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[AlleyD]

This long post will be a speculative investigation of the Mars Archive and early timeline of Humans in the MEU. I hope to show that there might be some form of evidence that points towards the Protheans leaving more of a legacy on humans that in stated in the lore entries.

 

Prothean Mars Timeline

The Mars archive was described in ME1 as having been an abandoned research base. We find out on Eletania that the Protheans had studied our planet and decided that organic life on Earth was too primitive to uplift into their Empire. This was during the Cro-Magnon stage on humans, a period that the oldest archaeological remains date from around 41,000BC.

 

The Mars base was where the Protheans held their final solutions to the Reapers. We played through one solution that I don't believe the Protheans would have attempted at that stage. They knew they needed the Citadel to complete the device, and that was held at the heart of the Reaper territory. Also, the Reapers controlled the relay network. There may have been other solutions, and I believe that there was something more to come from the Mars Archive.

 

The Charon Relay

Think about these pints about relays with the perspective of a detective looking for clues. Some may be false leads, others may be "evidence"

• The Charon Relay is the only relay that was frozen over that we know of in lore. Other relays can survive in temperatures lower than -220⁰c when they operate, so it is unlikely that an active relay would freeze naturally.

• Relays have been engineered to withstand events such as Supernovae blasts and still remain functional. The Mu relay is believed to have been displaced by such an event, but was perfectly usable once located

• We are shown that to shut down a relay:- the only known method involved brute force and caused a cataclysmic event across the entire system.

• Since the Alliance were Council members and that the safest course of action would have been to use the Citadel to shut down the Alpha relay- this might suggest that the Reapers did not allow that functionality in the system control in the Citadel. We are told by Vigil that the key to the relay lay in the keepers, not the central control panel.

• Further evidence of a lack of understanding, or capability in manipulating relays is the Relay in Maskim Xul;- gateway to the Rachni homeworld. This was never closed down at any point after the rebellion and has had a constantly manned observation post built to observe the system to cover for the inability to close the Relay.

• We are told that the Asari specifically dropped Relay research at one point in their culture, we are also informed that they may have been the prime mover in issuing the legal controls on Prothean research and artefact trading.

• We are told that the only race capable of manipulating or building some form of Relay were the Protheans. Who were on the cusp of unlocking the secrets of Relays prior to Invasion. Ilos was where a small enclave of Prothean expert scientists developed and deployed some form of hacking facility that enabled a bypass of the Relays in a way that the Reapers were not aware about

I believe that all this is evidence that Mars was active AFTER the Reaper invasion, that the Mars may have had some form of connection to Ilos at that point, but I think the base was activated later. We have no record at all of what happened to the expert Prothean Scientists after the left Ilos, only guesswork by a VI that was totally disconnected from the rest of the galaxy for hundreds of years.

 

The dates are out by thousands of years. Protheans were hunting Cro Magnons, and they did not evolve on Earth until thousands of years after the Reaper Invasion of Protheans. I think that this shows that the Protheans may have fled to Mars at some point, deliberately shut down the Relay with their hack in a way that didn't alert the Reaper's. They then entombed - the now inert -relay  for an additional measure of security and used Mars to research their final solutions

 

Why SOL?

The Protheans had plenty of support resources to survive:- A water/garden world teeming with H20, protein, amino acids and sugars within easy reach on one side. On the other side:- you have a massive resource of heavy metals in the asteroid belt and 2 gas giants for Hydrogen and HE3 for nuclear fusion.

 

Since there were several spaceships found, but no Prothean corpses or stasis pods. Where did the Prothean researchers on Mars go?

 

Did they decay into dust? Highly unlikely given the temperatures would freeze organic tissues, and there is nothing to break down skeletal matter or the chitinous carapaces of the Protheans. Of course, dust-storms on Mars are violent, but the base had been sealed against that, and the sand/dust would have most likely mummified and buried any corpses or skeletons, not turned them to dust.

 

The Human Prothean Legacy

This is the WIKI entry for humanity's discovery of ME physics in 2148

 

After twenty years of manned research outposts and nearly a century of robotic exploration, the European Space Agency's Lowell City became the first permanent settlement on Mars in 2103. Within a decade, the United States and China had founded permanent settlements, as well.

The south polar region of Promethei Planum developed a "Bermuda Triangle" reputation. Satellites detected intermittent mass concentration and magnetic field shifts. In 2148, prospectors working near Deseado Crater discovered an underground complex: a Prothean observation post. The odd phenomena were generated by the operation and discharge of a mass effect core, struggling to function despite fifty millennia of neglect.

The facility proved to be a biosciences observation post built when ****** sapiens were first evolving on Earth. While the motives of the Protheans are not certain, translated records indicate that the facility was in regular communication with automated observation platforms in Earth orbit and the lunar nearside. The half-dozen mass effect spaceships found in the facility were presumably used for first-hand observation.

Earth was electrified with the news. Humans were unequivocally not alone. While courts battled who owned the ruins, the international scientific community coordinated a massive effort to access, translate, and interpret the databanks recovered from the facility.

 

Translating from a dead human language is totally impossible without a translation key. Let alone try and attempt to decipher an Alien language. There are 100's of dead languages that the entire linguistic community on Earth have not been able to decipher with decades of study. It is listed as being done using computers, but that adds more factors of difficulty in translation, not less. Computers need to be programmed and they have no intuition or ability to imagine metaphysical tasks such as translating. These issues are made even more improbable when you factor in Prothean communication appeared to be based in biochemistry, not anything like how humans sense or communicate.

 

Consider the Asari had been intimately developed and uplifted by Protheans, as had the Hanar. Both worshipped them in some form for great periods in their culture. They had universities devoted to their science and culture. We met one of the foremost Prothean expert archaeologists in the MEU. And even she could not understand Prothean like Shepard.

 

Prothean Communication and sensory model

How Prothean Communcation worked was unexplained? But we were told several key things about how Protheans communicate and perceive their surroundings.And also how they are masters at genetic manipulation.

• Javik is shown to have an ability to sense emotional time lines from the past from their surroundings. How this could be possible may be linked to an ability to sense proteins and amino acids in a very advanced form that is able to translate the emotional state of prey. For a hunter species, that would be an excellent adaptation.

• Javik's Memory shard is shown to be able to store emotional timelines of countless Protheans from the Reaper War, and replay them with full effect back

• The Protheans engineered the Rachni to be weapons. They gave them an ability understand their commands, and act as strategic Weapon forces. They engineered Queens with several tactical, and stategic communication abilities that are far more effective than QEC or any other communication technology. Even the "best" communications expert, and a master of strategic war-gaming like Traynor, remarked on how truly amazing Rachni C&C was.

