96 réponses à ce sujet

[Rocks_and_shoals]

So I've noticed a lot of people in the forum putting forth the theory that mass effect Andromeda's Ark occurred before during or shortly after the events of mass effect 3 because we needed to find a new place to live. But I don't think that's right at all for the following reasons.

Developers have stated that MEA will take place far removed from events surrounding Shepard in both space and time (far removed in time may indicate the distant future). They've also stated that it's so far in the future that Shepard's actions are legend and not just history.

If you think about it, the species in ME would have to come up with the technology to travel between galaxies on their own. Why? Well...why would the reapers ever have advanced enough mass effect drives to travel between galaxies? From what we know of the reapers, they assimilated all their knowledge from species they harvested over millions of years, but as stated by the reapers themselves in ME1 (Sovereign), the reapers only allow a species to reach a certain point in technology, their apex of the cycle before the harvest begins. So the reapers would only be as advanced as the most advanced race they harvested. They would never allow a species to develop intergalactic mass effect drives because the reapers lose control of the cycle and their galactic experiment. The precense of the relays may have actually inhibited species desire to develop other ways of star travel because all of their tech was based off mass relays and the citadel.And there's nothing to indicate the reapers developed their own technology.

The only precedence is when they perfected the leviathons ability to indoctrinate, but that was useful to them and intergalactic travel is not.

So if it takes place far in the future, then the citadel and other races are not running from anything, nor do they actually need to find a new home. It's just the natural progression of space travel, once you've explored your galaxy you expand into others..It wasn't an escape plan from the reapers or a last ditch attempt by the asari. After all the resources and knowledge needed to make the Ark go far beyond even the protheans. So that indicates to me it's long after the war, maybe centuries or millennia and the Milky Way rebuilt itself.

Also if Shepard is legendary, the Reapers are likely either legendary or lost in the ancient past as well, meaning we will not see any reapers in this new game.Anything else would require the developers to canon decide an ending.
Thoughts?

[Navasha]

Time is kind of a funny thing when you start talking about space travel and relativistic speeds.    Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away.  Which means a ship travelling at light speed takes 2.5 million years to get there.     However, if you start throwing in time dilation into the mix things REALLY start to get funky since time slows down the faster you are travelling.    While on that 2.5 million year journey to get there (for the traveler), maybe 10 million years will have passed back in the milky way. (for everyone left behind)

 

The faster you go the more dilation effect.   So if they are going 10,000x the speed of light, it cuts the travel time down to 250 years, but guess what ... Millions of years still passed by in the Milky Way.  

 

So barring some instantaneous travel event like a wormhole, the human species in Andromeda will always be in the far distant future.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

Developers have stated that MEA will take place far removed from events surrounding Shepard in both space and time (far removed in time may indicate the distant future). They've also stated that it's so far in the future that Shepard's actions are legend and not just history.

Travel between galaxies will take a long time. Unless the method of travel is instantaneous, the time it would take to get from the Milky Way to Andromeda would be around 232 years if using Reaper or Reaper-tier FTL drives and around 579-464 years if using our cycle's drives(ignoring the drive discharge problem which would make the trip even longer). 

 

If you think about it, the species in ME would have to come up with the technology to travel between galaxies on their own. Why? Well...why would the reapers ever have advanced enough mass effect drives to travel between galaxies? From what we know of the reapers, they assimilated all their knowledge from species they harvested over millions of years, but as stated by the reapers themselves in ME1 (Sovereign), the reapers only allow a species to reach a certain point in technology, their apex of the cycle before the harvest begins. So the reapers would only be as advanced as the most advanced race they harvested. They would never allow a species to develop intergalactic mass effect drives because the reapers lose control of the cycle and their galactic experiment. The precense of the relays may have actually inhibited species desire to develop other ways of star travel because all of their tech was based off mass relays and the citadel.And there's nothing to indicate the reapers developed their own technology.

