I think this ties back to the final couple of sentences in the prolog to part III in Torch of Freedom.
Torch of Freedom wrote:Since all that was true, Detweiler further argued, it only made sense to genetically modify colonists for the environments which were going to cause their descendants to mutate anyway. And it was only a small step further to argue that if it made sense to genetically modify human beings for environments in which they would have to live, it also made sense to genetically modify them to better suit them to the environments in which they would have to work.
While this may not imply genetic slavery per se, it looks like the clearest indication of what Leonard Detweiller was actually thinking about.
There's also the comment in CoG about "genetic slavery" having to continue for a few more generations, which suggests that the MAlign, at least, doesn't regard it as a really long term proposition. It's a regrettable necessity in creating their utopian vision.
Comments?