I believe that this is indicative of an advanced biochemical sensory system and that beacons operate through some form of protein mechanism. One that dispenses proteins that enter an organic bloodstream and are able to navigate and connect in the brain an ability to comprehend Prothean.

 

AND there was a Beacon on Mars, and that most likely looks like someone may have been given the same basic ability as Shepard earlier in Human time line.

 

Human expansion in Sol.

It took us until 2069 to have a manned presence on Luna. It took another 3 decades to reach Mars in 2103 with a permanent colony.

 

The colonization of the rest of Sol was exceptional different timeline:- Jupiter 2135, Saturn 2137, Uranus 2138, Venus 2142, Gagarin (Pluto) 2142, Mercury 2145, Neptune 2146.

 

These are much larger distances that have journey times in years from Earth using all current techs imaginable to us and the techs that are supported in the Luna and Mars colonization timeline. The other techs show that there was a massive technological leap on Mars between 2103 and 2135, a leap that was announced publicly in 2148, but was being deployed in exploration prior to that.

 

Then you have Charon Relay (WIKI in italics)

In 2149, a human science team exploring the edge of the system near Pluto discovered that Charon was not a moon at all, but an enormous piece of ancient technology known as a mass relay that had been used by the Protheans. The discovery was not completely surprising, however, since the Prothean ruins found on Mars in 2148 had mentioned such a device. While the scientific theory behind the creation of mass relays was still beyond humanity's reach at the time, scientists were able to reactivate the dormant relay.

Exploratory probes sent through the Charon Relay immediately dropped out of contact, and it was determined that the only way to learn what was on the relay's other side was to send actual explorers through. Led by Jon Grissom, a team of brave men and women willing to risk their lives traveled through the relay, and discovered that it led to Arcturus. Their successful return made them heroes, and Jon Grissom became the face of the Systems Alliance as humanity entered a new age of unparalleled discovery and expansion.

Mass relays consist of two fifteen-kilometer (or nine-mile) long curved metal arms surrounding a set of revolving, gyroscopic rings five-kilometers across. These rings contain a massive, blue-glowing core of element zero. The relays are made of an unknown but incredibly resilient material, the same material that the Citadel is built from, and are protected by a quantum shield that renders them nearly impervious to damage by locking their structure in place at the subatomic level. They are even capable of surviving a supernova's wake without being damaged. They are "cold" objects that don't emit heat or radiation, unlike starships, making them difficult to find if their position changes. Some relays, like the Charon Relay, are "gravitationally anchored" to celestial bodies; others appear to be out in space and are carefully tracked.

Charon is approx 600km in radius and has a volume around (9.32±0.14)×10⁸ km^3. Somehow we managed to shift all that ice, in temperatures of -220^oc in less than 12 months

 

Is that all probable to you? We mastered an alien technology, melted a moon to even get near the relay, switch it on, and have vehicles constructed from a tech that we don't understand the science theory? And we did all that in less than 24 months?

 

Is there an alternative suggestion that has a more plausible timeline?

 

I say that there is evidence in the Sol expansion timeline of a massive tech uplift in the 2130's, it was being deployed by Ashland Energy and they exploited the advantages and technology until they had opened the relay. When everything was confirmed ready for the next step- ie the relay was operational- they announced it to the world. Instead of 24 months, the human discovery of ME tech played out over 20 plus years, and it was initiated by a Beacon.

 

A beacon that gave Ashland Energy the knowledge to persude the Council to set aside hundreds of years of law regarding the opening of Relays and to enable an expanion that doubled the range of Council influence. Knowledge that was based on the ability of establishing colonies and moving large numbers of civilians into new galactic territories.

 

I think the expansion was targetted more at discovering Prothean technologies, and not simply an economic expansion. Around 25% of the human linked planets mention Prothean and Ancient ruins. Far too many to be consistant with the MO described of the Reapers. Either the Reapers were exceptionally sloppy or we managed to have some form of map of the Prothean empire to build from that managed to point out surviving Prothean sites and precycle ruins.

 

In conclusion, I think Ashland Energy had a staff member that was hit by a beacon message, one that enabled tech understanding of how to build colonies etc. This knowledge empowered a economic giant of a corporation, but was also involved in discovering as much Prothean technologies as possible. I don't think Ashland were aware of the Reapers as anything other than a terrifying, hard to understand message, but in 2183 that would have all changed and the stakes were now clear to understand for anyone with a Prothean Cypher.

 

The Reapers are coming and extinction is inevitable.

 

They probably faced similar attitudes than Shepard, but they are not dependent on the Council for approval and they do not need their support in any form. They had all the resources capable of bulding massive colonies and starships. They had the technology for decades, have deen deploying it constantly in expansion wave of billions of beings moving into new, unexplored are of space and settling down. If they factored that capability into one focused project? I believe they could build a giant ARK vessel and recruit staff, and it would unlikely to be suspicious. EAE have recruited billions of people in their expansion, from all species

[Original Mako]

I have seen this idea somewhere before, and it certainly is interesting. I like your overall idea. I'm not a ME expert, but I suppose it's possible the humans had a Prothean beacon on Mars that helped them understand technology beyond their kin, much like the Asari had one on Thessia.

 

I've been lurking these forums for a while, and a lot of people seem to think that an "ARK" ship would need to be massive. A quick google of "minimum number of humans needed to repopulate" gives the number of 160. Could probably get by with fewer if you went Gattacca-style and "engineered" the kids not have the defects that come from a smaller gene pool. Other animals might need fewer.

 

I think the Asari could get by with the fewest number. A single healthy Asari and all her daughters and grand-daughters could find partners among all the other races.

[Kabooooom]

This long post will be a speculative investigation of the Mars Archive and early timeline of Humans in the MEU. I hope to show that there might be some form of evidence that points towards the Protheans leaving more of a legacy on humans that in stated in the lore entries.

Prothean Mars Timeline
The Mars archive was described in ME1 as having been an abandoned research base. We find out on Eletania that the Protheans had studied our planet and decided that organic life on Earth was too primitive to uplift into their Empire. This was during the Cro-Magnon stage on humans, a period that the oldest archaeological remains date from around 41,000BC.

