Okay, first let me say as someone who despised the endings, both original and EC pretty much from the start, let me say I do welcome the idea of getting far, far away from them.
However, I don't think fleeing to Andromeda is the answer. In part because it's tacit admission that the endings messed up the galaxy so bad the situation is totally unsalvageable. But mainly because, well, it's unreachable lore-wise.
The codex entry on drive charges states:
As positive or negative electric current is passed through an FTL drive core, it acquires a static electrical charge. Drives can be operated an average of 50 hours before they reach charge saturation. This changes proportionally to the magnitude of mass reduction; a heavier or faster ship reaches saturation more quickly.
If the charge is allowed to build, the core will discharge into the hull of a ship. All ungrounded crew members are fried to a crisp, all electronic system are burned out, and metal bulkheads may be melted and fused together.
The safest way to discharge a core is to land on a planet and establish a connection to the ground, like a lightning rod. Larger vessels like dreadnoughts cannot land and must discharge into a planetary magnetic field1.
As the hull discharges, sheets of lightning jump away into the field, creating beautiful auroral displays on the planet. The ship must retract its sensors and weapons while dumping charge to prevent damage, leaving it blind and helpless. Discharging at a moon with a weak magnetic field can take days. Discharging into the powerful field of a gas giant may require less than an hour. Deep space facilities such as the Citadel often have special discharge facilities for visiting ships.
So ships can't go more than a couple of days at FTL speeds without risking both ship and crew. It would take over 500 years for such a ship to reach Andromeda.
But wait, you say, the Reapers don't have to discharge their cores! Well, yes, but...
Reaper power sources seem to violate known physical laws. Reapers usually destroy fuel infrastructure rather than attempting to capture it intact, indicating that Reapers do not require organic species' energy supplies. Consequently, the Reapers attack without regard for maintaining supply lines behind them, except to move husks from one planet to another. Unlike Citadel ships, Reapers do not appear to discharge static buildup from their drive cores, although they sometimes appear wreathed in static discharge when they land on planets.
So it appears That they do build up a charge, they can just survive the buildup. I'm not so sure the passengers would though. And in any case, it would still take over two hundred years to reach Andromeda.
THe centuries it would take to transport hundreds, more likely thousands or even tens of thousands of people alive across the galaxy would also be enormous. even in stasis, you'd need a power supply that will las that long. SOmething even the Protheans seemed to have a hard time accomplishing (remember Ilos, and how many people Vigil had to triage until only a dozen remained)
So, thus my problem in the title. How is this going to work. Bioware has gotten into a very bad habit of handwaving away space magic to circumvent story problems. Will this be another case of it?
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