What bugs me is that neither of my damned apprentices can wear hats. It's bad enough that, as a Twi'lek, I am damned to a lack of awesome hoods and Sith masks for all eternity, but to give me not one, but TWO companions who suffer the same fate is just a low blow.

 

Also, yeah, I'm not terribly fond of Ashara. I thought she was awesome at first, but I really got sick of her delusions (and the fact that there are practically no companion gifts she likes if you're female).

 

It's too bad Xalek wasn't more interesting. A quiet, tough-guy type is fine for a background character, but compared to every other companion I've encountered, he's just so flat. The way you get to know your companions and their stories is talking to them, and "talking" is explicitly listed as something Xalek dislikes.

 

So, as a Sith Inquisitor I am forever stuck with Silent Sam and Moaning Myrtle for apprentices, neither of which, I might add, can wear hats.

Look at the bright side. At least you didn't marry her.

We need more Risha and Kaliyo.

Ugh, I disliked both of them.

 

We need more Akaavi and Kira.

My very first character was a Sith Inquisitor (sorceress). And when I got her, I though Ashara would make a good romance option. But no, same-gender romances were not something EAWare was going to put into the game.

.

 

My disagreement of your assessment of Ashara aside, doesn't Makeb have a possible lesbian/bisexual romance arch? I know my male char was given the opportunity to take things a little past a professional relationship with the Sith Pureblood and his ridiculous twisted chin spike thing. That facial model is the bane of OCD people everywhere >.>

 

Er right. Makeb has new romance options if you haven't tried it out.

 

We need more Akaavi and Kira.

 

I would trade Ashara for either without a second thought. If either got too uppity, it's nothing a slave collar wouldn't fix. Ashara...I wouldn't waste a good slave collar on.

This is the problem of Iquisitor's story. You are supposed to be the "machinator", but instead you get being manipulated in every single act, by Zash, by Thanaton, by others... And you can't even turn the lowly Padawan to the dark side. For me that's where the inquisitors story failed most.

 

Now look at the sith warrior. He is the master of manipulation. First you turn one of the Jedi Master dark... Even if you choose light side option, like saving Jaessa parents (which I did on my 2nd warrior) you do it to manipulate her. When you meet two Jedis at end of Act 1, you turn one of them dark side. Then on Belsavis you can trick the Jedi to kill unarmed opponent and break his code. That is what I wanted my inquisitor to do.... But I couldn't twist minds of opponents and allies, until I rolled warrior.

 

And yes, Ashara is boring. She is on the Sith ship, serves member of Dark Council, and still believes she is Jedi. Hogwash, my dark side sorceress would just make sure Ashara left the ship... Quite permanently.

Ashara is nice to have around as long as she goes by her random comments. I can re-imagine what happened when she fell to the dark side, as she still calls me "Master" and acts suitably darkside. etc.

 

Her companion mission dialog was the worst ever. I am happy most of that has now faded into distant memory. I don't want to remember any of that.

Ashara is nice to have around as long as she goes by her random comments. I can re-imagine what happened when she fell to the dark side, as she still calls me "Master" and acts suitably darkside. etc.

 

Including those times she says "Don't make me go against my teachings"?

This is the problem of Iquisitor's story. You are supposed to be the "machinator", but instead you get being manipulated in every single act, by Zash, by Thanaton, by others... And you can't even turn the lowly Padawan to the dark side. For me that's where the inquisitors story failed most.

 

Now look at the sith warrior. He is the master of manipulation. First you turn one of the Jedi Master dark... Even if you choose light side option, like saving Jaessa parents (which I did on my 2nd warrior) you do it to manipulate her. When you meet two Jedis at end of Act 1, you turn one of them dark side. Then on Belsavis you can trick the Jedi to kill unarmed opponent and break his code. That is what I wanted my inquisitor to do.... But I couldn't twist minds of opponents and allies, until I rolled warrior.

 

And yes, Ashara is boring. She is on the Sith ship, serves member of Dark Council, and still believes she is Jedi. Hogwash, my dark side sorceress would just make sure Ashara left the ship... Quite permanently.

Noticed that as well. A Sith Warrior, when not played as a "stupid evil" brute shows great potential for twisting people to his will - without intimidation and violence, but by pulling their strings.

 

The Inquisitor didn't seem to have a lot of such moments that really stood out. Ashara recruitment was promising, but BW, apparently, scrapped all possible outcomes but one. I was like, oh, yeah! I'll now study this Padawan and plot ways to manipulate her into a twisted reflection of herself! And everyone here knows what I ended up with.

Ashara is the poster child for the 'Light Side Sith' concept. You can be a Sith without being a bad person; for example, a Sith who genuinely cares about the normal citizens of the Empire.