The Reapers have been shown and stated on multiple occasions as wanting to make the cycles as efficient as possible. And yes there is evidence that states the Reapers developed their own technology. They created the Citadel and Mass Relays, technology even their most advanced victims the Leviathans didn't have, in order to make the harvests more efficient. Both the Reapers and the surviving Leviathans state this. They would also want to constantly upgrade themselves since that would make each one more efficient, just like why they created a perfected form of indoctrination. It is only logical to give yourself as much of an advantage as possible. 

 

The only precedence is when they perfected the leviathons ability to indoctrinate, but that was useful to them and intergalactic travel is not.

How is intergalactic travel not useful to the Reapers? The Catalyst is trying to find the perfect solution to the problem it has been given, and having a larger sample size is always useful for experiments. In this case, having the cycles in more than one galaxy. 

Plus we know they have intergalactic capabilities, since they came from a decent ways away from the Milky Way into it after the events of Mass Effect 1.

 

So if it takes place far in the future, then the citadel and other races are not running from anything, nor do they actually need to find a new home. It's just the natural progression of space travel, once you've explored your galaxy you expand into others..It wasn't an escape plan from the reapers or a last ditch attempt by the asari. After all the resources and knowledge needed to make the Ark go far beyond even the protheans. So that indicates to me it's long after the war, maybe centuries or millennia and the Milky Way rebuilt itself.

I agree in that I would rather it take place after the Reaper War and be a mission of exploration and colonization rather than one of evacuation and survival. Though the issue with this is how little of the Milky Way our cycle has explored. The canon has it that our cycle has explored less than 1% of the Milky Way in the over two thousand years since the Asari became spacefaring.

Also, the technology shown in the E3 trailer shows that it isn't much more advanced if at all than what we've seen in the Shepard Trilogy. For example they have some of the same guns, and the new Mako is designated M40 which means it is between the old M35 Mako and the M44 Hammerhead. 

 

Also if Shepard is legendary, the Reapers are likely either legendary or lost in the ancient past as well, meaning we will not see any reapers in this new game.Anything else would require the developers to canon decide an ending.
Thoughts?

They could just have the Reapers if alive staying in the Milky Way. 

[Revan Reborn]

As the poster above said, time works differently when traveling in space. Just because the ARK may have launched at the beginning of ME3 doesn't mean the game isn't taking place far into the future. I'm still under the impression the ARK was a last ditch effort to preserve as many Milky Way species as possible if Shepard were to fail to stop the reapers.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if by the time the events of Andromeda starts the ARK is running low on supplies and in serious need of repair, which is why the Pathfinders are sent out to explore and find a new home. This is all obviously conjecture, but it sounds interesting and fun.

[Miserybot]

A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far Far Away?

[echoness]

The reason why species in galaxy doing intergalactic travel is either they are extremely desperate in escaping annihilation or they are extremely rich in resource and time and knowledge. From N7 day trailer I would like to believe it's later. But weapons and such are not quite evolved (compared to these things in Reaper War) so I suspect it's somehow human spend like 50 years or more finding knowledge that makes intergalactic travel possible. Because Mass Relays are destroyed they have enough reason to do so. This also leaves one disturbing speculation that there must be a canon ending as ME:A's background story. I personally would like a fresh start for ME:A. So confusing...

[SNascimento]

A long time after the Ark left. I hope the last people that left the Milk Way alive will be long dead when the game starts. 

[Killroy]

Developers have stated that MEA will take place far removed from events surrounding Shepard in both space and time (far removed in time may indicate the distant future). They've also stated that it's so far in the future that Shepard's actions are legend and not just history.

The first part came from a leak, not any devs, and that second part has no source that I'm aware of.
Besides, the whole point of changing the setting is to get away from ME3 and it's endings so the timing is going to revolve around avoiding that mess.

[SNascimento]

The first part came from a leak, not any devs, and that second part has no source that I'm aware of.
Besides, the whole point of changing the setting is to get away from ME3 and it's endings so the timing is going to revolve around avoiding that mess.

Nope, it came from the devs:

http://blog.bioware....fect-andromeda/

But it was also on the leak, which was, well, leaked before E3... ! 

