RED Network

Already the home of far-right talking heads with a questionable relation to actual news, under Pentex’s direction it’s gotten worse. The RED Network uses questionable legal victories to generate heavily spun “news” broadcasts, generating bogus headlines from nothing at all. Their viewers, enthralled by the talking heads, embrace the network’s sound bites as ideological truths, and push them on their neighbors and children. Those same kids grow up inured to hatred and discrimination, caught in the same cycles as everyone else. Their hopes are ground in the gears and the Wyrm’s taint corrodes the heart of the machine that powers a country. Political factions turn on each other and their voters. All the while, the true puppet masters watch their marionettes dance on strings of their own devising. Pentex counts its true profits not just in terms of monetary gain, but also in the roads to Hell people pave with intentions both good and bad.

Mega Cage With the Mega Cage, RED Network takes advantage of Pentex’s private prison network to stage vicious noholds barred cage fights between inmates and broadcasts them pay-per-view. Several anti-violence and civil liberties groups have strongly protested the practice but RED Network has so far benefited from the free publicity — in no small part by ensuring its own news channels provide selective and skewed coverage of the protest campaigns. The protests give Mega Cage the perfect opportunity to unleash well-respected (and well-paid) mental health experts who provide opinion on how fights provide much needed relief to prisoners, and how the controlled and sanctioned bouts correlate with a decrease in random prison violence. Whistle-blower statements attribute the decreases to under-reporting and that, in truth, the prison environment has worsened since the advent of Mega Cage. These anonymous claims remain unverified and denied. Participation in Mega Cage is strictly voluntary — but prison administrators have many ways to coerce participation, especially if the inmate is notorious. Troublemakers also find themselves with little choice but to ‘volunteer’ — they soon learn to fall in line if they want to survive. Despite the controversy — or because of it — Mega Cage is a financial and ratings success. That some of the more successful fighters prove themselves suitable for First Team recruitment is an added bonus.

Reference
W20 Book of the Wyrm p. 37, 190