For over 900 years, the universe known as the World of Progress has been ruled by SLA Industries (SLA is pronounced "Slay", not "Ess-Ell-Ay"). Keeping a close check on growth and expansion, the vast corporation oversees the gigantic open market. All possible goods are produced by SLA Industries, from food and housing to guns, drugs and luxury toys. Its customers are the planets and societies of the World of Progress, and its sole owner is the immortal company director, Mr. Slayer. Free thought is discouraged, information is suppressed and curiosity is not a survival trait. SLA Industries has a lot of skeletons in its past, and Mr. Slayer would like them to stay there.

Before the birth of SLA Industries and the World of Progress, the known universe seemed to have been at war forever. Countless races fought constantly for supremacy in a mad sea of battles that has come to be known as the Conflict Wars. Slayer appeared in the known universe with a small retinue of colleagues. Wearing a smart business suit and walking with measured grace, he was a sharp contrast to the lumbering warriors in powered armour who inhabited the planets he visited. Slayer had something unique to offerÐa range of weapons and armour far superior to anything in existence. SLA Industries was founded with the billions that he made, billions that were sunk into biogenetic research. Slayer's scientists finally created living biogenetic beings, and the resulting warriors, called 313 Stormers, were sold all over the known universe as shock troops.

The company director talked continually about "The Big Picture", his vision of the future, but the plans were kept secret while sales of Stormers made SLA Industries the largest corporation in existence. Finally, The Big Picture was unveiled; all across the known universe, Stormers turned on their owners and slaughtered them, SLA weaponry ceased working, and SLA armour fell to pieces. Very few races survived. Those that did were offered the choice of selling their planets to Slayer and receiving the support of SLA Industries as part of the World of Progress, or of being left to die. Some planets refused, but the vast majority did not. Slayer marked the beginning of the World of Progress by restarting the calendar at 0 SD (Standard Date). Nine hundred years later, Mr. Slayer still rules SLA Industries, and SLA Industries still rules the World of Progress.

The capital of the World of Progress is Mort City on the planet Mort, a roughly circular sprawl some two thousand kilometres in diameter. The planet Mort is similarly vast; the city is all but lost in its expanses. It is also totally dead; pollution killed all natural life long ago. The same pollution also destroyed the atmospheric system. The planet is always wrapped in thick, black clouds. On Mort, the rain never stops.

Mort is the black jewel in the tarnished crown known as the World of Progress. A city where serial killing and prime-time carnage are two of the best career options. The heart of the SLA Industries.

Mr. Slayer's office building dominates SLA corporate HQ, set in the gleaming splendour of the district known as Central. Only SLA's corporate employees and Operatives can be found here. Elsewhere, the grimy civilians walk nervously through the revolting, labyrinthine streets of Downtown and the nightmarish spaces beneath. Outside the city lurk the hellish Cannibal Sectors, terrifying areas of devastation packed with deadly, loathsome inhabitants.

The capital of SLA Industries' is resplendent in its decaying glory, a planet where a frantic struggle to survive is the only way of life. Life is cheap here; knowledge may cost you more than you can possibly imagine.