[Rocks_and_shoals]

Time is kind of a funny thing when you start talking about space travel and relativistic speeds. Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away. Which means a ship travelling at light speed takes 2.5 million years to get there. However, if you start throwing in time dilation into the mix things REALLY start to get funky since time slows down the faster you are travelling. While on that 2.5 million year journey to get there (for the traveler), maybe 10 million years will have passed back in the milky way. (for everyone left behind)

The faster you go the more dilation effect. So if they are going 10,000x the speed of light, it cuts the travel time down to 250 years, but guess what ... Millions of years still passed by in the Milky Way.

So barring some instantaneous travel event like a wormhole, the human species in Andromeda will always be in the far distant future.

Except we see in the E3 trailer that they are in fact not travelling at relativistic speeds but employing some kind of wormhole, jump to hyperspace technology or something like mass drives without relays to navigate between stars and probably the same between galaxies. I don't think relativistics in this case holds water because we didn't see it when jumping through more primitive mass relays. Also relativistic only applies as you approach or are slower than the light barrier, not beyond it.

Travel between galaxies will take a long time. Unless the method of travel is instantaneous, the time it would take to get from the Milky Way to Andromeda would be around 232 years if using Reaper or Reaper-tier FTL drives and around 579-464 years if using our cycle's drives(ignoring the drive discharge problem which would make the trip even longer).

The Reapers have been shown and stated on multiple occasions as wanting to make the cycles as efficient as possible. And yes there is evidence that states the Reapers developed their own technology. They created the Citadel and Mass Relays, technology even their most advanced victims the Leviathans didn't have, in order to make the harvests more efficient. Both the Reapers and the surviving Leviathans state this. They would also want to constantly upgrade themselves since that would make each one more efficient, just like why they created a perfected form of indoctrination. It is only logical to give yourself as much of an advantage as possible.

How is intergalactic travel not useful to the Reapers? The Catalyst is trying to find the perfect solution to the problem it has been given, and having a larger sample size is always useful for experiments. In this case, having the cycles in more than one galaxy.
Plus we know they have intergalactic capabilities, since they came from a decent ways away from the Milky Way into it after the events of Mass Effect 1.

I agree in that I would rather it take place after the Reaper War and be a mission of exploration and colonization rather than one of evacuation and survival. Though the issue with this is how little of the Milky Way our cycle has explored. The canon has it that our cycle has explored less than 1% of the Milky Way in the over two thousand years since the Asari became spacefaring.
Also, the technology shown in the E3 trailer shows that it isn't much more advanced if at all than what we've seen in the Shepard Trilogy. For example they have some of the same guns, and the new Mako is designated M40 which means it is between the old M35 Mako and the M44 Hammerhead.

They could just have the Reapers if alive staying in the Milky Way.

1. I don't think they would bother making the trip if it took 230 years. It would probably take a few years which is why we won't hear about events in the Milky Way but certainly not over 200.
2. I don't see how you think the presence of the relays or the citadel is evidence that the reapers develop their own technology. After all, the leviathan would have to be advanced enough to have created the catalyst in the first place and that technology created the reapers in leviathans image. So the catalyst must have had access to to that knowledge before the first reapers existed. Before any harvests began. The catalyst must have been advanced enough to have destroyed the first races in the first cycle. It wouldn't have been able to magically come up with all this tech on its own because it was only a single AI and it doesn't make sense. What does make sense is that the Leviathan were the dominant species in the galaxy at the time ( which is canon and stated in game) and this was because they were the most advanced technological species. What have we actually seen of Leviathan technology other than the orbs in ME3?
3. Intergalactic travel is not useful to the reapers because the original premise put to the catalyst by leviathan was to save organic life from extinction by AI when referring to only the dominion of the Leviathan. As far as canon indicates, the leviathans empire only existed in the Milky Way, otherwise why wouldn't Leviathan just leave for another galaxy instead of hiding? It is not possible for reapers to be everywhere in the universe, especially since the catalyst happens to exist in our original galaxy. Why would the catalyst stay in the Milky Way if it expanded the reapers everywhere else in the universe? All this doesn't make sense to me. That is why I think intergalactic travel is not available to reapers. And the reapers exist just beyond the edge of the galaxy in dark space, there's a big difference between dark space and another galaxy by like 100 times at least.
4. In star wars games from knights of the old republic to Jedi knight (4000 years apart), technology appears similar so that's no guarantee that a gun still doesn't look like a gun much further into the future.

