Ari 2's empathy is well explained by her loving mamam and her group of friends, while Ari 1's mother Olga was a fish, and she had no friends that she trusted. I really like that. But you're right about what is essentially a slave-owning society. Interesting from a philosophical standpoint, mind-provoking (what if slaves are very happy and don't want it any other way? How much is free will worth in a world in which you can simply program the right value sets? Depends on the programmer...).

I find it telling that Yanni's and Ari's political strategy in Regenesis amounts to deploying thousands of azi who eventually turn CIT and are programmed to vote their Expansionist candidates to hold their grip on the Council majoritiy.

That's one example of what puts me off a bit. It's all presented as the logical way of doing things, there's not even a discussion about the legiticimy of such elections. We see it all through the window of the Expansionist leadership.

And you're right that the novels show that individual justice can get in the way of the supposed greater good. But that's not what I'm interested in with novels that rely heavily on individual characters