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[Di]

The only reason the incest is undesirable irl is because offspring will more likely inherit some bad traits or will more likely develop some diseases that were suppressed in its parents.
In df currently there's no recessive genes (right?). So as long as both specimen don't have the same negative traits it doesn't matter how they are related. It wouldn't if inheritance was in.

Not really. I suspect that when genetics go in, spore-breeding will go out, and so to the quirks that let dwarves marry close relatives. Dwarves won't breed outside of wedlock, and I strongly suspect they won't marry close relatives, so I guess there won't be any incest and thus no super-soldiers wielding banjoes.

Now how on the earth are those related?
It's impregnation that is handled via spores, marrying is handled in another way and there's nothing quirky in it. Brothers and sisters can't marry, and everything else has happened throughout the human history irl.
And trait inheritance doesn't mean they won't be able to transport genes by spores. In a fact, Toady has stated that breeding won't ever become any less abstract.

[Grimmash]

FWIW, cousin-level interbreeding also ins't *that* bad.  It's really nuclear inbreeding that leads to real-life *fun*.  Most taboos about cousins breeding are useful, but breaking the taboo only increases chances of birth defects a very small amount (a few percentage points), compared to much higher rates of bad stuff in the nuclear family.  Having children over the age of 40 is worse, statistically speaking, than having children with your cousin.

I'm not encouraging incest, just pointing out that our concept of it is rather off in some ways.  And if you always breed cousins back into the family line over many generations there would be some issues, but not as much in one-off situations.

So in DF if genetic inheritance became a thing keeping the lines relatively safe using a few breeding lines would be relatively easy.  But the population limits (for FPS concerns) could complicate it.  I would think having four 50 dwarf breeding lines with use of burrows to enforce selection could make things pretty secure, from a genetic viability standpoint.  Just keep putting the offspring in different burrows.

But I still love the idea of having one Sparta-like burrow of the "mistakes". The inbred Uruk-Hai of dwarves!

[Rokh]

@Grimmash: A funny side note: I once read, not sure where, that the closer the ties of the two family members, the higher the probabilities of pregnancy. Say, two cousins are more fertile than two unrelated people; but mother and son are WAY more fertile... eugh...

[acetech09]

A funny side note: I once read, not sure where, that the closer the ties of the two family members, the higher the probabilities of pregnancy. Say, two cousins are more fertile than two unrelated people; but mother and son are WAY more fertile... eugh...

I'd be surprised if this is actually true. There would have to be some explicit code to do something like that (seems like a very unlikely 'side affect' from some other mechanic) and I don't think Tarn would have a reason to implement win-cest.

But I've never seen DF source and I've heard stories of Tarn's lack of formal programming conventions - so I guess it might be possible.

[Rokh]

A funny side note: I once read, not sure where, that the closer the ties of the two family members, the higher the probabilities of pregnancy. Say, two cousins are more fertile than two unrelated people; but mother and son are WAY more fertile... eugh...

I'd be surprised if this is actually true. There would have to be some explicit code to do something like that (seems like a very unlikely 'side affect' from some other mechanic) and I don't think Tarn would have a reason to implement win-cest.

I'm afraid you misunderstood me, I meant in real life

[acetech09]

I'm afraid you misunderstood me, I meant in real life

Oh. Then if that fact is true then I redact my statement about it being unlikely in DF. Only thing that will take priority over weirdness/reproductive stuff is realism. 

[DG]

Not really. I suspect that when genetics go in, spore-breeding will go out, and so to the quirks that let dwarves marry close relatives. Dwarves won't breed outside of wedlock, and I strongly suspect they won't marry close relatives, so I guess there won't be any incest and thus no super-soldiers wielding banjoes.

Now how on the earth are those related?
It's impregnation that is handled via spores, marrying is handled in another way and there's nothing quirky in it. Brothers and sisters can't marry, and everything else has happened throughout the human history irl.
And trait inheritance doesn't mean they won't be able to transport genes by spores. In a fact, Toady has stated that breeding won't ever become any less abstract.

Well, genetics is mostly interesting over generations, generations require birth, birth requires pregancy and pregnancy (for dwarves, at least for now) requires marriage. Seems like a Toady-style arc to me. Doesn't sound too outlandish anyway.

Spore-pregancy and keeping the act of sex unexplicit needn't go hand in hand. The game already tracks whether you speak to a friend in a meeting hall. It can track whether you are in your bedroom at the same time as your spouse. That would mean no more spores, but still no sex scenes.

[Gnauga]

Except for disease resistance and wound recuperation, all those traits are also fairly easily trained up by labor. And if you're creative enough, even recuperation can be trained.

[sirdave79]

Yes but each dwarf has a random range for its attributes, some are born with the potential for higher attributes. This would be the point of breeding for attributes, that your fully trained well bred dwarf has higher attributes than a lesser born dwarf fully trained.

[Xcano]

This wouldn't really be genetic engineering so much as breeding. Perhaps you could torture/train/mutate your dwarfs into the perfect war machines?