 

Speaking as a Dark Side Inquisitor who romanced her and has her at max affection (yes, it's possible... and expensive), Ashara suffers a major case of cognitive dissonance during her romance arc. She starts seeing the Jedi as hypocrites at best and cowards at worst, saying things like 'Peace doesn't mean complacency.' She eventually realizes that she has become a Sith at heart, but isn't exactly evil.

 

She is, at most, a good example of the 'Well-Intentioned Extremist' trope. She wouldn't kill a room of younglings for the lulz, but she would if it meant it was for the good of the galaxy long-term. Ashara isn't Dark Sided, no, but she's still most definitely a Sith (or at least a Jedi in name only) by the time her affection is close to maximum. She stops just shy of admitting it, but she eventually embraces the Sith Code - though not necessarily its typical social Darwinian interpretation - and tries to reconcile it with the Jedi Code.

 

In her own words (somewhat paraphrased due to poor memory):

 

I have the peace the Jedi talk about, but also the freedom from the Sith Code. I've never been happier.

Ashara only works if you're ls (I was light 4 by the end of act 3) if you're rolling a ds character, she'd be a lot more interesting wearing a shock collar....ijs

Ashara only works if you're ls (I was light 4 by the end of act 3) if you're rolling a ds character, she'd be a lot more interesting wearing a shock collar....ijs

 

I beg to differ. Ashara was my assassin's prized apprentice (she'd have loved to punt Xalek out the airlock, useless no-brain twit in her mind), and my SI is Dark IV.

 

I suppose it depends on a couple factors: 1) personal tastes and 2) how a character is played/how the player envisions the character. My assassin views Ashara as a personal project, and a display of her cunning and manipulation skills - that she can take a Jedi and shape her to her specific vision. Now for some people this clearly takes a little bit of imagination, but in my honest opinion I think the SI is successful by the end of the companion story in turning Ashara to the Dark Side. One doesn't need to be a murderous raving lunatic to be a DSer.

 

Not to mention Ashara is loyal to the SI (why else would she stay? Learn from the SI? And eventually come to find love or friendship with them?), which, in a world of backstabbing and deceit, to have a consistent ally is a boon rather than a curse. After all, who's to say in a week, month, year... whatever, that Xalek won't try to kill the SI and take his/her Dark Council spot? -shrug-

 

(You hear that BW? Let us kill him later on, plz, we need more to our companion stories )

Ugh, I disliked both of them.

 

We need more Akaavi and Kira.

 

What we really need is more Dr.Lokin and M1-4X, oh how I love those two.

I'm more or less all right with her companion dialogues, but the quest where she decided to join me was horrible. "Oh no, what shall I tell my jedi masters, I have nowhere else to go, you have to take me with you!!!"... I'm sorry, what? My slightly dark-sided inquisitor had no compassion for the stupid girl: why should I care about the problems she created for herself in the first place? Why would I want to help her? She brought me to the spirit, she was useful, I don't want to kill her, she can go. Where will she go and what will she tell her teachers whom she failed - well, that's etirely her problem! It's one thing if I twisted her like the warrior can do with Jaesa, and then took her as an apprentice. But Ashara stays awfully light-sided, more than that, she seems to despise you for being sith, and the first thing she tells you when she comes onboard is "I will work with you, okay, but behave yourself and don't make me go against jedi teachings!". Like she was doing me a favor by coming with me, though in fact it was me who saved her from that silly "oh, where should I go now?!". I wish I could throw her out that very moment.

I'm not asking for opportunity to kill her. I'm not even asking to be able to corrupt her. But hell, I do not want this whining jedi-ish girl aboard my ship. Even Skadge wasn't that terrible with his "Take me along, or I kill you and steal your ship!".

Edited July 27, 2013 by Yria

So after a year off I decided to come back and play through the sith inquisitor story, having done the sith warrior story a year before. IMHO, Ashara's whole story was bad. REAL bad. Why did she even listen to me to begin with? Then after I killed the jedi she just goes, "oh ok... I guess I'll just call that ghost you wanted to chat with" HUH??

 

Jaesa's recruitment on the other hand felt epic. Having her fight me and make her give into her emotions.

 

As a Sith, I wouldn't tolerate her at all. Wish I could get a collar like Vette had and shock her every time she spews Jedi crap.

I will say that Ashara joining the Inquisitor wasn't presented in a way that even began to make sense, which is too bad... but I love her as the apprentice of a LS Inquisitor, and even take her everywhere with me (although this is in part because her gift system is broken for female PCs, so I can only gain significant amounts of affection via the story). Unless... blast, unless I run out of story to do to gain affection with her and am forced to spam high-level gifts for marginal affection gain and lose all my money through that...

