Do you guys plan on making dwarven nobility a little more closed over time, where they'll work more like a caste, or will they always be a little more open. Meaning, will they ever keep certain positions more likely to be given to relatives of noble families? Will a noble's relative that is not going to inherit any titles like, say, a Duke's third son or daughter, start their own family branches and retain their and their descendent's rank as nobles over time retaining some of the perks of being part of nobility?
Nobility stands as it is, right now, because a lot of the systems haven't been laid on the ground yet, but seemingly it's going to change. You might have noticed that there's a slim chance of having nobility lineages amongst parents and their sons, when is not broken by calamity or an urge of necromancy (which requests the noble to leave their official position in worldgen); uncles and other extended relatives are just nominal, they don't have any relevance yet. As with nobles opening new entities during play, it might go hand-to-hand with our chance as adventurers to start our own entities, itself a planned feature.
In short, Yes-But-No-Timeline.
Another thing. I asked before if refusing to become a barony and retaining independence would lead to your fortress branching of into a separate civilization, and you more or less confirmed that something like this will happen. Are there any mechanics in the game for the next release that will support this option?
Ninja'd and well summarized by Cruxador.
Being that Toady hasn't spoke a word about more meaningful ways to affect the world outside the embark in the next release, I highly doubt such a feature could make the cut, aside from being another source of enemies (which are always welcome) and perhaps a strafe to avoid loyalty cascades, but nothing else. Even with fortress retirement as an option the lifespan of those emerging civilizations seems to be pretty short and desperate.
EDIT: Also, a question.
Now that forest fires became a real deal, are unlimited adventurer's campfires still avaliable? If they're not, are we getting firemaking as some sort of reaction, or maybe using Advance Interaction with some free-lying resources to do that?