Adelaide and the Future of the Vale (and how Edgewater isn’t the Golden Path)
CAUTION: SPOILERS
One of the primary first choices that the Stranger is faced with in the Vale is the decision between Edgewater and the Botanical Labs. At first glance it seems like it’s a decision between a society where people are commodities of a corporation, and an alternative where people live their own lives free of Spacer’s Choice, but the feelings expressed by Adelaide at the conclusion of that story seem to muddy the waters for some players. Some have expressed that they think siding with her is wrong simply on account of how they interpret their character; I’ve even read some people express contempt for Adelaide because of her anger towards Reed and the system that he upholds, which I honestly don’t understand given the sheer gravity of her loss. I’ve read some even paint her as malevolent, which I don’t think is accurate (compare Adelaide simply chastising you for destroying the society she tried to build with Reed having armed guards read to murder you if you try to seize the regulator for your ship unless you intimidate him into standing down). The choice between Edgewater and the Botanical Labs is one which some players think is somewhat mitigated by another choice to supplant the leadership of Reed in Edgewater with Adelaide, but I don’t think it’s the golden path that some presume it to be (there are some Outer World videos that exalt it as if it’s the optimal option out of the possible avenues you can pursue).
Adelaide taking over Edgewater leads to the same situation that Adelaide staying in power at the Botanical Labs does - she doesn’t allow people who support Reed and his corporate system to be part of the society that she governs. It’s debatable which choice leads to the loss of more life because only one of the Epilogues explicitly addresses it (the Botanical Labs) while the other focuses, instead, on the demise of Reed in the Vale and simply mentions that Adelaide expelled the people who believed in Reed and his corporate-minded system (which is fundamentally the same as refusing them entry into the Botanical Labs). There really isn’t a metric to determine which one of these two outcomes leads to the loss of more life, and given how Adelaide has the same mindset with both decisions, I don’t think it’s as dramatically different as some interpret it to be.
Regarding Adelaide, I don’t think she’s the monster that some paint her out to be. She’s a flawed person, but people are basically flawed; no one is perfect. Also, her desire to prevent her society (whether it’s the Botanical Labs or Edgewater under her leadership) from turning into another corporate-run economy is understandable, despite how some players see her as the villain for it. When you speak with the denizens of Edgewater, it’s clear that they are deeply conditioned into thinking that their productivity determines their worth as a person. A recent suicide is simply viewed through the lens of how much that person was worth as a worker - not as a person. So Adelaide’s opposition to this mindset (and the people who espouse it) is understandable, whether or not you agree with her choices as a leader.
Given how people are basically conditioned since birth into thinking that their lives should revolve around Spacer’s Choice (even Parvati doesn’t seem to get what you’re talking about when you speak about how ‘monstrous’ it was for her mother to be forced to give Parvati up to a corporation), the loss of her child - someone she clearly loved - is a reasonable explanation as to why Adelaide is so strongly opposed to the system that so many denizens are conditioned into. When you bring this up with Reed, he doesn’t frame her son as a person - instead, you listen to him refer to Adelaide’s son as a worker who was “barely competent” in his eyes (and given the cruel things he has said to Parvati, of all people, I’d question Reed’s ability to properly gauge anyone’s worth or their competency as a worker).
Choices like this aren’t binary, despite how none of the outcomes are optimal for everyone, and decisions like these are subjective, particularly depending on the type of character you are playing as. I’d simply say that when it comes to thinking about the outcomes for these choices, I don’t see giving the power to Edgewater as being inherently better than the Botanical Labs when Adelaide governs both the same way (and I suppose one could debate whether the pop-up from the Edgewater sign you can read in your quarters suggests a dim mindset for the Deserters who were forced to return to Edgewater, but that’s another matter entirely).