I beg to differ. Ashara was my assassin's prized apprentice (she'd have loved to punt Xalek out the airlock, useless no-brain twit in her mind), and my SI is Dark IV.

 

I suppose it depends on a couple factors: 1) personal tastes and 2) how a character is played/how the player envisions the character. My assassin views Ashara as a personal project, and a display of her cunning and manipulation skills - that she can take a Jedi and shape her to her specific vision. Now for some people this clearly takes a little bit of imagination, but in my honest opinion I think the SI is successful by the end of the companion story in turning Ashara to the Dark Side. One doesn't need to be a murderous raving lunatic to be a DSer.

 

Not to mention Ashara is loyal to the SI (why else would she stay? Learn from the SI? And eventually come to find love or friendship with them?), which, in a world of backstabbing and deceit, to have a consistent ally is a boon rather than a curse. After all, who's to say in a week, month, year... whatever, that Xalek won't try to kill the SI and take his/her Dark Council spot? -shrug-

 

(You hear that BW? Let us kill him later on, plz, we need more to our companion stories )

 

That's True, but imho I still say my LS SI (who's light V btw) fits perfectly with Ashara, but my DS assassin just wants to tie her to the front of my ship as a hood ornament. He's a homicidal maniac & psychopathic kitty killer. He's Michael Myers, Freddy, Jason, & The Emperor all rolled into one. His goal in life is to learn the ritual the emperor used to destroy & consume an entire planet. There's no reason for her to even be on my ship.....she NEEDS two modes like Jessa (and I ABSOLUTELY love her ds version btw)

Ashara not being like DS Jaessa was okay with me, don't get me wrong, DS Jaessa is my favorite companion so far, but, I wouldn't want "Orange Jaessa with horns" for my Inquisitor, I like variety. But the problem is, she doesn't make sense, she's not even an LS Sith, she still refers to herself as a Jedi. I can find no reason for this person to be on my ship. If only I could have thrown Zash in her body, and romanced her....

If only I could have thrown Zash in her body, and romanced her....

 

I like THIS idea too!

I don't know what some of you are talking about, there was a few instances where a Dark Side choice in a conversation got major points for her, she isn't full on boy-scout-bend-over-backwards-to-save-random-strangers-open-palm flavor of Jedi, but then again I didn't pick every Dark Side option that ever came up

I will say that Ashara joining the Inquisitor wasn't presented in a way that even began to make sense, which is too bad... but I love her as the apprentice of a LS Inquisitor, and even take her everywhere with me (although this is in part because her gift system is broken for female PCs, so I can only gain significant amounts of affection via the story). Unless... blast, unless I run out of story to do to gain affection with her and am forced to spam high-level gifts for marginal affection gain and lose all my money through that...

 

you could also run the old Belsavis dailies, the conversations there give affection.

I don't know what some of you are talking about, there was a few instances where a Dark Side choice in a conversation got major points for her, she isn't full on boy-scout-bend-over-backwards-to-save-random-strangers-open-palm flavor of Jedi, but then again I didn't pick every Dark Side option that ever came up

 

I remember you can get affection with her for helping recover data from the Republics alien experiments on Belsavis. This lead to a joke amongst me and my friends "Ashara: A Jedi with a passing interest in eugenics." But seriously, almost every character is designed to have something of a personality, rather then just mindlessly liking LS or DS choices. Even Vette will occassionally support killing in cold blood.

Edited January 31, 2014 by LordGarmaZabi

There are other companions for other force users you can't turn either.

 

Lord Scourge is a good example. He stays Dark and you can't really build affection with him without being DS yourself (besides gifts, obviously. Talking through conversations here) and if you play LS it feels that he doesn't belong on your ship either.

There are other companions for other force users you can't turn either.

 

Lord Scourge is a good example. He stays Dark and you can't really build affection with him without being DS yourself (besides gifts, obviously. Talking through conversations here) and if you play LS it feels that he doesn't belong on your ship either.

 

I haven't done the story for the Jedi Knight, but doesn't Scourge have a large stake in the Knight completing his mission, seeing as he wants to

?

 

Ashara, on the other hand, doesn't have that.

I haven't done the story for the Jedi Knight, but doesn't Scourge have a large stake in the Knight completing his mission, seeing as he wants to

kill the Emperor

?

 

Ashara, on the other hand, doesn't have that.

 

Yes, he does do that. But even in your final conversation with him

 

 

Am I missing something? Seems to me my Ashara ended up acknowledging the Sith code and breaking some of the key tenants of the jedi order.

 

She might not admit it to herself, but she be Sith at the conclusion of her story.

 

- Arcada