5 Things that are taboo to talk about in the Augmented Valor world.

1. The Lazarus Directive

Officially, the Lazarus Consortium’s earliest human trials never existed. Unofficially, everyone knows someone who vanished after volunteering for “posthuman optimization.” Discussing what happened to those subjects — or the rumored black sites where early “failed augmentations” are still alive — is a fast way to disappear. Even referencing the Lazarus Directive in encrypted channels risks AI keyword flagging by the Martian Bureau of Information.

2. The Machine War Revisionism

During the first Machine War, Mars deployed full-scale synthetic armies under the Ares Accords. When the war ended, billions of combat AIs were “deleted.” But nearly every planetary government suppresses the truth about what happened to the ones that weren’t deleted. Publicly sympathizing with synthetics that fought in the war is grounds for deactivation, exile, or memory sanitation in some colonies.

3. Augment Rights and Fertility

Posthuman fertility remains one of the most controversial topics in the inner systems. Many augmented soldiers, like Adi, had their reproductive systems altered or sterilized during augmentation without consent. Openly questioning the legality of those procedures, or the Bureau of Colonies’ eugenic oversight of augmentation, can cost someone their license, pension, or freedom. Entire cults have formed around the belief that restoring “pure” human birthlines is divine duty.

4. The Chendiurian Assimilation Program

Chendiuria’s founding involved extensive gene grafting with Deinococcus radiodurans and tardigrade DNA to adapt colonists to its harsh desert world. While now celebrated as a success, what’s taboo is discussing the failed generations — the early settlers who mutated, went sterile, or became feral. Their descendants, called “Dustborn,” are a whispered underclass; to accuse someone of Dustborn ancestry is nearly a hate crime, but it still happens in the alleys.

5. The Gate Symmetry Breaks

Every pilot knows to avoid discussing what they see at the event horizon of the stargates — the shimmer, the whisper, the flicker that shouldn’t be there. Religious movements call it “The Divide.” Scientists call it a quantum artifact. But anyone who’s spent too long near a malfunctioning gate — or claims to have heard voices while passing through — is marked as unstable, possibly infected by nonlocal consciousness. Those who persist in talking about it tend to vanish into BuCol “containment interviews.”