Edmund Talbot was a reenactor prior to The Fall, living his life mostly as if he were a swordsmith in the Middle Ages or the Renaissance. Edmund was known by nearly everyone in the reenactor community, to the extent that the town of Raven's Mill spontaneously sprang up around his (period) house. After The Fall, Edmund has both the skills and the equipment to survive in a pre-industrial world, and to help others to survive as well. He may well have been the only person left in the world who actually knew anything about leading troops on a sword-and-shield battlefield.