As the poster above said, time works differently when traveling in space. Just because the ARK may have launched at the beginning of ME3 doesn't mean the game isn't taking place far into the future. I'm still under the impression the ARK was a last ditch effort to preserve as many Milky Way species as possible if Shepard were to fail to stop the reapers.

I wouldn't be surprised if by the time the events of Andromeda starts the ARK is running low on supplies and in serious need of repair, which is why the Pathfinders are sent out to explore and find a new home. This is all obviously conjecture, but it sounds interesting and fun.

That can't be the case because an ARK would require a mass effect drive far more advanced than even the protheans developed. How could it have been built during ME3? All travel required mass relays, that was part of the reapers trap. That doesn't make sense to me.

The reason why species in galaxy doing intergalactic travel is either they are extremely desperate in escaping annihilation or they are extremely rich in resource and time and knowledge. From N7 day trailer I would like to believe it's later. But weapons and such are not quite evolved (compared to these things in Reaper War) so I suspect it's somehow human spend like 50 years or more finding knowledge that makes intergalactic travel possible. Because Mass Relays are destroyed they have enough reason to do so. This also leaves one disturbing speculation that there must be a canon ending as ME:A's background story. I personally would like a fresh start for ME:A. So confusing...

Mass relays were damaged not destroyed as stated by Anderson in the new DLC ending. If they had been destroyed they would have annihilated all galactic life as we knew it, the destruction of a mass relay destroys an entire solar system in the resulting explosion as stated in game.

[AlanC9]

1. I don't think they would bother making the trip if it took 230 years. It would probably take a few years which is why we won't hear about events in the Milky Way but certainly not over 200.

Why wouldn't they? Sounds like you've got an argument in mind, but you didn't make it.

[Rocks_and_shoals]

Why wouldn't they? Sounds like you've got an argument in mind, but you didn't make it.

I guess from my previous argument, it is more logical to assume that the ARK was built far into the future from ME3 time. They aren't in any rush to travel to see new galaxies. I don't think they would bother with a multi generational ship for the sake of exploration. They wouldn't attempt it unless it could be done in a reasonable amount of time. Otherwise, just send asari and krogen if it were to take over 200 years because they live up to 1000 years anyway, certainly not short lived humans who'd die mid journey. Then they would have to train and teach the children necessary for humans to get to andromeda. That's an inconvenience they could do without...

If they used cryosleep, again why the rush to establish a new frontier that's well beyond any meaningful gain for the races in the Milky Way in the not too distant future?

Andromeda is a lot like 'the new world' in the 15th century. The pathfinders are there to establish a presence and political infrastructure in Andromeda as an extension of citadel controlled space. They can find new resources for races in the Milky Way and extend the influence of citadel space from the galactic to the intergalactic. Its not convenient to get to, but it's a necessary step in space exploration.

[Original Mako]

However, if you start throwing in time dilation into the mix things REALLY start to get funky since time slows down the faster you are travelling.    While on that 2.5 million year journey to get there (for the traveler), maybe 10 million years will have passed back in the milky way. (for everyone left behind)

 

I could be wrong, but I don't think that is how time dilation works. The Milky Way people (who are not "moving" relative to the spaceship going to Andromeda) watch it fly away at light-speed for 2.5 million years. For them, 2.5 million years will have passed on their clocks and calendars from when the Andromeda spaceship left the Milky Way to when it reaches Andromeda.

 

For the people on the Andromeda spaceship, less time will have passed. Their clocks and calendars will be significantly behind those of the people who live in the Milky Way. For them, the trip will seem to have taken less than 2.5 million years.

