Ashara Zavros and Thana Vesh

[Biggrouse]

I haven't played a female Inq, but is that not what they get in Andronikos?

 

andronikos does take pleasure in causing trouble, killing ppl, etc, but he does have at least some morals. for one, you're going to lose A LOT of affection with him if you betray anyone loyal to you. i've also found that andronikos doesn't seem to like it when i needlessly torture people, not sure if this is consistent or not.

[Harwel]

do you actually use ashara, or just nod her off as being a pure light side companion?

 

Oh, to answer this question, I actually use her and over 8k affection with her (gifts ftw). I'm only 41 and still about mid-Hoth. The idea is to show her Sith "aren't all bad" by doing some nice things here or there that are actually more pragmatic than nice.

 

My Assassin has many masks, and he chooses to show different companions different masks to keep them dancing like little puppets for him.

 

Also I don't see her as a pure light side companion. She's a grey Jedi who has been rejected by her own order by now. I'm just working on darkening that shade of grey.

Edited January 31, 2012 by Harwel

[SithZigg]

I completely agree with the OP, and I myself have stated the very same thing.

[Cherokeewill]

I liked Thana as well but in the end I had to take her out. Maybe if she hadn't been such a tease in the prison cell she would have survived. I mean the ingratitude of letting her out and then being told she'd rather make it with a nerf. Really? (At least that was the subtext... )

 

There have been many NPCs I've met along the way that I'd love to have as companions, even RATHER have as companions. Thana might slit my throat while I slept but Andronikus only seems loyal to Zash and I'm not sure how I fell about that. (I can't bring myself to gift him or run with him at this point so I don't know his story)

[Nikolu]

Ashara is a principled character, who doesn't like wanton slaughter, cruelty or malicious actions. That makes her unique amongst your companions. She is the polar opposite of the Jedi Knight companion Lord Scourge, yet I don't see any light side RPers complaining you can't turn him to the light, for romance.

 

What makes her interesting, is the fact you HAVE to decieve her if you want to be dark side and romance her. You have to mask your true nature and/or buy her affection. If you could simply turn her whole moral system upside down, it would make her whole story arc pointless. 'Pimpnosis' is a lot less impressive IMO.

 

Amongst the beta testers, there was quite a lot of suppport to have

be the SI's dark side romance option. Her moral code is already pretty out of whack, and as a bonus her dialogue would barely need to be changed as most of the voice work is already in place.

 

TLDR

Ashara Zavros would be a lame dark side romance. Plus she would need more voice work to make it plausable. She is unique as she is.

Thana Vesh would be a much more suitable dark side companion, most of the voice work is already in game. She gives dark side Jaessa a run for her money in pure evilness.

 

Mechanically you can romance Ashara and kill peoples it just takes a little longer because you occasionally have a negative rep gain with her, I did, I have 10,000 rep with her and never picked a light side choice.

 

There are plenty of non alignment affecting conversation points that gain rep. She responds with large rep gains from gifts as well. So in game terms I have no issues with her companion affection progression.

 

In terms of its story, well I'm a big liar and I wanted to kill Jedi and used Ashara to do it, then continuing that deception made me a powerful ally. Whats not to like?

[LordbishopX]

They should have added Thana as a companion a chance to wax that ds arse is why I left her alive I loved the interaction and arrogance taming of the shrew is what came to mind. Sith warriors story destroys ours in the romance department we got the short end of the writers stick fo sure.

 

I swear if the developers had even a clue they would have pared a sin with a healing sorc companion and the sorc with a warrior tank apprentice. Its like they really didn't think this out at all.

Edited February 1, 2012 by LordbishopX

[Maximum_Aaron]

Letting Thana live was one of the absolute first light side options I chose. I just couldn't bring myself to kill someone so deliciously evil.

[Advocatis]

Arriving on planet, I somehow missed the welcome quest line that introduced me to Thana. I met her after completing the class quest and coming back to the spaceport looking for the bonus quest line.

 

After working the first two events with her, I played out the whole string just in the hope I would be offered the chance to take her head. She would never have survived the reactor room if I had control of the story line.

[Darne]

Sith warriors story destroys ours in the romance department we got the short end of the writers stick fo sure.

 

I have a light-side Mara and a dark-side Sin, and severely I disagree with that statement. The reason is as follows. With my DS Sin, if I really wanted to, I could get gifts for Ashara to cancel out my DS dialogue choices. There is no permanent alignment for Ashara so to speak as there is with Jaesa.

 

For those not familiar with Jaesa and without giving too much away, there comes a point in the story arc where you either convert her to the dark side or let her think you are trying to take the sith down from within (LS). The dialogue choices for establishing whether Jaesa (not your toon, but Jaesa) is LS or DS is vague and poorly defined - with different people saying they get different outcomes with similar choices. There are several threads about this in the SW forums. That being said, if you make Jaesa LS (regardless of your alignment) you can never romance her ever again. It's locked in. No amount of gifts or flirting or doing her side missions or anything, will ever make her romance-able. There is no warning about this either and people in other threads point out that even from a lore perspective it doesn't make any sense as full fledged LS Jedis can romance which go directly against the Jedi code.

 

Not to hijack the thread or anything, so back on topic. In that regard, I guess I am spoiled. I don't mind having to send companions away on missions to get gifts or to buy gifts because if I wanted to, I still have the option to. That's the whole point of gifts. It's to make it possible to romance whoever you want, with whatever alignment you want. It just might take longer, but it's possible. That option was taken away from my Mara with nothing I can do about it.

