The theory is that the game will be set in a different galaxy, but unlike Ark theory, the relocation is via an uncontrolled event, rather than calculated planning.
I chose the name based on The Odyssey by Homer. In The Odyssey, at the end of the Trojan war, Odysseus is given a bag of winds. Locked inside is every wind but the west, so the west blows to speed his journey home to Ithaca. However just as he comes into sight of home, some of his crew open the bag thinking he is hiding gold. The winds spill out blowing his ship leagues away leaving him with a ten year journey to get home.
I see the next Mass Effect working along a similar premise. At the end of the Reaper war, a massive burst of energy is released by the crucible. When it hits the mass relay there is an implosion that warps time and space. A number of ships near this implosion, including the protagonist, are sucked in before being released in an unknown region of space...which turns out to be Andromeda.
Although this sounds a bit space magicky, I don't consider it too much to swallow. Real world modern physics speculates that with enough energy, space can in fact be warped. It is actually significantly less to swallow than building a ship to travel there, which I will get to below. At the end of ME3, the cinematic that made the Normandy simply appear on an alien planet actually gave me a similar impression at the time.
The most obvious way I see it working is for the opening cinematic to be based on the united fleets arriving in the Sol system at the end of ME3. This was one of the most uplifting moments of the trilogy and a great place to start the next chapter while tying it to the past. You would be shown the fleet battling valiantly against the Reapers (taking down a couple) before hearing Hacket ordering everyone to withdraw. Your ship would get near the mass relay before getting caught in the implosion. What follows are power surges, explosions, your navigator telling you are not in the Sol system, etc, until finally you are told you and a handful of other ships are, in fact, in Andromeda.
A somewhat similar premise was the basis of literature such as John Birmingham's Axis of Time and Star Trek : Voyager.
Why do you think the game will be set in another galaxy when less than 1% of the milky way has been explored (and much, much less than that in game)?
I don't believe it should be set in another galaxy, and this is all speculative, but there is compelling evidence that supports it. We have seen the video featuring the galaxy map displaying what appeared to be a spiral galaxy, but was nothing like the milky way. We have heard them say we will be surprised just how far we travel. We have heard that they want to give the player the feeling of a stranger in a strange land.
Around 2 Years ago Casey Hudson said this in an interview...
I'll miss the familiarity of going to work every day in a whole galaxy that we created. By the end of the series it had become a universe that we knew as well as anything in the real world, and we knew exactly what kind of experiences we wanted to create and how to go about it.
On the next Mass Effect game, we're starting fresh - we're developing a completely new fictional universe that'll be the basis of a new generation of gameplay and storytelling. It's an exciting time, and the best part is that I'll continue to work with the team that created the Mass Effect series as we push forward.
Setting the story in a different galaxy ticks all of these boxes. It is also a possible way of avoiding difficulties with the ending without setting a canon (which a few people are mortified at the thought of).
It also allows a great latitude for the writers to create new content. If it was set in the milky way, every single new advanced species that the writers create must be met with the question, "how did they evade the Reapers?" Anything without an answer to that is going to feel logically unsound, and it obviously places great limits on the history of these new species. On the other hand there is a massive amount of rich lore that the writers will be abandoning. It is a trade off.
What about Ark theory?
In short Ark theory states that a wealthy group learned about the Reapers some time ago and, believing them unbeatable, set out to survive by building one or more ships capable of traversing to another galaxy. The Theory gains it name from the biblical story of Noah's Ark where, as you likely know, an Ark was built to save and preserve all life from a biblical disaster and start again.
However, and I must stress this my opinion, just like the biblical story, there are a lot of problems with it that would demand explanation.
Firstly, depending on exactly how it is done, they will be introducing new technology which should then be available in the future of the story. Giving the characters and species the ability to traverse between galaxies is a significant advance. Andromeda, which is the nearest spiral galaxy, is about two and a half million light years away. If this technology is reliable and anywhere near efficient enough to make this journey, what is stop more intergalactic travel? All of a sudden it removes one of the points of shifting to a different galaxy...to isolate it from the old. At the very least it renders devices such as mass relays obsolete. Questions would also be asked as to how they suddenly discovered this technology while the Reapers and pre-existing civilisations did not.
