Often when I make up a character I like to make it up in stages. With SLA this normally means I'll spend 75 points forming the background of my character, then the next 75 points reflecting the skills and knowledge prior to Meny and then the final 150 points on skills and knowledge at Meny. I find this approach helps to fix the characters background better in to my head than just spending all 300 points at one go.

Anyway, I was thinking of getting the players to first make their characters at 150 points to reflect when they first joined Meny and then spend the remainder of the points as normal. I would then be able to do 'flashback' sequences when role-playing, allowing them to role-play important parts that have happened in their past, for example when they decided to join SLA Industries (ie: If a DownTown Ganger, the crime and subsequent arrest and then being met by a Talent Scout afterwards)

It would also allow me to draw on important events that have happened at Meny that might still affect them to this day. One example I've thought of is a Grey BPN investigating an Operative that they knew at Meny. Rather than just stating 'you liked him' or 'he pissed you off a lot', you could instead use the 150 point versions and role-play out a 4 day training event that had him as one of the characters. Then depending on the outcome of that event, the players would handle the actual Grey BPN differently as they would hopefully feel they actually knew the character.

One final thought is that the 150 point version would be unlikely to progress in xp or points, instead bonuses from the events (such as Minor Friends, Info, Reputation) would be carried through to the 'real' version of the character.

Note:

They will still get XP from the main BPN that the 'flashback' has occurred in and it will include their role-playing done with the 150pt characters, however I was going to restrict them to spending it only on their main characters. In effect their 150 point characters will always be at 150 points. I guess if you were doing a lot of flashback ideas you could get them to increase their 150pt characters but they'd have to keep everything below their current level in it.