I think it depends on your dialogue with her in the past and how well she trusts you, but I also think she only dies if you use the renegade interrupt option.
On my renegade playthrough I did the intimate option and seemed to resolve the situation, the only renegade interrupt that popped up was the one for Uldina
edit: adding to this, on my first playthrough, i broke off romance with her and i think i picked all Renegade dialogue options when talking to her. but doing some of the things mentioned in the link should help lower the Reputation check (at least if it works the way i think it does).
Honestly I kept Ashley alive just cause... I dunno. Female... whatever.
But then I played through again with Kaiden, and the specific thing that made me say im keeping him alive forever was him and James sitting at the Poker table. Good god, I was wondering why the hell that thing was even there the entire time cause nobody ever used it, I was waiting until the end of the game (before I knew of the ending) to see if they'll all be gathered around it celebrating for the victory over the Reapers and whatnot...
Well of course when that ending happened, I was extremely upset that the table went to complete waste (yeah, my biggest concern with the ending was that poker table). But seeing Kaiden and James sittin there talking at some point, that made me love Kaiden more.
Blandest character ever in Mass Effect instantly got better just for sitting at that table with James.
It does make me sad that I couldn't join them on the poker games. It could have been a quick mini-game just for kicks; shooting the shit with my crew around the table, so much fun could have been had.
Yeah unfortunately his personality still doesn't improve, I don't know if thats the voice acting or just the character in general, but everytime he talks, everything that ever existed just suddenly becomes bland and depressing... Ash at least has an okayish backstory with her family to have whinge about occasionally, but she never socialised with any of the crew like the rest did with each other. It's implied she has a drink (or 9) with James, hence why he's apparently cooking her breakfast, but she's never in the same room as anybody conversing with them. Kaiden's boring, but he at least does stuff, so I give him credit for that.
He'll never be worthy of my Shepard though, female or male... that was also a surprise that he could be romanced as Male Shepard, but not surprising that he could... if that makes sense... he seemed gay the whole time? Kinda?
Heh, on that note, I started again from ME1, and im having difficulty saying no to Tali for the ME2 romance. I wanna give Jack a go, but Tali... ;_; Ohhh she continuously makes me sad if I even try to say no.
In reply to Brownee, #13428: I guess the devs thought "we need to make this character more interesting because some people might not want to put their dick in a racist again."
In reply to Chi_Mangetsu, #13434: And incur her wrath?! ARE YOU A FOOL?!
Not a racist. Logically cautious and distrustful given who her grandfather was. Seriously, why are people so incapable of understanding shades of grey?
Still have trouble seeing why Ashley's seen as exceedingly racist. Worst thing I remember her asking was why non-Alliance aliens had access to Normandy technology, and that the Council probably wouldn't help us unless their backs were against the wall.(which turned out to be true throughout every game)
Guess I don't see her attitude as any less justifiable as Tali hating the Geth in the beginning or, Wrex disliking Turians and Rachni.
Hey, you have your interpretation of the character, I have mine. I get that she's suspicious and not outright racist, but it's just funnier to say she's a racist.
Not a racist. Logically cautious and distrustful given who her grandfather was. Seriously, why are people so incapable of understanding shades of grey?
It's a lot worse depending on whether or not Bioware actually understands military ranks. She's at least one rank too high for her experience and job duties (probably two ranks too high), enlisted transfer requests get denied extremely often for no given reason, and she constantly talks back to superior officers. That severely weakens her argument of being held back because of her grandfather's actions.
Granted, I would lean towards the "Bioware chose random rank names because they sounded neat" theory.
and she constantly talks back to superior officers. That severely weakens her argument of being held back because of her grandfather's actions.
Don't forget borderline insubordination. On Virmire she panicked and decided to arm the drive core bomb prematurely with no order to do so. I wanted to see her court-martialled for that.
"Oh shit, Geth! Time to Nuke the base with everyone still inside it!!"
So I unlocked Geth Infiltrator last night. HO. LEE. SHEET. This is the class I've been waiting for. I run around with the Widow II and just become Legion. I don't even use proximity mine. Just stay in hunter mode, turn invisible, ravage. Wash, rinse, repeat. Oh, and I named it Jack after the loveable robot companion from Gears.
Probably why in Mass Effect 1 when Ash told me that I decided to save Kaiden, who I hadn't used at all the entire game and suddenly decided I liked him more. If only the dialogue allowed me to say "Ash, you're a moron, may the nuke vaporize all of your atoms so nothing in this galaxy is ever affected by you again."