 

As for Thana, which I guess is the real topic of the this thread , I think she would make a great cross-class companion for anyone that wants to pick her up and should definitely be considered for expansions or whatever. I'm trying to think here, and there is no other NPC that stands out as much as her. There isn't even a light-side counter part to her I don't think on any of the other planets.

[Sulvan]

Yeah the inquisitor is like the only class that cant marry their companion and is not all that good once i get Xalek ashara can stay in here place in the back of my ship.

[MasterRequiem]

I totally support this idea. But we all know Bioware won't do **** about it.

[EeuwigLijden]

I definitely think that Thana should be both a universal Empire companion and romancable. Especially considering that Ashara is a extremely poor option for a DS Male Sith Inquistor, you either have to shower her with gifts or repeat dialog a dozen times to find the words she likes to get her to like you, neither of which should EVER be necessary for any companion, let alone a romance option.

 

As for those complaining that Thana is just too much of an arrogant stupid evil blind rage loose cannon, that's an easy enough fix. Merely have Thana's companion arc be about teaching her to focus her anger and use her head, that would provide plently of material for both a companion plot and romancing.

Edited July 16, 2012 by EeuwigLijden

[ratty]

I'm all for Thana being a companion for Empire classes, though I feel it seems more appropriate for the Sith Warrior and Sith Inquisitor. It would be annoying if they did this because I killed her in both my Sith Inquisitor and Sith Warrior stories because I knew she wasn't a permanent companion.

 

However, for all companions there should be a greater chance to be able to influence them otherwise they wouldn't be your companions and wouldn't hang around with you.

 

For my Sith Assassin, Ashara is less an apprentice and more a tool and symbol who will be corrupted and used to serve the purpose of showing off an ex-Jedi who has turned to the Sith and given up her Jedi ways. I'm not saying there needs to be a complete overhaul of personality to the extreme of Jaesa but if she embraced her emotions a bit more, embraced the dark side just a bit more and admitted she really is no longer a Jedi but a Sith then that doesn't have to alter her drastically but it would show that with all the time she's spent with my SIth Inquisitor and the fact that she sees him as her master that she has been influenced by my DS Assassin who isn't about killing for the sake of killing (although that can be fun) but manipulating and power playing until he's the one running the Empire and all of the Sith.

[NgeneR]

At the end of the Ashara conversations, you get the opportunity to discuss Sith philosophy with her--at least briefly. She

goes to a Jedi master to get instruction and is rejected, but he refuses to talk to her about it or even defend his position. You, as her master, get the chance to say, "So what you are saying is that Peace is a lie." And she agrees.

This may only work if you are LS. Basically, she admits that the Sith code is right, which in my book makes her corrupted to Sith.

[Fireswraith]

Sith Inquisitors definitely need a Jaesa companion, Ashara is pretty lame. At BEST she is slightly lighter than gray. Thana would be a nice DS companion, but unfortunately that couldn't work out due to conflicting Dark Side choices during the end of Taris' planetary story.

[E-Zekiel]

And then she is surpassed by the truly evil Xalek, who has greater potential. Plus, like Vette... you can abuse her as much as you want, don't expect a romance to blossom. Women don't generally appreciate being downtrodden or abused, and art mirrors life.

 

I don't think I know everything.

 

They are both your apprentices. Why are you under the impression that Sith are ONE APPRENTICE ONLY during the Old Republic? Cause they're not. They only work that way under the rule of Two, which is not currently in effect.

[ratty]

At the end of the Ashara conversations, you get the opportunity to discuss Sith philosophy with her--at least briefly. She

goes to a Jedi master to get instruction and is rejected, but he refuses to talk to her about it or even defend his position. You, as her master, get the chance to say, "So what you are saying is that Peace is a lie." And she agrees.

This may only work if you are LS. Basically, she admits that the Sith code is right, which in my book makes her corrupted to Sith.

 

I'm playing DS and I got that conversation too. For that specific moment it seems like she may have changed but for all the other times you're taking her with you as your companion her personality still remians very much unchanged. It feels like more a momentary lapse rather than actually being corrupted. She still acts like a Jedi and denies being Sith rather than acting like she's changed due to that revelation.

 

Once you've unlocked these types of conversations and completed them, maybe BW should have some sort of companion update that reflects a change in personality so that companions do act/behave differently to reflect their changing views. It's just that Ashara still acts like she's part of the Jedi even after you have that conversation. In the same way DS Jaesa suddenly appears in your ship looking different and with a different personality to the Jaesa that existed before having embraced the DS but with Ashara there really is no change in personality/appearance/behaviour to reflect the times when Ashara seems to be taking a different viewpoint on things from having such conversations.

 

I certainly don't want to see Ashara become DS Jaesa but I'd like to feel that there is a lasting change from the influence/conversations/time spent together and Ashara learning from my Assassin that ahs happened since getting her as a Companion.

[Achromatis]

Firstly, Id love to see Thana become an Empire-wide companion.

 

Secondly, Im sure Bioware will make new companions and probably even have them a bit like Jaesa where you can turn them light or dark(hopefully a bit more eloquently). But Im 99% sure they wont ever change any existing companions, unless they add on to their stories - which I also dont see ever happening.