There's no such species as Raksura. There's just the Aeriat, who have entirely enslaved the Arbora.
They're not the same species.
There is no such species as "Raksura".
They Aeriat just tell everyone they're the same species to stop anyone else from questioning why the fuck none of the Arbora have any rights and are /literally an entirely separate enslaved species/.
Literally. The Aeriat literally just have an entire separate species enslaved to do all their labor for them. And they literally do eugenics on them *and* magically mind control them, but we're supposed to pretend they don't.
And we're not supposed to talk about the fact that they're enslaved.
Because you see, they're ~happy slaves~ so that makes them not slaves. No there's nothing wrong with Raksuran™ society. Everything that goes on there is perfectly natural and normal. If you have a problem with any of this it means you're Mentally Ill. You're also probably a Serial Killer. That's why you think it's wrong to enslave people.
And the fact that I'm only just figuring out right now that they're literally not the same species is just how fucking horribly written and confusing these books are! Martha Wells never bothers to explain anything! Maybe she realizes if she did actually explain it everyone would figure this shit out instantly instead of years later.
But I'm pretty sure it's just because she's bad at writing.