Feudalism
Individual worlds in the Array have an incredibly diverse assortment of cultural and societal practices. At the interstellar level, most large kingdoms practice some level of feudalism, due to the time required to reach distance systems. This is the most efficient way to keep a local governing authority able to react quickly to crises without waiting weeks or months for instructions or aid.
Many smaller kingdoms try to remain centralized in their power structure, but only the Morathi try it on a wide scale. Having a centralized government like the Dominion’s means that interstellar decisions are made by the Khans on Mora, and this also means they can be slow to react during time sensitive emergencies. Tactically they can be brilliant, but they have lost border wars to the logistical weakness of insistence on leaning in to their status as the Dominion.
The Edicts
The Compact broadcasts to almost every corner of the Array, and the primary Edicts, against genetically enhanced humans and against true artificial sentience, are thus known to be transgressions that could lead to a show of military force. This fact puts a certain pressure on the entire Array to comply. Even Triene and the remnant of the Ushanti Union do not openly test these limits.
The third Edict is proclaimed in these broadcasts as well, but it is made clear that only Compact members are obligated to conform to that stricture.
Enhanced humans
While individual worlds are known to exist that accommodate genetically enhanced outcasts, The Compact does not permit such beings to travel from world to world in ordinary circumstances. They are not allowed to mingle with the Array in general, and their isolation is maintained through military interdiction and orbital defenses.
Of course there are worlds in the extreme periphery that have genetically enhanced people, and the Compact either doesn’t know, or it can’t get to them with substantial force to stop them from living that way. As long as they don’t spread out from a known world, the Compact may allow them to exist for a time.
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence at or above TL-14 does exist ‘legally’ in some parts of the Array, but such cases have inhibitors and regulators and fail safes that keep them subservient to human volition. Notably, it’s not legal to give an AI the order to fire a weapon. Such controls must be direct. You can however have an advanced AI, even above TL-14, that is capable of tracking and even targeting an opposing vessel.
Most AI is TL-13 or less. This allows for robots and other AI with limited autonomy, able to perform preparatory tasks without making big decisions. Almerand does a thriving trade in advanced robots, and on Almerandi worlds, it is common for even peasant households to have at least one robot.
There are havens for rogue AI in the Array, some in the periphery, and some hidden on worlds closer to the core. There is even a fleet of Ishikan Executive ships commanded by AI. The Executive itself is a huge base that usually hides in nebulae and commits piracy. Part of the problem they experience is that human psionics are sometimes able to gain an advantage over AI. The Executive has tried to recruit human psionics from its human population, but in most cases their ability is limited due to having surrendered some volition. They do have a few true mercenary psions. Truly free minds are the best adapted to psionics, and AI has never been able to achieve even the smallest spark of psionic activity.
Slavery
The third Edict is not universal. The Compact has outlawed slavery or mandatory drugging on any signatory world, base, outpost or ship. That covers about half the population of the Array, including four of the five Great Kingdoms. Many non-signatories still have their own local bans on slavery. Thus, slavery is forbidden in most of the Array, and the thought of it is abhorrent to the consensus ethics represented by the Compact.
Though it is waning as a practice, there are still two regions of the Array where human ownership in some fashion is legal.
In Triene it has become the standard in about a third of the kingdom. Some of these parts of Triene are not next to each other, and internal slave traffic passes through different areas of the kingdom. This leads to resentment among the abolitionists along the path, usually directed at the Vicitat who made slavery worse when they entrenched their power, although it is still mostly legacy Trienese families that own and trade in slaves.
There is also a more nebulous region in the Heights, outside of Sallumini territory, where numerous smaller kingdoms and individual worlds enslave others and trade in humans as property.
There are also some isolated small kingdoms and individual worlds in the periphery that have some form of the practice.
It should be noted that in an advanced society, an enslaved person is not uniquely qualified to provide goods and services, because automation is more efficient. In an advanced society, enslavement is not about productivity, but instead, about power, status, cruelty or tradition, and usually some combination of these.
Psionics are usually stunted by the very fact that one is enslaved, as anyone who complies with a slave owner has diminished volition. Slaves with psionic promise can sometimes be identified early, and given freedom in exchange for their professional service. This can backfire, as resentment is the usual state for slaves in most of the Array, and once free a psionic former slave can become dangerous.
Abolition
An assortment of uncoordinated organizations and movements strives to bring slavery throughout the Array to an end, using a variety of means.
Sallumin has a treaty with Triene, through which Triene agrees that all Sallumini abolition efforts will be public and peaceful, and in exchange, Salluminic missionaries are allowed to minister to the lower classes and even slaves in Triene. Triene sees the benefit of no Sallumini covert agents in their territory, as they are the only real threat to Triene’s psionic superiority over the other Great Kingdoms. That said, slaves who make it to Sallumin territory are given sanctuary, and often a pathway to citizenship.
Other organizations are not so peaceful. In the Heights especially, some abolitionists treat slavers and even the complicit very harshly. A group of pirates based in the Rachare nebula focuses their piracy on slaver ships, freeing and often enlisting the slaves they find.
Wandering Ghendo will sometimes be very inclined to universal freedom, and even the less confrontational of them can wind up irked by a cruel slave owner and their staff. A Ghendo Master is master of themselves and no one else. They will be more deliberate in their action, so that it is not just a flash in the pan, but a lasting solution. More than a few uprisings were led by Ghendo throughout the centuries, enough that the common belief is that they are drawn to such causes, though this is not born out by the eye-witness accounts of Ghendo appearances in history. They are as likely to pick a fight with a Sallumini Had’jar, because fanaticism to a Ghendo is as bad as slavery. And while a Ghendo would never condone slavery, theft is another matter entirely. They are not always the hero.