Please bear with me while I do some speculation.
Interstellar Ark Starship
A while a go I was watching Ascension on Netflix. A nice miniseries originally broad casted on CBC in Canada and Syfy in the USA. It's inspired by Project Orion which was a real thing during the presidency of John F. Kennedy.
Because people were afraid the world would come to an end by nuclear warfare, an Interstellar Ark Starship was launched with 600 people on board. It was heading for a nearby constellation where these 600 humans would find a new home and make sure humanity would survive.
The journey to Proxima Centauri would take a century, so the people actually colonizing the new planet would be the grandchildren of the original crew. The story is set 50 years after launch, following the story of the generation that was born in space and would die in space.
Mass Effect: Andromeda
At the end of Mass Effect 3 the player can choose from three options that change our galaxy forever. The effect of your choice is limited to only our own galaxy, because it uses the mass relays spread across the Milky Way. Other galaxies, like Andromeda, are not affected by this choice. That's why Mass Effect: Andromeda is set in Andromeda. Whatever the choice of the player in the original trilogy; Andromeda is a clean sheet.
I think the reason why the Council races launched a mission to Andromeda is the same as the one from Ascension. When the Reapers would destroy all life in our galaxy, this mission would prevent the Council races from extinction. That's why we will be looking for a new planet (or multiple planets) to live on.
But it's a one-way trip, because the journey is so long that after finding a suitable planet there is no time to go back and collect colonists. The work of the Reapers might already be done by that time, the risk of discovery or taking along indoctrinated passengers is too big. So, the colonists are already on board. A lot of them.
The journey
The Andromeda Galaxy is the nearest major galaxy to ours, but still 2.5 million light-years away. Reapers are capable of covering 30 light-years every 24 hours, which is twice as fast as the starships of the Citadel races.
It's not logical that the Citadel races have discovered an even faster way to travel than the Reapers (an ancient master race). But let's assume that technology from Sovereign was used for this Intergalactic Ark Starship to make it fly as fast as a Reaper. Meanwhile, let's just ignore the question of fuel.
Then we have to divide 2.5 million light-years with 30 light-years to get the number of days it would take to travel to Andromeda and divide that with 365. The result is a journey of 228 years.
Vault life
I assume that the big ship from the N7 Day-video is a huge Intergalactic Ark Starship. So enormous, that the Citadel-like structure from the concept art is the 'wheel' around the ship from the video. It's a small, moving Citadel of it's own. That means it is designed to sustain (daily) life for the whole trip. There could be hundreds, even thousands of Asari, Turians, Salarians and humans on board.
The Asari can easily make a 228 year journey within one lifetime. They have a very convenient way of reproduction, so to them it's just a really, really long journey.
For humans it's a different story. Multiple generations will have to live (and die) on the Intergalactic Ark Starship just to make sure there will be enough humans alive to colonize the planets of Andromeda when the ship finally arrives there. That means that the protagonist would have to be born in the middle of nowhere of dark space.
Even when for some reason (a huge mass relay, a worm hole) the journey would only take – let's say – 50 years or even 25 years, the protagonist would still have to be born aboard the ship. Or he/she was a child when it launched.
Caution! Krogan on board!
Why would the Citadel races take Krogans along for the journey? There are good reasons not to do so. One of them is that the Salarians would use everything within their power to prevent Krogans tagging along. And let's be honest, most other people would also have doubts about putting Krogans in a confined space for a very long time. And since the Krogan are not on the Council, they could be kept completely in the dark about the project.
Beside it not being smart, it's also a waste of time and energy (imagine all the different facilities they'd need). When the Interstellar Ark Starship launches, the genophage isn't cured. So why would the Citadel races take a group of Krogans along if they probably can't repopulate on a new planet anyway? And would they even want this to happen? The genophage was engineered for a reason. Curing it is one thing (and basically just Shepard's and Mordin's decision, an official decision would take a lot of politics), rolling out the red carpet for a new Krogan baby-boom is another.
Of course you could say that perhaps the Intergalactic Ark Starship left right after Shepard visited Tuchanka. But some players decided to keep the genophage as it was. And if we're traveling to an entire new universe so the next game won't conflict with choices the player made in a previous game, it would be strange to retcon one of the biggest choices in the trilogy.
I came up with an alternative reason why there might be a Krogan on board: he's a stowaway. Perhaps a spy. Since Krogan can grow up to be over a 1000 years old, the Krogan in the game could have joined the Intergalactic Ark Starship in secret when it left and still be alive and kicking when it arrives in the Andromeda Galaxy. I think that would also make quite a cool background story.
Cool story, bro!
Yes, these are a lot of assumptions, but somehow it does make sense to me. Anyway, needed to write it down here so it's off my mind.
One cool thing in this theory would be that the protagonist and his/her Council race squadmates grew up together (or the Asari could mention she knew the protagonist as a baby). Ok, I'll stop now.
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