Categorical slots useage

Hello, I am wondering if someone can shed some extra light on categorical slots (and possibly slots in general).

The examples I’ve seen in the docs and other places show categorical slots places in stories after the intent where the slot is set. While I am using it in that way I also would like to use it like a check in different stories after that. The reason being the project I’m working on has about 100+ topics that have branches of dialogue with similar subheadings so I want to say * getHelp - slot{“topic”: “topic42”} - utter_topic42_getHelp

and other larger stories stemming from points like that. Most of which follow a similar ‘next’ button approach to show more of the content.

So question 1. Is that the correct way to use categorical slots in stories in places where the slot isn’t set from button/intent, but it already exists?

question 2. I’ve heard that AugmentedMemoization works well but I believe I’ve seen that it ignores slots. If I need to guarantee a path (since content needs to be in order and correct) should I indeed be using memoization? or is there a way to use augmented here, some tweak perhaps?

Thanks in advance for any info someone can provide!