What Effect Will This Pseudo-magic Substance Have On Early Humanity?

Question

This world is like ours, but with the addition of an enhancing substance that comes in different colors and is found in rare (and small, no bigger than a fridge) meteorites that have been landing at (almost) regular intervals since the dawn of humanity. This substance was named Choromis, and it seems to be a form of polymerous plasma (ie. space goop) For some reason, only humans can absorb this substance through contact, and it doesn't seem to combine with inorganic substances. No scientific explanation for this substance's unusual (and color-coded properties) has been found quite yet, so it's very mysterious.

The properties of the Choromis are as listed below:

1. Blue-Enhances the mind; intelligence, learning ability, processing speed
2. Yellow-Enhances the spirit; personality and life force (makes what you consider your self stronger and harder to suppress/manipulate by outside forces, grants longer life, greater survivability, more energy, faster healing)
3. Red-Enhances the body; durability, strength, speed, resilience, and so on

A human being can only be enhanced by two types (Strains) of Choromis MAX, and these Strains combine into secondary colors, which exhibit some new properties:

4. Green-Enhances mind and spirit; also enhances self-awareness and capacity to handle emotions
5. Orange-Enhances body and spirit; enhanced healing factor
6. Purple-Enhances mind and body; reduces reaction time and bodily awareness (capacity for precise movements and physical learning, ie. muscle memory)

There is one exception: a rare 1% of humans can absorb all three primary Strains, which combine into Silver Choromis. Upon gaining the Silver Strain, such an individual becomes superhuman, gaining all possible enhancements.

This substance can be inherited, but at a cost:

1. If both parents have the same Strain, their kid will have the same enhancements, but stronger. In other words, the child will be more enhanced than them and be enhanced from birth. Huge advantage!

2. If both parents hold a primary Strain, let's say Red and Blue, then their child will be born with a Purple Strain and their enhancements will make them physically superior to whatever parent supplied the Red and mentally superior to whoever supplied the Blue.

3. If one parent has a secondary Strain (like Purple) and the other has a Primary strain (like Yellow), their children have: a. A 25% chance of inheriting their parent's secondary Strain b. A 25% chance of inheriting their other parent's (primary) Strain c. A 12% chance of inheriting a new secondary Strain d. A 12% chance of inheriting a primary Strain that doesn't belong to the parent (Ex: Red or Blue instead of Yellow.) e. A 1% chance of being born a Silver

4. If only one parent has a Strain, there is a fifty/fifty chance that: a. The child is born without a Strain b. The child is born with the parent's Strain

Finally, you cannot just kill someone and take their Choromis. It's infused into their very being, so it would take magic to take it from someone, and this is (thankfully) a science-fiction question.

So, what effect will this magic substance have on early humanity?

Answer 1

Humans are social creatures (Quarantaine citation needed), and as such each individual in a group will work to enhance the group. If you don't follow what the group wants then you will be socially banned and possibly thrown out of the group. Without the support of the group you are highly likely to die, which is why failing in a social setting is so upsetting to us to this day.

This is important because your enhanced won't automatically turn into mega-douchebags, at least not until our social system advances far enough to value certain traits which could play into their hands, or against it. Imagine the poor Blue Choromis human who finds out the earth is round and the sun the center of the solar system and then tells his religious buddies about this.

Early on these Choromis individuals will be advancing their society. Their strength, their intelligence, their social capabilities, their ability to remain lucid in the face of danger will be powerful assets for both themselves and their groups. Later on it heavily depends on the culture. While Red Choromis MEN will almost certainly be heralded as great people in any culture, a Red Choromis woman might have to hide her strength in male-dominated societies or suffer for it.

Overall however you can assume that the world will benefit. Yes there might be some more Red humans who do a Jhengis Khan by using their strength to gather people and conquer the world, but there will also be more inventions, more blue/yellow leaders who manage to improve the entire world around them and more people alive to advance the group because the Reds protect them.

One thing: Assuming that Choromis can be absorbed after the previous owner was killed you will see a high rise in assasinations on leaders. A leader will gladly hunt someone down with Choromis inside their bodies, kill them and take it for themselves. But who wouldn't want to be superhuman? It's going to give you a lot more social standing and power as an added bonus to the likelyhood of becoming the next leader. So as society advances it will become a thing for the elite, villages will ostracise anyone who they know without a doubt has Choromis or even report them for a bounty as not doing so could lead to the village being searched with violence in order to secure this Choromis. If not by a King then by the equivalent of a mayor with power or even a mother who wants the best for her children in a time where child death is extremely high. Depending on the societies you populate your world with this could lead to the opposite of human advancement: People who are naturally smart or strong would be killed on the off-chance that they are a Choromis user. Imagine the Blacksmiths who both seem to have strength and intelligence down pat and having those killed over and over again, stifling progress. In this case it's up to you what happens and how happy-go-lucky the societies are you pick.

Answer 2

It feels like depending on how strong these powers will get there might be a scenario which just snowballs into one guy being so powerful and intelligent that he knows where the stuff is and how to get it and just starts doing that alternativlely with how history has gone you could just have him create a child and use magic to gain that power and with the amount of intelligence and strength such a man or woman will basically nobodie will stop them(also would like to note that this provides an advantage to males as they can make kids as fast as the can want if there that powerful or intelligent making them significantly more powerful so you might want to note this irl exploits affect on society Or just find a way to fix this.