The Mars base was where the Protheans held their final solutions to the Reapers. We played through one solution that I don't believe the Protheans would have attempted at that stage. They knew they needed the Citadel to complete the device, and that was held at the heart of the Reaper territory. Also, the Reapers controlled the relay network. There may have been other solutions, and I believe that there was something more to come from the Mars Archive.

The Charon Relay
Think about these pints about relays with the perspective of a detective looking for clues. Some may be false leads, others may be "evidence"

• The Charon Relay is the only relay that was frozen over that we know of in lore. Other relays can survive in temperatures lower than -220⁰c when they operate, so it is unlikely that an active relay would freeze naturally.
• Relays have been engineered to withstand events such as Supernovae blasts and still remain functional. The Mu relay is believed to have been displaced by such an event, but was perfectly usable once located
• We are shown that to shut down a relay:- the only known method involved brute force and caused a cataclysmic event across the entire system.
• Since the Alliance were Council members and that the safest course of action would have been to use the Citadel to shut down the Alpha relay- this might suggest that the Reapers did not allow that functionality in the system control in the Citadel. We are told by Vigil that the key to the relay lay in the keepers, not the central control panel.
• Further evidence of a lack of understanding, or capability in manipulating relays is the Relay in Maskim Xul;- gateway to the Rachni homeworld. This was never closed down at any point after the rebellion and has had a constantly manned observation post built to observe the system to cover for the inability to close the Relay.
• We are told that the Asari specifically dropped Relay research at one point in their culture, we are also informed that they may have been the prime mover in issuing the legal controls on Prothean research and artefact trading.
• We are told that the only race capable of manipulating or building some form of Relay were the Protheans. Who were on the cusp of unlocking the secrets of Relays prior to Invasion. Ilos was where a small enclave of Prothean expert scientists developed and deployed some form of hacking facility that enabled a bypass of the Relays in a way that the Reapers were not aware about

I believe that all this is evidence that Mars was active AFTER the Reaper invasion, that the Mars may have had some form of connection to Ilos at that point, but I think the base was activated later. We have no record at all of what happened to the expert Prothean Scientists after the left Ilos, only guesswork by a VI that was totally disconnected from the rest of the galaxy for hundreds of years.

The dates are out by thousands of years. Protheans were hunting Cro Magnons, and they did not evolve on Earth until thousands of years after the Reaper Invasion of Protheans. I think that this shows that the Protheans may have fled to Mars at some point, deliberately shut down the Relay with their hack in a way that didn't alert the Reaper's. They then entombed - the now inert -relay for an additional measure of security and used Mars to research their final solutions

Why SOL?
The Protheans had plenty of support resources to survive:- A water/garden world teeming with H20, protein, amino acids and sugars within easy reach on one side. On the other side:- you have a massive resource of heavy metals in the asteroid belt and 2 gas giants for Hydrogen and HE3 for nuclear fusion.

Since there were several spaceships found, but no Prothean corpses or stasis pods. Where did the Prothean researchers on Mars go?

Did they decay into dust? Highly unlikely given the temperatures would freeze organic tissues, and there is nothing to break down skeletal matter or the chitinous carapaces of the Protheans. Of course, dust-storms on Mars are violent, but the base had been sealed against that, and the sand/dust would have most likely mummified and buried any corpses or skeletons, not turned them to dust.

The Human Prothean Legacy
This is the WIKI entry for humanity's discovery of ME physics in 2148

After twenty years of manned research outposts and nearly a century of robotic exploration, the European Space Agency's Lowell City became the first permanent settlement on Mars in 2103. Within a decade, the United States and China had founded permanent settlements, as well.
The south polar region of Promethei Planum developed a "Bermuda Triangle" reputation. Satellites detected intermittent mass concentration and magnetic field shifts. In 2148, prospectors working near Deseado Crater discovered an underground complex: a Prothean observation post. The odd phenomena were generated by the operation and discharge of a mass effect core, struggling to function despite fifty millennia of neglect.
The facility proved to be a biosciences observation post built when ****** sapiens were first evolving on Earth. While the motives of the Protheans are not certain, translated records indicate that the facility was in regular communication with automated observation platforms in Earth orbit and the lunar nearside. The half-dozen mass effect spaceships found in the facility were presumably used for first-hand observation.
Earth was electrified with the news. Humans were unequivocally not alone. While courts battled who owned the ruins, the international scientific community coordinated a massive effort to access, translate, and interpret the databanks recovered from the facility.

Translating from a dead human language is totally impossible without a translation key. Let alone try and attempt to decipher an Alien language. There are 100's of dead languages that the entire linguistic community on Earth have not been able to decipher with decades of study. It is listed as being done using computers, but that adds more factors of difficulty in translation, not less. Computers need to be programmed and they have no intuition or ability to imagine metaphysical tasks such as translating. These issues are made even more improbable when you factor in Prothean communication appeared to be based in biochemistry, not anything like how humans sense or communicate.

Consider the Asari had been intimately developed and uplifted by Protheans, as had the Hanar. Both worshipped them in some form for great periods in their culture. They had universities devoted to their science and culture. We met one of the foremost Prothean expert archaeologists in the MEU. And even she could not understand Prothean like Shepard.

Prothean Communication and sensory model
How Prothean Communcation worked was unexplained? But we were told several key things about how Protheans communicate and perceive their surroundings.And also how they are masters at genetic manipulation.

• Javik is shown to have an ability to sense emotional time lines from the past from their surroundings. How this could be possible may be linked to an ability to sense proteins and amino acids in a very advanced form that is able to translate the emotional state of prey. For a hunter species, that would be an excellent adaptation.
• Javik's Memory shard is shown to be able to store emotional timelines of countless Protheans from the Reaper War, and replay them with full effect back
• The Protheans engineered the Rachni to be weapons. They gave them an ability understand their commands, and act as strategic Weapon forces. They engineered Queens with several tactical, and stategic communication abilities that are far more effective than QEC or any other communication technology. Even the "best" communications expert, and a master of strategic war-gaming like Traynor, remarked on how truly amazing Rachni C&C was.

I believe that this is indicative of an advanced biochemical sensory system and that beacons operate through some form of protein mechanism. One that dispenses proteins that enter an organic bloodstream and are able to navigate and connect in the brain an ability to comprehend Prothean.

AND there was a Beacon on Mars, and that most likely looks like someone may have been given the same basic ability as Shepard earlier in Human time line.

Human expansion in Sol.
It took us until 2069 to have a manned presence on Luna. It took another 3 decades to reach Mars in 2103 with a permanent colony.