Note: There are different ways to do it. You could just rely on the cost being prohibitive. You could say that there is a secret super relay or wormhole etc. But there are more problems with all of these. If it was planned, which is the basis of Ark theory, why would you risk an ark ship in an unknown wormhole, if there is a relay why can't it be used again and why didn't the reapers know about it. If the cost is genuinely prohibitive, how did they raise the resources where the first time of developing such technology is likely to cost thousands of times more than subsequent efforts.
Next there is the tightness of the logic surrounding the motivations involved, meshing with aspects the writers do want to carry forward in the story. We have seen that there are Krogan and N7 soldiers in the next game. There is no way to convince me that those two groups would run away from the Reapers leaving trillions to die. And why would the group in charge want Krogan anyway? Space and resources aboard the Arkship would be at a premium. Krogan could not contribute to the construction, would be volotile passengers, require large amounts of food…exactly the kind of passengers you don't want. You could simply take DNA and regrow them, but that would imply the story was set generations after they arrive in the new galaxy, which is missing the single most dramatic moment... the immediate arrival and discovery of new planets and other species.
It would also place similar restrictions on other species that the devs may wish to include. There is no logical reason for Vorcha for to be invited. Nor Geth while Quarians are a stretch. In fact why wouldn't it just be Asari, Humans, Turians and Salarians? While I can understand dumping some species from the story, all but the council races seems extreme. Even Volus, who could contribute capital, would feel odd to me given the extreme cost and environmental requirements that their inclusion would add to the project.
In comparison Odyssey theory can easily pull through anyone and anything that was involved in the final battle. Heck IF the writers wanted to they could pull through an enemy Reaper or Geth dreadnaught (some were still infected with reaper code) to give the story dramatic pacing from the start.
Another serious problem with Ark theory is why doesn't the Ark simply turn around once the Reapers are defeated? They would know because of quantum entanglement and instantaneous communication. I only have an extremely convoluted answer to that.
The next question is whether they would actually even escape the differing effects of the crucible since they would still be in the milky way when it was triggered. This has actually been answered, quite elegantly, by stating that the Ark ship could be constructed in a remote cluster with the only mass relay destroyed behind them. The energy and effect appears to travel via the relays so it is fair to assume they could actually outpace the wave. However the question would ultimately arise, forcing an explanation, and that itself distracts from the main story.
The image we have been shown is a spiral galaxy. Andromeda is the closest spiral galaxy and is also the most well known to the general public, it's somewhat romantic which makes it desirable. But why would the Ark Cabal (for want of a better description) ever pick Andromeda? Certainly not because it sounds sexier than Canis Major Dwarf which is so much closer (but bares less resemblance to the graphic than the milky way). I guess you could make the argument that it is a risk that the reapers would follow the shorter distance, but again, another pretty iffy argument.
Leaving aside questionable logic, another problem is the romanticism of the theory. When you stop and think about it, it isn't the daring pioneering adventure people want. Rather it is a pragmatic, but cowardly, flight for survival, where the player (or one of their ancestors) leaves trillions to a fate worse than death rather than stay and fight. Do you really want to be playing and have your squad consisting of these people?
In contrast Odyssey theory starts the game off with a group of heroes, who within sight of having helped achieve the impossible, have their personal victory cruelly stolen from them. It places them in an isolated world, far from home, with a battle for survival. A long term goal could actually be to try and return to their friends and family. It is inherently simpler because you don’t have to explain the motivations behind the people in the next game.
I admit Ark theory is somewhat creative. But to me it feels outlandish, problematic and unappealing. The different holes in it all have to be patched up individually with various explanations, many of which that I have heard open up more questions than they answer. The entire premise becomes more unconvincing, less stable and difficult to swallow.
I must stress that this is all my opinion. Others will argue for Ark Theory much more persuasively than me. And others will say it will/should remain in the Milky way. That is still entirely possible and we may be misinterpreting the hints. After all if people believe Ark theory is possible in a short space of time leading up to the Reaper war, it would be much, much easier to develop a form of intergalactic travel after the war, especially after reverse engineering reaper/mass relay technology. The map we saw may simply be a small part of the game.
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