  In equilibrium hard-rod fluids, and in effective hard-rod descriptions of
anisotropic soft-particle systems, the transition from the isotropic (I) phase
to the nematic phase (N) is observed above the rod aspect ratio L/D = 3.70 as
predicted by Onsager. We examine the fate of this criterion in a molecular
dynamics study of a system of soft repulsive spherocylinders rendered active by
coupling half the particles to a heat bath at a higher temperature than that
imposed on the other half. We show that the system phase separates and
self-organizes into various liquid-crystalline phases that are not observed in
equilibrium for the respective aspect ratios. In particular, we find a nematic
phase for L/D = 3 and a smectic phase for L/D = 2 above a critical activity.