The colonization of the rest of Sol was exceptional different timeline:- Jupiter 2135, Saturn 2137, Uranus 2138, Venus 2142, Gagarin (Pluto) 2142, Mercury 2145, Neptune 2146.

These are much larger distances that have journey times in years from Earth using all current techs imaginable to us and the techs that are supported in the Luna and Mars colonization timeline. The other techs show that there was a massive technological leap on Mars between 2103 and 2135, a leap that was announced publicly in 2148, but was being deployed in exploration prior to that.

Then you have Charon Relay (WIKI in italics)
In 2149, a human science team exploring the edge of the system near Pluto discovered that Charon was not a moon at all, but an enormous piece of ancient technology known as a mass relay that had been used by the Protheans. The discovery was not completely surprising, however, since the Prothean ruins found on Mars in 2148 had mentioned such a device. While the scientific theory behind the creation of mass relays was still beyond humanity's reach at the time, scientists were able to reactivate the dormant relay.
Exploratory probes sent through the Charon Relay immediately dropped out of contact, and it was determined that the only way to learn what was on the relay's other side was to send actual explorers through. Led by Jon Grissom, a team of brave men and women willing to risk their lives traveled through the relay, and discovered that it led to Arcturus. Their successful return made them heroes, and Jon Grissom became the face of the Systems Alliance as humanity entered a new age of unparalleled discovery and expansion.
Mass relays consist of two fifteen-kilometer (or nine-mile) long curved metal arms surrounding a set of revolving, gyroscopic rings five-kilometers across. These rings contain a massive, blue-glowing core of element zero. The relays are made of an unknown but incredibly resilient material, the same material that the Citadel is built from, and are protected by a quantum shield that renders them nearly impervious to damage by locking their structure in place at the subatomic level. They are even capable of surviving a supernova's wake without being damaged. They are "cold" objects that don't emit heat or radiation, unlike starships, making them difficult to find if their position changes. Some relays, like the Charon Relay, are "gravitationally anchored" to celestial bodies; others appear to be out in space and are carefully tracked.
Charon is approx 600km in radius and has a volume around (9.32±0.14)×10⁸ km^3. Somehow we managed to shift all that ice, in temperatures of -220^oc in less than 12 months

Is that all probable to you? We mastered an alien technology, melted a moon to even get near the relay, switch it on, and have vehicles constructed from a tech that we don't understand the science theory? And we did all that in less than 24 months?

Is there an alternative suggestion that has a more plausible timeline?

I say that there is evidence in the Sol expansion timeline of a massive tech uplift in the 2130's, it was being deployed by Ashland Energy and they exploited the advantages and technology until they had opened the relay. When everything was confirmed ready for the next step- ie the relay was operational- they announced it to the world. Instead of 24 months, the human discovery of ME tech played out over 20 plus years, and it was initiated by a Beacon.

A beacon that gave Ashland Energy the knowledge to persude the Council to set aside hundreds of years of law regarding the opening of Relays and to enable an expanion that doubled the range of Council influence. Knowledge that was based on the ability of establishing colonies and moving large numbers of civilians into new galactic territories.

I think the expansion was targetted more at discovering Prothean technologies, and not simply an economic expansion. Around 25% of the human linked planets mention Prothean and Ancient ruins. Far too many to be consistant with the MO described of the Reapers. Either the Reapers were exceptionally sloppy or we managed to have some form of map of the Prothean empire to build from that managed to point out surviving Prothean sites and precycle ruins.

In conclusion, I think Ashland Energy had a staff member that was hit by a beacon message, one that enabled tech understanding of how to build colonies etc. This knowledge empowered a economic giant of a corporation, but was also involved in discovering as much Prothean technologies as possible. I don't think Ashland were aware of the Reapers as anything other than a terrifying, hard to understand message, but in 2183 that would have all changed and the stakes were now clear to understand for anyone with a Prothean Cypher.

The Reapers are coming and extinction is inevitable.

They probably faced similar attitudes than Shepard, but they are not dependent on the Council for approval and they do not need their support in any form. They had all the resources capable of bulding massive colonies and starships. They had the technology for decades, have deen deploying it constantly in expansion wave of billions of beings moving into new, unexplored are of space and settling down. If they factored that capability into one focused project? I believe they could build a giant ARK vessel and recruit staff, and it would unlikely to be suspicious. EAE have recruited billions of people in their expansion, from all species

I'm sorry, OP, but most of this reads like a fanfic. And I may have misunderstood your point because I'm half awake right now (sorry if I did), but, destroying a relay is not the only way to shut one down. The relays can be shut off independently from the Citadel, which is demonstrated towards the end of ME1. This is also what the Reapers would originally do - arrive through the Citadel, use it to shut down the entire relay network, then activate relays (presumably one at a time) to blitz single star systems in full force.

[ZipZap2000]

The Protheans did attempt the crucible and were betrayed by indoctrinated agents, who argued they should control the reapers instead of destroying them.


The pattern has repeated itself more times than you come fathom.

[Vespervin]

Kabooooom, you're the first to reply, did you seriously have to quote the OP? Good job on making the scroll down longer than it needs to be.

[Draining Dragon]

This long post will be a speculative investigation of the Mars Archive and early timeline of Humans in the MEU. I hope to show that there might be some form of evidence that points towards the Protheans leaving more of a legacy on humans that in stated in the lore entries.
 
Prothean Mars Timeline
The Mars archive was described in ME1 as having been an abandoned research base. We find out on Eletania that the Protheans had studied our planet and decided that organic life on Earth was too primitive to uplift into their Empire. This was during the Cro-Magnon stage on humans, a period that the oldest archaeological remains date from around 41,000BC.
 
The Mars base was where the Protheans held their final solutions to the Reapers. We played through one solution that I don't believe the Protheans would have attempted at that stage. They knew they needed the Citadel to complete the device, and that was held at the heart of the Reaper territory. Also, the Reapers controlled the relay network. There may have been other solutions, and I believe that there was something more to come from the Mars Archive.
 
