitric oxide (poisonous; affects blood pressure), and nitrogen dioxide (an immensely concentrated version of smog). Here, our airwitch prefers to make nitrogen dioxide only temporarily, to use it to absorb electrons from the ground, forming nitrite ions (a food preservative, but also negatively charged). He pulls the nitrite ions away from the ground - which means he is physically moving electricity into the air! This isn't a circuit, but just a massive amount of charge under his magical control. When he commands the nitrite ions to reform to nitrogen and oxygen, the leftover electrons will burst forth and arc their way back to ground in a lightning bolt, which he can direct by controlling how the arc moves through the air. This is only one example of his electrical powers.