@powersoffour @MichaelKlamerus I always like to stress that Myst games create a set of rules and play by them thoroughly. There is contextual reasons for almost everything, and how everything works follows the constraints of those rules, but in the end, they create the rules. They are not bound by the rules of the natural world we live in.
So we will have that steam powered tree elevator and we will understand how it works and love it even if it wouldn't work in real life!