Reed Tobson is the outpost administrator for the town of Edgewater.
Background[]
About two years before the events of the game, there was a shortage of saltuna in the area, leading to "supplements" being added to the canning process such as wood chips and canine meat as according to Reed, no one noticed a difference in taste. As a result, many in the town fell ill with the plague, while Reed championed that the key to healing was to work harder. Despite the very obvious connection between the two, Reed cannot seem to fathom that the new canning process directly led to the plague, and simply shrugs off the town's illness as a "fact of life".
As a result of this, sometime before the events of the game, Adelaide McDevitt's son fell ill with the plague and eventually died as Reed felt medical treatment would be wasted on him. This caused Adelaide, and many others to defect to the Botanical Labs, putting Edgewater in an even worse state of affairs as it lost a sizable portion of its workers.
Tobson is not malicious in the traditional sense, and generally has a positive, upbeat attitude about life in Edgewater. Due to being a Spacer's Choice executive, he is bound by the rules they set in place, which involve producing products as cheaply as possible. Despite his executive position, he knows next to nothing about the cannery's production process, and is ignorant of even the most basic needs of his workers. His belief that workers can survive on nothing but saltuna, and his introduction of wood-chips and mushrooms to the production process is responsible for the "plague" currently infesting Edgewater. The foreign material is also responsible for the cannery's frequent malfunctions, as it is not set up to process anything other than saltuna. He has so little understanding of how health works, he believes in "the four humors".
Overall, despite his incompetence, his outlook on life is highly altruistic. He is more concerned for the health of Edgewater as a community than he is for his own life. He holds no ill-will towards any of the Deserters, asking the Stranger to attempt to make amends with them before cutting off their power. When it is made clear to him that Adelaide McDevitt has managed to find a "cure" for the plague, and that, moreover, she is capable of producing enough food for the town, he willingly steps down and agrees to leave, despite knowing that he will almost certainly be dead outside the walls within a week.
Player Interactions[]
| Available interactions with Reed Tobson | |
|---|---|
| Companion | Conversation |
| ✘ | ✓ |
| Quests | Merchant |
| ✓ | ✘ |
Related Quests[]
- Stranger in a Strange Land: Speaking to Reed allows the Stranger to learn that the botanical labs contain a power regulator which can be used to fix the Unreliable.
- Comes Now the Power: Reed gives the Stranger this quest, asking them to travel to the area's Geothermal Power Plant and redirect power from the Botanical Labs to the cannery. He asks that the deserters at the botanical labs are first warned about this, to give them a chance of returning to Edgewater peacefully. He also allows Parvati to accompany the player character if they would like her assistance.