The Charon Relay
Think about these pints about relays with the perspective of a detective looking for clues. Some may be false leads, others may be "evidence"

• 
  The Charon Relay is the only relay that was frozen over that we know of in lore. Other relays can survive in temperatures lower than -220⁰c when they operate, so it is unlikely that an active relay would freeze naturally.
• 
  Relays have been engineered to withstand events such as Supernovae blasts and still remain functional. The Mu relay is believed to have been displaced by such an event, but was perfectly usable once located
• 
  We are shown that to shut down a relay:- the only known method involved brute force and caused a cataclysmic event across the entire system.
• 
  Since the Alliance were Council members and that the safest course of action would have been to use the Citadel to shut down the Alpha relay- this might suggest that the Reapers did not allow that functionality in the system control in the Citadel. We are told by Vigil that the key to the relay lay in the keepers, not the central control panel.
• 
  Further evidence of a lack of understanding, or capability in manipulating relays is the Relay in Maskim Xul;- gateway to the Rachni homeworld. This was never closed down at any point after the rebellion and has had a constantly manned observation post built to observe the system to cover for the inability to close the Relay.
• 
  We are told that the Asari specifically dropped Relay research at one point in their culture, we are also informed that they may have been the prime mover in issuing the legal controls on Prothean research and artefact trading.
• 
  We are told that the only race capable of manipulating or building some form of Relay were the Protheans. Who were on the cusp of unlocking the secrets of Relays prior to Invasion. Ilos was where a small enclave of Prothean expert scientists developed and deployed some form of hacking facility that enabled a bypass of the Relays in a way that the Reapers were not aware about

I believe that all this is evidence that Mars was active AFTER the Reaper invasion, that the Mars may have had some form of connection to Ilos at that point, but I think the base was activated later. We have no record at all of what happened to the expert Prothean Scientists after the left Ilos, only guesswork by a VI that was totally disconnected from the rest of the galaxy for hundreds of years.
 
The dates are out by thousands of years. Protheans were hunting Cro Magnons, and they did not evolve on Earth until thousands of years after the Reaper Invasion of Protheans. I think that this shows that the Protheans may have fled to Mars at some point, deliberately shut down the Relay with their hack in a way that didn't alert the Reaper's. They then entombed - the now inert -relay  for an additional measure of security and used Mars to research their final solutions
 
Why SOL?
The Protheans had plenty of support resources to survive:- A water/garden world teeming with H20, protein, amino acids and sugars within easy reach on one side. On the other side:- you have a massive resource of heavy metals in the asteroid belt and 2 gas giants for Hydrogen and HE3 for nuclear fusion.
 
Since there were several spaceships found, but no Prothean corpses or stasis pods. Where did the Prothean researchers on Mars go?
 
Did they decay into dust? Highly unlikely given the temperatures would freeze organic tissues, and there is nothing to break down skeletal matter or the chitinous carapaces of the Protheans. Of course, dust-storms on Mars are violent, but the base had been sealed against that, and the sand/dust would have most likely mummified and buried any corpses or skeletons, not turned them to dust.
 
The Human Prothean Legacy
This is the WIKI entry for humanity's discovery of ME physics in 2148
 
After twenty years of manned research outposts and nearly a century of robotic exploration, the European Space Agency's Lowell City became the first permanent settlement on Mars in 2103. Within a decade, the United States and China had founded permanent settlements, as well.
The south polar region of Promethei Planum developed a "Bermuda Triangle" reputation. Satellites detected intermittent mass concentration and magnetic field shifts. In 2148, prospectors working near Deseado Crater discovered an underground complex: a Prothean observation post. The odd phenomena were generated by the operation and discharge of a mass effect core, struggling to function despite fifty millennia of neglect.
The facility proved to be a biosciences observation post built when ****** sapiens were first evolving on Earth. While the motives of the Protheans are not certain, translated records indicate that the facility was in regular communication with automated observation platforms in Earth orbit and the lunar nearside. The half-dozen mass effect spaceships found in the facility were presumably used for first-hand observation.
Earth was electrified with the news. Humans were unequivocally not alone. While courts battled who owned the ruins, the international scientific community coordinated a massive effort to access, translate, and interpret the databanks recovered from the facility.
 
Translating from a dead human language is totally impossible without a translation key. Let alone try and attempt to decipher an Alien language. There are 100's of dead languages that the entire linguistic community on Earth have not been able to decipher with decades of study. It is listed as being done using computers, but that adds more factors of difficulty in translation, not less. Computers need to be programmed and they have no intuition or ability to imagine metaphysical tasks such as translating. These issues are made even more improbable when you factor in Prothean communication appeared to be based in biochemistry, not anything like how humans sense or communicate.
 
Consider the Asari had been intimately developed and uplifted by Protheans, as had the Hanar. Both worshipped them in some form for great periods in their culture. They had universities devoted to their science and culture. We met one of the foremost Prothean expert archaeologists in the MEU. And even she could not understand Prothean like Shepard.
 
Prothean Communication and sensory model
How Prothean Communcation worked was unexplained? But we were told several key things about how Protheans communicate and perceive their surroundings.And also how they are masters at genetic manipulation.

• 
  Javik is shown to have an ability to sense emotional time lines from the past from their surroundings. How this could be possible may be linked to an ability to sense proteins and amino acids in a very advanced form that is able to translate the emotional state of prey. For a hunter species, that would be an excellent adaptation.
• 
  Javik's Memory shard is shown to be able to store emotional timelines of countless Protheans from the Reaper War, and replay them with full effect back
• 
  The Protheans engineered the Rachni to be weapons. They gave them an ability understand their commands, and act as strategic Weapon forces. They engineered Queens with several tactical, and stategic communication abilities that are far more effective than QEC or any other communication technology. Even the "best" communications expert, and a master of strategic war-gaming like Traynor, remarked on how truly amazing Rachni C&C was.

I believe that this is indicative of an advanced biochemical sensory system and that beacons operate through some form of protein mechanism. One that dispenses proteins that enter an organic bloodstream and are able to navigate and connect in the brain an ability to comprehend Prothean.
 
AND there was a Beacon on Mars, and that most likely looks like someone may have been given the same basic ability as Shepard earlier in Human time line.
 
Human expansion in Sol.
It took us until 2069 to have a manned presence on Luna. It took another 3 decades to reach Mars in 2103 with a permanent colony.
 
The colonization of the rest of Sol was exceptional different timeline:- Jupiter 2135, Saturn 2137, Uranus 2138, Venus 2142, Gagarin (Pluto) 2142, Mercury 2145, Neptune 2146.
 
These are much larger distances that have journey times in years from Earth using all current techs imaginable to us and the techs that are supported in the Luna and Mars colonization timeline. The other techs show that there was a massive technological leap on Mars between 2103 and 2135, a leap that was announced publicly in 2148, but was being deployed in exploration prior to that.
 