 

Think about the Russian Cosmonauts. They are going about 28,000 km per hour in their spaceship. It takes them 1.5 hours to orbit the Earth. On our clocks, 1.5 hours goes by. When they return to Earth, we see that their clocks are behind ours (ever so slightly slightly). For them, it was taking slightly less than 1.5 hours to orbit the Earth.

 

So, while you were right about their being a difference of time, I think it would be LESS than 2.5 million yrs for the travellers (spaceship) and equal to 2.5 million yrs. for the observers (Milky Way people).

 

Again, I could be wrong. I am not a physics major.

[rapscallioness]

Sooo, hypothetically, you could leave the MW to head for Andromeda, but while you're traveling, the people back in the MW could advance through the years to a point where they invent some....artificial wormhole, for example. Or something that would get them to Andromeda far faster than anything you were capable of at the time you left for Andromeda.

 

The people you leave behind could essentially beat you to Andromeda because of time dilation.

[AlanC9]

Yep. Google "Far Centaurus" for some old-school SF written around that idea.

[AlanC9]

I guess from my previous argument, it is more logical to assume that the ARK was built far into the future from ME3 time. They aren't in any rush to travel to see new galaxies. I don't think they would bother with a multi generational ship for the sake of exploration. They wouldn't attempt it unless it could be done in a reasonable amount of time. Otherwise, just send asari and krogen if it were to take over 200 years because they live up to 1000 years anyway, certainly not short lived humans who'd die mid journey. Then they would have to train and teach the children necessary for humans to get to andromeda. That's an inconvenience they could do without...

Note, however, that humans, etc. could make the trip in stasis pods. However this would still be much worse for them in terms of disconnection from their societies.

Anyway, in the context of the previous argument, yeah, this works. But I don't think the previous argument was correct in the first place. Everything we've seen of the game , and the state ME3 left the galaxy in, makes it look more like the Ark will leave during the events of ME3. Probably with a single alien-developed drive so we don't have ither ships from the milky Way showing up and telling us what happened.

[Pearl (rip bioware)]

This is relevant to where this thread has gone.

[Hanako Ikezawa]

1. I don't think they would bother making the trip if it took 230 years. It would probably take a few years which is why we won't hear about events in the Milky Way but certainly not over 200.

Why wouldn't they? The Reapers are ageless and immortal, with time meaning nothing to them. Some are over a billion years old. Even for the youngest Reaper at 50,000 years old the trip of 232 years would be equivalent to a 50 year old going somewhere for 85 days. 

 

The math doesn't support a few years. Our cycle has ships that can do 12-15 light years per day and ships with Reaper tech can do 30 light years a day. Andromeda is 2,538,000 light years away, leading to the results I told you earlier. 

 

2. I don't see how you think the presence of the relays or the citadel is evidence that the reapers develop their own technology. After all, the leviathan would have to be advanced enough to have created the catalyst in the first place and that technology created the reapers in leviathans image. So the catalyst must have had access to to that knowledge before the first reapers existed. Before any harvests began. The catalyst must have been advanced enough to have destroyed the first races in the first cycle. It wouldn't have been able to magically come up with all this tech on its own because it was only a single AI and it doesn't make sense. What does make sense is that the Leviathan were the dominant species in the galaxy at the time ( which is canon and stated in game) and this was because they were the most advanced technological species. What have we actually seen of Leviathan technology other than the orbs in ME3?

It is evidence that they develop their own technology because it explicitly states they do, from the words of the Reapers, the Leviathans, and Bioware. 

Your notion that a created entity can't evolve past it's creator's level is wrong. We only need to look at the Geth for that. The Geth were designed by the Quarians, yet they developed their own technology to the point they far surpassed the Quarians. Even a single AI like EDI was able to surpass the intelligence of Cerberus. Yes, the Leviathans were the most advanced. Then the Reapers surpassed them.

