[Drifter]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Emotional stability never was notable in those kinds of families was it anyway? Not in the sense of what middle class suburbanite would consider sense of family anyway. They were certainly often dysfunctional and could be counted as doing well if they had no worse problems then chronic adultery. But those sorts seemed to use their family more as an abstract loyalty rather like a nationalism. The Habsburgs were perfectly willing to see their daughter in the bed of a Corsican mobster with messianic delusions that happened to be their blood enemy if it bought them time to shaft said Corsican mobster later.

I was following Astromancer's logic, where he noted "mentally stable, healthy" nobles. Not a prominent feature of most aristocracies, as you note, or even the leadership of today's governments. It might be a goal, but leadership and power would seem to me be the primary goals, with everything else secondary.

As for the rather notorious endogamy it does not look to me like a selective breeding program so much as snobbery. For selective breeding you want the ones who would give the type of traits desired in the children not just the geneological records desired. Harem beauty contests seem more like that, but that again seems more as a luxury to benefit a ruler's sexual taste then a means for breeding unusually good princes.

I suppose any limiting of mate selection can be described as a "program", if you have some sort of goal at the end, even if its just snobbery.

As for a general Imperial culture, I would agree there would be nothing like that. There might be something more like an Old Boys Network at the top closely maintained. And the Imperium might well go out of it's way to highlight the cultural achievements of various cultures in museums, athletic conventions, and all the other sorts of stuff. It would certainly not try to maintain anything like an interstellar culture and that seems to go against the intent of canon anyway.

But as SteveS said, it would make a great Hiver manipulation. Its been a while since I read Hiver stuff, but don't THEY have a more or less unified culture? I could see a Manipulator trying to promote such a culture, at least in areas adjacent to Federation.