[@Lovejoy] I think about this too much and come up with too few, inconsistent solutions to the issue.  No fire...  Means no combination.  Ether makes heat, but what causes propulsion and launching if it's more powerful than simple mechanical creations?

What if we didn't have cannons and there was more of a railgun system?  Ether and magnetics wouldn't be affected by a lack of fire, so in order to work around a lack of fire in this world, they would have progressed [i]around it,[/i] producing technology both far, far ahead of their own time as well as remaining shockingly primitive.