Welcome again to 'White Light, White Heat' the magazine that put the confusing World Of Progress into focus.

It is nearly six years ago that Wave Lindsay put pen to paper and wrote the Integration Twenty. Many brave, some would say foolish, souls have followed in his footsteps to unearth the secrets that lay behind SLA Industries. Today WLWH is proud to bring you the definitive guide to THE TRUTH!

SLA Industries & Dark Night [a study in subterfuge]

We tracked down Marcus 'Visionary' Trend, ex SLOp (SLA Operative) to a bar in downtown shortly before his unscheduled appearence on Channel 69s 'Slaughter Margin at Six'. He had this to say to our reporter...

"I had my suspicions about Dark Night for a long time. I served two tours on Dante, wanna see the scars? Thought not!"

"OK, SLA has one overriding principle, that being PROFIT. SLA does not do anything unless there is profit behind it, so if DN are run by SLA then it must be because it will increase the power and profits of SLA. SLA needs to own every planet and every resource to keep growing, and DN offers them a way of getting these things. SLA needed to expand in the early years, and so instigated the 3 P's Contract. Some planets held out against the might of SLA, so SLA used DN to make an example of Cross [P.34 sla] and then suddenly all the other planets were only too illing to sign on the dotted line. Thus SLA gains control of all the natural resources in the universe. So far DN look like a pretty profitable deal to me.

On the surface war worlds seem to be an example of the lack of control that SLA has over DN. But let us look again at these war worlds. Cross is an example to all the planets in the universe of what happens when you refuse a deal from SLA. I can only asume that Dante came about in much the same way. War worlds are very limited conflicts, they have little effect on the planets around them, and as they are dead worlds there is no loss of resources to SLA. War worlds keep the other planets in line, and also they mean that SLA can keep moving forward in the realm of arms manufacturing (the core business) in readiness for a future war with whatever lies beyond White Earth. So DN could be run by SLA as a way of keeping alive war without reducing profits, they know that it will never spread beyond the scope that they want.

DN is a natural beacon to those opposed to SLA. In this way SLA can keep tabs on those who could damage it by owning DN, and thus being the only opposition force to itself. Those naughty types like wave who seek the truth will then be caught up in the deception and we can see DN like a Venus fly trap.

These act much like war worlds in keeping the population in check. Do DN help the 'common man' on Mort - NO. They do not run foods, they run drugs and guns which do not help anyone (other than sla) and cause serial killers with there nasty drugs. DN are not freedom fighters, they are just out to make a profit like everyone else and don't give a hoot who they have to tread over on the way. DN are NOT the good guys of the SLA world.

Also DN make a good alternative target for Thresher, so SLA gets to divide the attacks of Thresher and thus save a bit of money. Thresher is less effective because it is fighting a war on two fronts."

Background Questions & Answers

Q: The main characters in the SLA book are not fully explained, so how do I fit them into my games?

Hallowe'en Jack.

We know that Jack is Wave, but how? Well my idea is that Wave escaped the fire at the Downtown Pheonix offices (maybe helped by Intruder) and was captured by DN. The DN agents doped him up with Shatter which warped his DNA and created the monster we all know and love as Jack. We know that Jack worked with DN for a while, but his increasingly psychotic behaviour made them cut him loose . Now he wanders downtown, worshipped and attended by a bunch of nutters who see his as some kind of god/fallen angel, just another of the thousands of downtown religion. This all fits with what is already published in the SLA rulebook. It is also full of plot lines that can be used in a game. Maybe the players have to fight the Jack cultists, or maybe they have to join forces with some Dinos (Dark Night Operatives) to fight off an attack by Jack. What drives Jack/Wave on? Does he remember who he really is? Somewhere in his head still exists, maybe he is wandering downtown trying to remember? Manchines. SLA used the brains of patients from Bethlehem asylum to act as organic processors for the manchine project. They thought that they had fully erased the memories, but it didn't work properly. The manchines are haunted by memories that they cannot reconcile, and driven to violence in an attempt to shut out the nightmares. Maybe the manchines starts to exhibit 'patterns' of behaviour, and the SLOps are sent to study them. Maybe the brain is that of a former SLOp, or even one of the players family. Plots could involve the discovery of a working manchine production facility run by Karma, making and repairing these monsters. This would account for the ever increasing numbers of manchines in the cannibal sectors, Karma are still trying to perfect the thing for use on war worlds, or as future weapons to fight Thresher on Mort.

Carriens.

Slayer:

Intruder & The Kilneck:

Necanthropes:

Thresher:

Deathwake Device:

White Earth:

Beyond White Earth:

And finally here are some new Black Market weapons to arm your Dinos and Props with.

CAL	TYPE	CLIP	RANGE	ROF	RECOIL	PRICE
10mm	P	6	10m	1	5	5000 unis*
10g	R	8	10m	1/2	6	2500 unis**
12mm	R	50	15m	5	9	36000 unis***
17mm	R	1	50m	1	15	50000 unis****
* Rebored CAF Steel Death, it'll pack a hell of a surprise! ** Winchester type breeching action, hence 1 phase to shoot 1 phase to reload. *** Sawn-off Power Reaper with stock and no gyro-mount. DN interceptor Andropov's weapon of choice. **** Single barrelled breech loaded, single shot with collapsible stock.

Until next time this is WLWH signing off. The usual thanks to the SLA-L crew, and especially Shane Culleton for the new weapons.