Nightmare Fuel
- The very idea of a society in which things could be forcibly programmed into your DNA and you wouldn't even know. And it's totally okay, legal and ubiquitous for Ciphers to do.
- Whatever happens to illegal second daughters is never stated, but it's implied heavily that they're killed. As teenagers.
- Andromeda's accident. She was horrifically and gruesomely burned at age 11, and would have died if it weren't for the Revolution taking her in!
- What's worse, is this is implied to be a common thing, and countless little girls have probably died that way.
- Truth in Television, too. This parallels the Industrial Revolution era of child labor.
- What's worse, is this is implied to be a common thing, and countless little girls have probably died that way.
- Life in a lower caste in general. There's just total disregard for human life. How many scientists have died because no one could be bothered to give them protective equipment? How many Labora have been killed in industrial accidents because they're expendable? Athena casually mentions Cantatores being murdered like it's a sport and her fellow scientists working with deadly weapons as kids.
- Lyra mentioning how the organ harvest is still going strong, even though organs are readily grown in labs or made from cybernetics, because people are willing to pay for "natural" organs. As if harvesting them weren't horrifying enough, in Eleutheria people can get readily available and safer organs elsewhere, but people continue to die because future hipsters want "organic" organs.
- The pus-like biohazardous laboratory waste Dalia sees on the way to Elysia. God knows what was in that or how much damage it could do.
- The scenes of rioting and corpses strewn throughout the city. Especially when Magistratum police start firing on their own people in an attempt to force back the crowd.
- The fact that the entire planet just forgot a horrific plague because propaganda affects them that much.
- Tee, Ace and David not knowing if their feelings are real or just programmed into them, and being worried their entire lives are just people above them pulling strings and writing their code for them.
- The fact that life expectancy is so low even in a society with brilliant medical care, miracle cybernetics and DNA mods: people could be living for thousands of years, but most die under the age of 20, because everyone is just that expendable.
- Artemis's sudden and untimely death in the middle of a riot when people threw the Eleutherian-equivalent of nerve gas into the crowd. This is made ever worse by the fact that the scene is told from her perspective as she dies.
- Alestra fantasizing about drowning her innocent daughter in the ocean and having it be a public spectacle, especially the way she says it so callously.
- Rampant human trafficking that no one seems to care about.
- Alestra straight-up murdering a seven year old to secure the throne, starting a civil war, and showing absolutely no remorse for it.
Tear Jerker
- Aleskynn screaming for her sister as they're being attacked by TB and his men, especially once Dalia is overpowered by all the soldiers and her laser gun runs out of charge. It's just such a completely hopeless situation for them both, and even though Leski wouldn't have actually died, she didn't know that at the time.
- Thea being elated at the thought of seeing David again, only to immediately see her eldest daughter step on a bomb and get gruesomely injured.
- Tee's death was sad anyway, but what's even worse was when Lyra and Dalia realized he was gone.
- And then Alestra steps on his body and throws him aside like it was nothing.
- Aretmis's gruesome death by way of ketacyanide gas. The entire time she's in pain and struggling to breathe, before everything sinks into oblivion and she passes away.
- And Lyra, Athena, Carina and Ace frantically searching for her in the middle of a massive riot under fire from deadly gas bombs.
- Leski turning against the Revolution because she's so sick of her position in society. It's made even sadder because we know Dalia meant well and was trying to help, but she couldn't, and even though Leski's been a brat, she's still a 13 year old being manipulated, and a pawn in everyone else's political games.
- And Dalia not knowing what happened. Every time you hear Athena thinking oh my stars, how are we going to tell her? it gets so much worse, because Dalia's already lost Tee, and is trying to pull a dying civilization back together. Knowing Aleskynn is on the enemy side with a man that tried to murder her will completely break her when she gets told.
Other
- Aluminum Christmas Trees: The genetic modification and DNA storage actually have a strong basis in reality, but most readers see them as sci-fi pseudoscience.
- Angst? What Angst?: In Enlightenment, the literal end of days—and characters, unable to come to terms with the end of the world, refuse to treat it as such.
- Designated Hero: Acidalia is right when she says that a lot of the things she and the rest of the Revolution participate in would be considered war crimes in a more civilized society.
- Ensemble Dark Horse: People have a tendency to think TB, a eugenicist, is sexy.
- Iron Woobie: Half the cast.
- Nausea Fuel: The end of book one takes place in a "pharm," a factory that produces various human bodily fluids ostensibly for research purposes (though it's also mentioned that they may be attempting to make money by selling people useless blood.) Carina describes the feeling of her shoes being soaked with unidentifiable substances and the disgusting smell of blood mingling with the odors of lymph, chyle, and God-knows-what.
- Moment of Awesome: Everything about Alestra's attack in Mutatio in the first draft. Alestra herself, as well as Dalia escaping an attempted assassination, Carina and Athena risking their lives to save her and Leski, and Tee, Ace and their squad showing up even if it had tragic results.
- When they make first contact after years of fighting.
- Sci Fi Ghetto: The novel's first draft has won a number of awards contests, but hasn't been very popular in comparison to the top teen fiction and romance stories, likely due to Wattpad being more well-known for that.
- Values Dissonance: In-universe, between Eleutheria and... well, pretty much everyone else.
- Their idealization of caste and rank shocks the Martian Cressida when she first steps foot on the planet.
- The way they treat human lives as expendable in general.
- Both the Mira and the Eleutherians value science; however, the Eleutherians see biology and biotechnology as a much more worthy enterprise, as hacking DNA lets them manipulate people easily and gives them more control. The Mira do quantum physics/particle behavior, because it helps them learn more about their universe, and are nowhere near half as advanced as humans when it comes to biotech.
- What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: People have seen the novel as a metaphor for everything from World War II to the Trump administration, which is odd considering the themes are mainly nature-vs-nurture and what makes someone "better" than another person.