Then you have Charon Relay (WIKI in italics)
In 2149, a human science team exploring the edge of the system near Pluto discovered that Charon was not a moon at all, but an enormous piece of ancient technology known as a mass relay that had been used by the Protheans. The discovery was not completely surprising, however, since the Prothean ruins found on Mars in 2148 had mentioned such a device. While the scientific theory behind the creation of mass relays was still beyond humanity's reach at the time, scientists were able to reactivate the dormant relay.
Exploratory probes sent through the Charon Relay immediately dropped out of contact, and it was determined that the only way to learn what was on the relay's other side was to send actual explorers through. Led by Jon Grissom, a team of brave men and women willing to risk their lives traveled through the relay, and discovered that it led to Arcturus. Their successful return made them heroes, and Jon Grissom became the face of the Systems Alliance as humanity entered a new age of unparalleled discovery and expansion.
Mass relays consist of two fifteen-kilometer (or nine-mile) long curved metal arms surrounding a set of revolving, gyroscopic rings five-kilometers across. These rings contain a massive, blue-glowing core of element zero. The relays are made of an unknown but incredibly resilient material, the same material that the Citadel is built from, and are protected by a quantum shield that renders them nearly impervious to damage by locking their structure in place at the subatomic level. They are even capable of surviving a supernova's wake without being damaged. They are "cold" objects that don't emit heat or radiation, unlike starships, making them difficult to find if their position changes. Some relays, like the Charon Relay, are "gravitationally anchored" to celestial bodies; others appear to be out in space and are carefully tracked.
Charon is approx 600km in radius and has a volume around (9.32±0.14)×10⁸ km^3. Somehow we managed to shift all that ice, in temperatures of -220^oc in less than 12 months
 
Is that all probable to you? We mastered an alien technology, melted a moon to even get near the relay, switch it on, and have vehicles constructed from a tech that we don't understand the science theory? And we did all that in less than 24 months?
 
Is there an alternative suggestion that has a more plausible timeline?
 
I say that there is evidence in the Sol expansion timeline of a massive tech uplift in the 2130's, it was being deployed by Ashland Energy and they exploited the advantages and technology until they had opened the relay. When everything was confirmed ready for the next step- ie the relay was operational- they announced it to the world. Instead of 24 months, the human discovery of ME tech played out over 20 plus years, and it was initiated by a Beacon.
 
A beacon that gave Ashland Energy the knowledge to persude the Council to set aside hundreds of years of law regarding the opening of Relays and to enable an expanion that doubled the range of Council influence. Knowledge that was based on the ability of establishing colonies and moving large numbers of civilians into new galactic territories.
 
I think the expansion was targetted more at discovering Prothean technologies, and not simply an economic expansion. Around 25% of the human linked planets mention Prothean and Ancient ruins. Far too many to be consistant with the MO described of the Reapers. Either the Reapers were exceptionally sloppy or we managed to have some form of map of the Prothean empire to build from that managed to point out surviving Prothean sites and precycle ruins.
 
In conclusion, I think Ashland Energy had a staff member that was hit by a beacon message, one that enabled tech understanding of how to build colonies etc. This knowledge empowered a economic giant of a corporation, but was also involved in discovering as much Prothean technologies as possible. I don't think Ashland were aware of the Reapers as anything other than a terrifying, hard to understand message, but in 2183 that would have all changed and the stakes were now clear to understand for anyone with a Prothean Cypher.
 
The Reapers are coming and extinction is inevitable.
 
They probably faced similar attitudes than Shepard, but they are not dependent on the Council for approval and they do not need their support in any form. They had all the resources capable of bulding massive colonies and starships. They had the technology for decades, have deen deploying it constantly in expansion wave of billions of beings moving into new, unexplored are of space and settling down. If they factored that capability into one focused project? I believe they could build a giant ARK vessel and recruit staff, and it would unlikely to be suspicious. EAE have recruited billions of people in their expansion, from all species

Okay.

[Vespervin]

/facepalm

 

gethlegionabandonthread.gif

[ZipZap2000]

Kabooooom, you're the first to reply, did you seriously have to quote the OP? Good job on making the scroll down longer than it needs to be.

Bloody well said mate.

[rapscallioness]

Nice lore research, Op.

 

So, basically there were humans and corporations that already knew the Reapers were coming. Long before Shep. Difference was they did not go public with it. But continued to look for more tech through expansion and built on that knowledge--that hoarded knowledge.

 

To me that's the only thing that makes sense given the scope of a project like the ARK, and the time you would need to build such a thing. As well as it not being common knowledge among the Alliance, and Shepard not knowing about an ARK. Maybe some very high up people knew.

 

And it's not hard to believe that Shep was not the first person to ever stumble across this knowledge. Didn't TIM have a run in with a Beacon, too, in his early years?

[Scofield]

Did anyone else just scroll to the post button?

[rapscallioness]

Did anyone else just scroll to the post button?

 

No, I read the post. It's nice to see something that is not about who's going to be represented and how many LI's everybody gets.

[AlleyD]

Nice lore research, Op.

 

So, basically there were humans and corporations that already knew the Reapers were coming. Long before Shep. Difference was they did not go public with it. But continued to look for more tech through expansion and built on that knowledge--that hoarded knowledge.

 

To me that's the only thing that makes sense given the scope of a project like the ARK, and the time you would need to build such a thing. As well as it not being common knowledge among the Alliance, and Shepard not knowing about an ARK. Maybe some very high up people knew.

 

And it's not hard to believe that Shep was not the first person to ever stumble across this knowledge. Didn't TIM have a run in with a Beacon, too, in his early years?

 

Thank you for summarising my point so accurately

 

I think that is more plausible than the lore entries on the WIKI that were used to describe how humans entered space. Far less space magicky , and far more capitalism . I've never witnessed miracles, but I recognize capitalism in action.  

[AlleyD]

The Protheans did attempt the crucible and were betrayed by indoctrinated agents, who argued they should control the reapers instead of destroying them.


The pattern has repeated itself more times than you come fathom.

 

The Prothean Mars Archive was the place that housed the Crucible plans and I think the base was activated after the Reaper invasion was complete, and that the Beacon was left for an uplifted humanity. The Protheans were hunting and studying Cro Magnons. That species doesn't appear in the archeological record till 41,000BC. This is long after the dates attributed to the Reaper invasion's timeline

[DarthSliver]

This makes sense, it is a historical fact that everything we have done in history has been for greed. America was discovered because they were trying to get to China via sea. Who is to say space exploration won't be the same for us, Alien series seems to hit to that sorta thing going on in that series too.