 

3. Intergalactic travel is not useful to the reapers because the original premise put to the catalyst by leviathan was to save organic life from extinction by AI when referring to only the dominion of the Leviathan. As far as canon indicates, the leviathans empire only existed in the Milky Way, otherwise why wouldn't Leviathan just leave for another galaxy instead of hiding? It is not possible for reapers to be everywhere in the universe, especially since the catalyst happens to exist in our original galaxy. Why would the catalyst stay in the Milky Way if it expanded the reapers everywhere else in the universe? All this doesn't make sense to me. That is why I think intergalactic travel is not available to reapers. And the reapers exist just beyond the edge of the galaxy in dark space, there's a big difference between dark space and another galaxy by like 100 times at least.

I would love to see where it states your assertions. Leviathan never states it, the Reapers never state it, and Bioware never states it. All that is stated was the Catalyst was made to preserve life. That could mean all life in the universe, or it could mean it sees our neighboring galaxies as a potential threat so deals with them, or any other number of things. You have nothing to support your statements other than your own headcanon. 

 

4. In star wars games from knights of the old republic to Jedi knight (4000 years apart), technology appears similar so that's no guarantee that a gun still doesn't look like a gun much further into the future.

The only technology in KOTOR that looked the same as the movies was the lightsaber, which makes sense since it is a symbol of the Jedi so why would they change it? The guns and ships on the other hand look ancient compared to what we see in the Clone Wars and Galactic Civil War. 

And it's not that the gun looks like a gun, it's that the gun looks like the exact same gun to the tiniest detail that we've seen before. Do our modern firearms look exactly like muskets? The answer is no. 

[Rocks_and_shoals]

Note, however, that humans, etc. could make the trip in stasis pods. However this would still be much worse for them in terms of disconnection from their societies.
Anyway, in the context of the previous argument, yeah, this works. But I don't think the previous argument was correct in the first place. Everything we've seen of the game , and the state ME3 left the galaxy in, makes it look more like the Ark will leave during the events of ME3. Probably with a single alien-developed drive so we don't have ither ships from the milky Way showing up and telling us what happened.

But if you were correct, you'd have to explain how the ARK was capable of travelling without mass relays? Which is technology not even the protheans had? So how could the races of ME3?

[Revan Reborn]

But if you were correct, you'd have to explain how the ARK was capable of travelling without mass relays? Which is technology not even the protheans had? So how could the races of ME3?

Ask BioWare. That seems to be the direction they have taken MEA. The N7 teaser trailer, alone, hinted that Shepard was aware of the project and even wished the ARK crew a safe journey. That suggests that the ARK's departure had to have taken place before the end of ME3, probably before ME3 even starts.

[Rocks_and_shoals]

Why wouldn't they? The Reapers are ageless and immortal, with time meaning nothing to them. Some are over a billion years old. Even for the youngest Reaper at 50,000 years old the trip of 232 years would be equivalent to a 50 year old going somewhere for 85 days. 
 
The math doesn't support a few years. Our cycle has ships that can do 12-15 light years per day and ships with Reaper tech can do 30 light years a day. Andromeda is 2,538,000 light years away, leading to the results I told you earlier. 
 

It is evidence that they develop their own technology because it explicitly states they do, from the words of the Reapers, the Leviathans, and Bioware. 
Your notion that a created entity can't evolve past it's creator's level is wrong. We only need to look at the Geth for that. The Geth were designed by the Quarians, yet they developed their own technology to the point they far surpassed the Quarians. Even a single AI like EDI was able to surpass the intelligence of Cerberus. Yes, the Leviathans were the most advanced. Then the Reapers surpassed them.
 

I would love to see where it states your assertions. Leviathan never states it, the Reapers never state it, and Bioware never states it. All that is stated was the Catalyst was made to preserve life. That could mean all life in the universe, or it could mean it sees our neighboring galaxies as a potential threat so deals with them, or any other number of things. You have nothing to support your statements other than your own headcanon. 
 

The only technology in KOTOR that looked the same as the movies was the lightsaber, which makes sense since it is a symbol of the Jedi so why would they change it? The guns and ships on the other hand look ancient compared to what we see in the Clone Wars and Galactic Civil War. 
And it's not that the gun looks like a gun, it's that the gun looks like the exact same gun to the tiniest detail that we've seen before. Do our modern firearms look exactly like muskets? The answer is no.

