Right before Leon fights the Salazar/Verdugo/plant creature at the top of the tower, Salazar tells him that the ceremony has been completed on Ashley, which is why she was then sent to Saddler's island. We never find out what this ceremony was about, or how it connected to Las Plagas, but at the start of the boss fight, Salazar remarks to Leon: "I want to make you suffer... Just like Ashley did!" What do you think happened in the tower? Could the Los Illuminados ceremony have some connection to the giant plant in the room? Also, is it possible that this ceremony and Saddler's later cryogenic experiment with Ashley are related?

Wow, good point. I never really thought about it but yeah he did mention that the ritual was over. I'm going to say that its just a plot hole that they just added to sound cool, I don't expect there to be a practical answer to this.

Ummmm....can someone answer this? Cause now I'm confused.

I don't know what to say dude

Great questions , with no answers

I believe it was the preperations of the virus being injected, rather awakened. Hence after this took place, Saddler was able to control her mind and take over her body. There are some holes around this statement, but it's the best I could think of that makes somewhat logical sense. After all, even the official storyline has many holes. However, it could have been something different, remember the cave on the way to the Mendez fight? Where a ritual would take place? Well when you play as Ada, they were about to axe her. To the hell if something of that nature was completed on Ashley, she'd have been in pieces. I guess it was a different ritual from that one then...? But what? I still say it was the final steps of awakening her virus. While the others would turn into them quickly, Ashley's was readied to go off or be controled (possibly not a time thing, but a switch that Saddler could control) when she returned home to the USA, to her Father the President.

...

Well that was clearly outlined in their plan. They planned on taking the ransom money and hand Ashley back so she could infect the US government which would basically give them the most power in the world.

Ok. That's what I originally got from the story line and Ashley's "Ritual completion" statement but with the way he asked the question I was thinking I missed out on a much bigger picture.

(( Hm... better not knowing. I've never payed attention on his words. I thought the last word Salazar said was "will" and not "did". I'm messed up now... I'll have to think about it. ))