 

But basically you are saying the Ashland Company built the Ark because of the Prothean Achieves on Mars and they knew there would be some kind of threat that would be impossible for them to stop?

[AlleyD]

This makes sense, it is a historical fact that everything we have done in history has been for greed. America was discovered because they were trying to get to China via sea. Who is to say space exploration won't be the same for us, Alien series seems to hit to that sorta thing going on in that series too.

 

But basically you are saying the Ashland Company built the Ark because of the Prothean Achieves on Mars and they knew there would be some kind of threat that would be impossible for them to stop?

 

If we ever go into space, it will be through corporate interests. The Near Earth Asteroid industry will be the start point.

If 2017's test probes pay out for  Planetary Resources as they forecast. They could intiate and control the first boom in 2025. This would be through aqueous silicate extraction (Planetary Resources) The yield of a 500mtr silica asteroid is estimated around $5 Trillion dollars. This would have a positive knock on effect. H2O is the largest cost in space flight and rocketry and having this resource in space would drastically reduce the costs of space

 

The other player in the field: Deep Space Industries targets metal extraction and manufacturing. The mining process is a more long term investment, takes a couple of decades for the bacterial extraction method to crap out raw minerals for mining. They have technologies in Manufacturing, cold vacuum printing I think the tech is called. A yield value of a 500mtr wide platinum asteroid is valued around $3Trillion Dollars, but the knock on effect would be huge in the electronics industries. A lot of Rand D is restricted due to cost and supply issues with platinum and other metals. If that tech proves profitable, these would come into stream very quickly

 

As far as I know, both companies own their tech supply chains or have patented protections that would allow a head start on any other, First foot status would be everything and these are the leading players I've seen reported.

 

Maybe worth checking these out. A couple of kickstarters that might change history and bring in some serious return for the punt. This industry, if successfull, will produce the first trillionaires in history and setup corporate dynastys that would be unlikely to have any terrestrial competition for some time.

[ArabianIGoggles]

I think you're on to something here.  Good read!

[AlleyD]

I think you're on to something here.  Good read!

Thank you.

 

It was simply some speculation out of the off screen lore and I am pleased you liked it

[Hanako Ikezawa]

While an interesting hypothesis, there are several reasons I am vehemently against it. To start with:

 

1) The Mars Archive yet again being the source of information. That place has already given two Deus Ex Machinas for the Mass Effect franchise, first being a convenient data cache for humans to achieve mass effect technology and second being the plans for the wonder weapon that can stop the Reapers. The Mars installation was a scientific outpost, so it having both already stretches the suspension of disbelief more than I'd like but now it also being the only place with the plans for an intergalactic-capable vessel shatters it by giving a single place a DEM hat trick. 

 

2) This idea reeks of the "Humans are superspecialawesome" trope that has already been overused to ridiculous, almost comical levels in the past games. Not to mention it goes against the established lore, which is that the Protheans saw and even influenced the Asari to be their heirs, not humanity. So them gifting us with all this knowledge and us being able to comprehend things they cannot is spitting in the face of the lore. 

 

3) The people involved keeping it secret. By doing that, we are working for the worst criminals in human history, since them keeping the knowledge about the Rapers, the Ark, etc results in the deaths of billions if not trillions of people. I wouldn't be able to work with these people after learning that, so if true I already despise the "good guys" and have no connection to the protagonist who will almost certainly agree with what they did in a general sense like we were forced to with Cerberus in Mass Effect 2. 

[AlleyD]

While an interesting hypothesis, there are several reasons I am vehemently against it. To start with:

 

1) The Mars Archive yet again being the source of information. That place has already given two Deus Ex Machinas for the Mass Effect franchise, first being a convenient data cache for humans to achieve mass effect technology and second being the plans for the wonder weapon that can stop the Reapers. The Mars installation was a scientific outpost, so it having both already stretches the suspension of disbelief more than I'd like but now it also being the only place with the plans for an intergalactic-capable vessel shatters it by giving a single place a DEM hat trick. 

 

2) This idea reeks of the "Humans are superspecialawesome" trope that has already been overused to ridiculous, almost comical levels in the past games. Not to mention it goes against the established lore, which is that the Protheans saw and even influenced the Asari to be their heirs, not humanity. So them gifting us with all this knowledge and us being able to comprehend things they cannot is spitting in the face of the lore. 

 

3) The people involved keeping it secret. By doing that, we are working for the worst criminals in human history, since them keeping the knowledge about the Rapers, the Ark, etc results in the deaths of billions if not trillions of people. I wouldn't be able to work with these people after learning that, so if true I already despise the "good guys" and have no connection to the protagonist who will almost certainly agree with what they did in a general sense like we were forced to with Cerberus in Mass Effect 2. 

I'm sorry, I do not understand why you would prefer BioWare to just introduce an ARK in some form that doesn't try to use some existing lore. Since humans are involved, the answer lay in the human timeline and lore and that post is what I felt most plausible.

 

• The Protheans were linked with Cro-Magnons. A species that did not exist 50'000 years prior to MEU. Not even close. The Cro-Magnon range covers between 35,000BC and 10,000BC, though remains have been found that date from 41,000BCE. This evidence alone proves that the Protheans must have been in Mars  LONG AFTER the Reaper Invasion.
•  I am attempting to defuse the "humans are special" thing. I'm suggesting we were lucky to have been in the system where the last Protheans attempted their final Reaper Solutions and that we discovered their infrastructure. Also, I am stretching the timeline and event of the discovery event AWAY from magic and into a human reality. A corporation involved in space exploitation and technologies would seek to gain understanding of anything that might give them a competitive edge, and they would keep things Very,very secret and only announce things to the world when understanding, and practical deployment was possible. Governments would keep that sort of data totally wrapped up, the shock to the human psyche genearated by an Alien discovery would have massive consequences for the entities that control political and religious belief in humans.
• Shepards Cypher was not complete without the Thorian data. The beacon only gave a very garbled message or vision and could not be fully understood without it. That understanding arrived on Feros and confirmation of what the Reapers were and could do was obtained in 2183.

I speculate that after 2183, an ARK project was initiated/ made top priority in some off screen location and that the Prothean data from Mars had something to do with it.

 

If there is some alternative explanation available in lore analysis to justify an ARK, I cannot find it

[AlleyD]

Nice lore research, Op.

 

So, basically there were humans and corporations that already knew the Reapers were coming. Long before Shep. Difference was they did not go public with it. But continued to look for more tech through expansion and built on that knowledge--that hoarded knowledge.