I don't know what relavence the age of reapers has to travelling to Andromeda, we are talking about how long it would take humans, the asari krogans etc to age. Why would they bother going to Andromeda unless it could be done in a reasonable amount of time? If it takes 2 centuries to get there and 2 centuries to get back, what benefit do the races of the Milky Way get from funding this expensive project?
As far as I'm aware, ships in this cycle need mass relays to travel FTL which I'm sure Andromeda doesn't have...so I don't think current mass effect drive tech would be used. The reapers may travel without mass relays because the relays existed only after the first harvests and someone had to put them there. But again, they needed a mass relay in the form of the citadel to make it in from dark space. It took them 3 years to travel from beyond the edge of our galaxy. The ARK was likely built far into the future with much more advanced mass effect drives or something else. Otherwise why bother going to Andromeda?

I'd like to see where it explicitly states they made their own technology in game, that's news to me. After each harvest a new reaper is born, perfect in its design, the first being harbinger - Leviathan. I don't know why something perfect in its design would chose to advance. Leviathans technology was advanced enough to rule all lesser species, in game it just says the reapers built the citadel and relays, it doesn't state that they created new technology in order to do so, is that an assumption from your end? It is possible that they advanced but again, this is never stated in game. The catalyst states that each reaper born is a culmination of that cycles knowledge, organics and culture. It never states other than indoctrination that they advanced beyond that.

There is no basis in the game to suggest that the reapers controlled anything outside this galaxy. It is not my job to prove this is true, to prove a negative. If you put an assumption forward it is your job to prove it. Otherwise it's like saying, does God exist? There is no evidence that he doesn't exist therefore he must exist, which is flawed logic. It is a possibility that reapers existed in other galaxies but this is never addressed in game, so there's no reason to believe that they did. All conversations only talk about the MW galaxy.

[pkypereira]

I agree with OP's timeline as in ME:A will take place at least 1,000 years after the Reaper War. But remembering what the Starbrat says, the species of our galaxy has been developing technology that the Reapers have outlined for them. There may be other technological advancements that may accidentally occur, like the discovery of wormholes or the modification of a mass relay to go even further than a star cluster.

[Rocks_and_shoals]

Ask BioWare. That seems to be the direction they have taken MEA. The N7 teaser trailer, alone, hinted that Shepard was aware of the project and even wished the ARK crew a safe journey. That suggests that the ARK's departure had to have taken place before the end of ME3, probably before ME3 even starts.

Although I don't have proof yet, I think that was only for the trailer to tie MEA to the ME universe and show that yes MEA is the next ME game. I don't think Shepard signing off will actually occur in the game, that it was only a ploy used by bioware. MEA is far removed in time from Shepard's story as stated by bioware devs.

[wright1978]

Note, however, that humans, etc. could make the trip in stasis pods. However this would still be much worse for them in terms of disconnection from their societies.

Anyway, in the context of the previous argument, yeah, this works. But I don't think the previous argument was correct in the first place. Everything we've seen of the game , and the state ME3 left the galaxy in, makes it look more like the Ark will leave during the events of ME3. Probably with a single alien-developed drive so we don't have ither ships from the milky Way showing up and telling us what happened.

 

I have to say i like the notion of the use of stasis pods to give that sense of scale of the endeavour, time and distance from the Milky Way.

Could set up some very interesting stories too with that disconnect.

For me it really only makes sense for it to leave during timeline of trilogy and as you say there will likely be some sort of drive introduced that will make it possible for the single ark ship.

[themikefest]

Ask BioWare. That seems to be the direction they have taken MEA. The N7 teaser trailer, alone, hinted that Shepard was aware of the project and even wished the ARK crew a safe journey. That suggests that the ARK's departure had to have taken place before the end of ME3, probably before ME3 even starts.

Seeing that Earth is not burning like is seen in ME3, I say the ship leaves before ME3 happens