Get Aranea to become a follower after creating the Black Star

Question

I want Aranea as a follower, but unfortunately I finished "the black star" quest with the other NPC, so she won't speak to me anymore. I now tried to get her as a follower by using console commands, but she still has no dialog options. What I did:

Prid 00028AD1      (to select her)
addfac 5C84D 1     (to add her to potentialfollowerfaction)
setav confidence 3 (to be allied with her)

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? I really want her as follower, but I dont know how to achieve that.

Answer 1

Try this, it worked for me. Reset Azura's quest using this:

resetquest da01intro          to start intro       (could be unnecessary maybe)
setstage da01intro 100        to finish            (could be unnecessary maybe)
resetquest da01               to restart the black star quest

this will make aranea talk to you again, then:

setstage da01 100         to finish the quest the way aranea like

then she's still in low relationship with you because she keep the values as before, so pick her RID clicking on her in console mode or using prid 00028ad1 and then use:

addfac 5c84d 1                        so she become a follower   
setrelationshiprank player 3          so she likes you again

if you talk to her now she should follow you! Hope this works for you too.

Answer 2

The console command might not work because the game tracks the quest outcome. You could try resetting the quest stage, but it might not work.

If through a normal play through there is a bug that you can try to exploit. I was only able to get it once. But I had already decided to side with Aranea.

If you are killed by a Dremora while in Azura's Star, after killing Malyn Varen, you might spawn at your last save with both the repaired Star and the broken Star in your inventory.

Although if you are using the console in any case, you might want to finish the quest in Aranea and Azura's favor and console yourself the Black Star.