 

To me that's the only thing that makes sense given the scope of a project like the ARK, and the time you would need to build such a thing. As well as it not being common knowledge among the Alliance, and Shepard not knowing about an ARK. Maybe some very high up people knew.

 

And it's not hard to believe that Shep was not the first person to ever stumble across this knowledge. Didn't TIM have a run in with a Beacon, too, in his early years?

 

Sorry, I mised the line about TIM. As I understand TIM's origin story, Jack Harper was the lore fist contact for dialogue with Turians and Asari (Harper being noted as the first human to land on Palaven and he also visited Illium tracking the Artifact) He was able to converse with both Turians and Asari and I believe the Artifact was inferred as having conferred that ability. The Shanxi Artifact was a Reaper device, not Prothean and had indoctrinated and augmented Turians, and Jack Harper's friend.

 

First contact communication between aliens would not work with the tech solution explained in MEU lore,  The translation methods in MEU employ devices. These can only work from data tables of both original languages of a species programmed in, and have the translations already worked out. The Asari mind meld bypasses that necessity in communication, but  I cannot recall if TIM melded in the origin story. Also, Turians were able to converse with Jack Harper, and both species would require a tech solution to that problem, one not available and plausible in the context of a First Contact

[theflyingzamboni]

Alternate hypothesis:

 

The writer who wrote that passage didn't realize that Cro-Magnon did not exist 50,000 years ago, and Protheans did not somehow survive thousands of years after the Reapers left, and then disappear. Also, humans were able to figure out Prothean tech descriptions because it was convenient to the plot, and the explanation is just a writer hand wave. I'm going with Occam on this one.

[AlleyD]

Alternate hypothesis:

 

The writer who wrote that passage didn't realize that Cro-Magnon did not exist 50,000 years ago, and Protheans did not somehow survive thousands of years after the Reapers left, and then disappear. Also, humans were able to figure out Prothean tech descriptions because it was convenient to the plot, and the explanation is just a writer hand wave. I'm going with Occam on this one.

 

I'm sorry, BioWare writers are not that stupid in my mind. A quick WIKI check is all it takes to establish Cro-Magnon timeline. If they are indeed so inept, their product is at a worse standard of creative writing than many amateur fan fictions and not worthy of any respect

[Malanek]

 

A beacon that gave Ashland Energy the knowledge to persude the Council to set aside hundreds of years of law regarding the opening of Relays and to enable an expanion that doubled the range of Council influence. Knowledge that was based on the ability of establishing colonies and moving large numbers of civilians into new galactic territories.

 

 

It was a good read, I particularly liked the part about human expansion following Prothean patterns in terms of ruins.

 

I do question what you mean in the bit I quoted though. What do you mean by The Council? Are you claiming Ashland energy gave this information to the council all the way back when humans first had contact?

[pkypereira]

I'm sorry, I do not understand why you would prefer BioWare to just introduce an ARK in some form that doesn't try to use some existing lore. Since humans are involved, the answer lay in the human timeline and lore and that post is what I felt most plausible.

 

• The Protheans were linked with Cro-Magnons. A species that did not exist 50'000 years prior to MEU. Not even close. The Cro-Magnon range covers between 35,000BC and 10,000BC, though remains have been found that date from 41,000BCE. This evidence alone proves that the Protheans must have been in Mars  LONG AFTER the Reaper Invasion.
•  I am attempting to defuse the "humans are special" thing. I'm suggesting we were lucky to have been in the system where the last Protheans attempted their final Reaper Solutions and that we discovered their infrastructure. Also, I am stretching the timeline and event of the discovery event AWAY from magic and into a human reality. A corporation involved in space exploitation and technologies would seek to gain understanding of anything that might give them a competitive edge, and they would keep things Very,very secret and only announce things to the world when understanding, and practical deployment was possible. Governments would keep that sort of data totally wrapped up, the shock to the human psyche genearated by an Alien discovery would have massive consequences for the entities that control political and religious belief in humans.
• Shepards Cypher was not complete without the Thorian data. The beacon only gave a very garbled message or vision and could not be fully understood without it. That understanding arrived on Feros and confirmation of what the Reapers were and could do was obtained in 2183.

I speculate that after 2183, an ARK project was initiated/ made top priority in some off screen location and that the Prothean data from Mars had something to do with it.

 

If there is some alternative explanation available in lore analysis to justify an ARK, I cannot find it

 

I'm not an expert in history or anything (relating to how long ago Cro-Magnons lived) but in ME3 Javik says that it took the Reapers several centuries to wipe out the Protheans because their civilization was huge (I'm guessing at least 10 times bigger than the current cycle's civilizations because the Reapers pretty much destroyed everyone in just a couple of months). After that, the Reapers had to go through and make sure they didn't leave any evidence of their existence which also could have lasted another couple of centuries. If these Protheans in Sol deactivated the relay during the Reaper invasion and stayed in the observation posts they could have survived a while, maybe even continued their civilization for the time it took for the Reapers to finish harvesting the universe before possibly attempting to leave through FTL drives or possibly creating another relay like the one on Ilos. While they waited all those centuries they could have been observing the primitives on Earth, possibly performing experiments on a couple of them because I'm sure they would get bored of just waiting for the Reapers to finish their harvest.

[DarthSliver]

I'm sorry, BioWare writers are not that stupid in my mind. A quick WIKI check is all it takes to establish Cro-Magnon timeline. If they are indeed so inept, their product is at a worse standard of creative writing than many amateur fan fictions and not worthy of any respect

 

Bioware could be going off that we just haven't discovered Cro-magnon earlier so maybe they could actually date farther. I would say in Mass Effect Cro-magnon do date as far as the Prothean Empire fall and not for historical accuracy at that but for Mass Effect and the theory to truly take place. We don't know how long Protheans live for either, they could be a 1000 year species or shorter so I would say its better to expand the Cro-magnon farther back than assume Protheans lived very long. Also if your theory is correct it could also play into the shatter Prothean Empire that different parts of the Empire were doing different things. It could also very well be a group of Protheans turned to Earth in hope to set our species up for the next cycle near the end and those Protheans didn't have the ability to get to where Thesisa was located at because I am sure the Asari were their promising race for the next cycle lol. 

 

Now this could be just crazy but maybe the Protheans near the end of their cycle and destruction by the Reapers jump started our specie evolution into humanity to set us up for the following cycle. Would make sense why Mars Prothean Achieves has a vast source of information that contains plans like the crucible and such.