- Feb 1, 2020
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It's not about incest. The main point was how the term & relation of daughter was turned on it's head (from blood related offspring to a more purely social concept.)Remembrance We have gone for an in between solution by not declaring things to be either one way or the other, which allows for both paths to coexist. In practice it already is how you propose it to be.
in other words, the model you propose, which we can find, with some differences, in ancient Sparta or in the Zulu under Shaka Zulu, is what inspired the whole Children of Zeta business, which does follow roughly your idea... the Vessels procreate with the purpose of breeding soldiers and workers both for the central authorities (the Palace, The Temple and the Army), and for those who cannot procreate themselves (elder couples, queer couples, single men and women and so on)...Children are recruited/assigned according to their inclination and/or the needs of the city.
Next to this, couples who can procreate and do so are free to either hand over their children to the Temple or to keep them and raise them themselves.
As a player, you are free to decide which way you would prefer things to have gone in the case of Zaton and Zahra.
If in your head-canon all children are passed through the Temple system and are Children of Zeta, that's fine and will probably not be contradicted explicitly in the lore. Potentially the argument can be made that children handed over to the Temple, can be, on request, reassigned to their natural birth parents. We will also not explicitly state that all children go through this process, allowing the player to make up their minds about it.
In other words, it's up to your preference. If incest skeeves you out, then go for the "they are Children of Zeta" route, if not, keep it as is....either way, Ain and Shani regard Zaton and Zahra as their parents, which kind of renders the whole "let's not make it actual blood incest" point a little moot.
As to why incest has become acceptable in this society... it has mostly to do with scarcity of alternatives, with how the few people who started to rebuild and who eventually built Zeta were forced into that or going extinct... we are handwaving the whole incest=genetic defects issue by (at least in my mind) having moved past that particular issue through advancements in medicine and genetic therapy well before the whole End of Days scenario came to be.
In other words, humanity had cured cancer, aids and whatnot else before the End of Days and, incidentally, brought humanity to an evolution point where also inbreeding would not be source of medical issues.... that, at least, is how I personally rationalise the handwave of this particular plothole. (it, combined with several centuries of survival of the fittest, also explains how come most people you see on screen have athletic builds).
Also, social mutation makes much more sense than inbreeding not being a issue (as long as humans have dna, genetic pool will always matter, especially if you don't have access to gene editing tech)
Also, in a city there won't be scarecity of alternatives, especially if you can just kidnap people to fill out your gene pool.
And if there were really problems with availablity of mates, there are much more drastic systems than preserving the family unit & encouraging incest.
Sorry, I'm not trying to tear down your back story, it just doesn't make as much sense.
If you really want blood related incest itself to be accepted, maybe go with the whole unscientific handwaving as you said.
But if you only care about the MC & this daughters being related, my system makes more sense over all with no need for handwaving basic genetics.
Social development (restructuring) in extreme situations is very interesting & often a very important part of dystopia.
It can be open ended, I just like world building/ world setting & hence made a theory about how the situation could come out. Logically it fits the best I think.
Also, sure children can be willingly handed over, but in a dystopia, harsher rules make more sense, rather than trying to preserve the family unit & the love between parent & child.
The system is there to match based on suitability, not to pander to soft parents wanting their children with them.
That's how I'd imagine a dystopia anyway, rules & systems uncaring about compassion or moral outrage.
Anyway, if you like incest, I'd think breaking the law to get to his daughters back would be more romantic ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
Personally I don't care about incest one waybor another. Thinking up a logically sound system & how it evolved from the modern social structure, without any unscientific hanwaving, is more interesting imo
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