I know this is an old topic but regardless of all of the flack Andromeda got I really liked it. I loved the newer gameplay system and I thought the narrative was really intriguing. It seemed like the creators put in more effort to explore spatial phenomena like the scourge and went towards more organic focused concepts like terraforming and genetic engineering, etc..
I loved it, and felt like the narrative they were setting up could have been far more interesting and climactic than what they did with the end of Mass Effect 3. I wish people weren’t so pissy and incessant about their criticisms of Andromeda.
The only two things I really didn’t like that I think they could’ve done a bit better would be to set the Andromeda initiative up more as a mission for the survival of life outside of the Milky Way as a safeguard from the impending reaper genocide rather than some wealthy philanthropists pet project. I mean, it could’ve initially started out as a plan to explore outside our own galaxy but even if when tied to the first trilogies timeline they could’ve played it as an inter species escape plan a parallel to the story of Noah and the Arc.
I know they kind of angled it towards that but it was kind of weak. And yes, they definitely could’ve done that; after reading more of the lore Shepard and Saren weren’t the only ones that knew about the Reapers and there was enough material to play that angle and make for a better story.
The second was that I felt it was a little too “Open World” too much like an extra-galactic tourist trip and less like an expedition of survivors trying to find their way in a war zone of a hostile environment.
It really got on my nerves how people reacted, didn’t even give BioWare a chance and forced them to nix a potential Andromeda series because they had no imagination of where they could’ve went with it.
Anything from introducing other spacefaring races drawn to the Nexus from further outside Andromeda to the Benefactor being an AI trying to save mankind or even the Leviathan themselves, discovering less advanced races and either enlightening them or conscripting them to fight the ensuing Kett Armada.
They basically had a blank slate, an entirely new star system with enough lore founded to do anything they wanted with it. A whole new galaxy and rather than look at where they potentially could’ve gone with it folks bitched about where they didn’t.
In comparison to ME 1 and 3 Andromeda was better, hands down. ME3 was more action packed and climactic but it’s hard not to be when the premise is an apocalyptic, intergalactic war against extinction itself.
I’m saying all of this because I have a hypothesis on this theory that I think they were building up to and if they were then an Andromeda series would’ve been way, way more narratively cohesive and better:
The Jardaan were an Interstellar or Intergalactic, migratory race of benign life forms that traveled throughout the universe terraforming worlds and seeding planets. Highly scientifically advanced but rather than sending Arcs from star system to star system to populate the galaxy they used Meridian, Artificial Intelligence and the Revenant. The Angara are the genetic prodigy of the Jardaan; created and planted to populate the Heleus cluster.
The scourge comes about, not as an “attack” at all but the product of some cataclysmic event that ravaged these terraformed worlds, decimated colonies overnight and caused the Jardaan tech to malfunction or shutdown. Whether a strange spatial anomaly or the product of the terraforming technology gone awry or of playing god, I haven’t figured that out yet.
And so the Jardaan leave Meridian adrift and for the time being, abandoned their efforts in the Heleus cluster considering the event too catastrophic to ensure the Angaran’s survival.
Elsewhere in Andromeda on the Jardaan home world of Sarhesen in the distant past the Scourge has spread all throughout the galaxy. Leaving the Jardaan in a state of a long suspended dark age.
Overtime the Jardaan regress technologically, intellectually, and spiritually. Turned to desperation and civil war over dwindling resources, facing the brink of extinction they use their advancements in genetic engineering and manipulation to recreate themselves through a process they call “exaltation” with a new capacity for imperialism, waging war, and conscription to ensure their survival and prosperity.
The Jardaan have slowly all but forgotten themselves; now a cultish and dystopian society ensuring their reproduction and prosperity via conquest the Jardaan are no more...there is only the Kett.
They travel from system to system, unknowingly retracing the steps of their proginetors. Unable to reproduce naturally after tampering and melding their own genetic material with that of the exalted until they come to the Heleus Cluster. There the Archon discovers the revenant tech, the Angara, and pieces together that the tech can be used to manipulate the planet if not the galaxy itself.
Maybe my theory is a little loose fitting but it makes sense to me. Why the Angara would be fitting to exalt but not many of the colony races. Why there’s not much left of the Jardaan themselves but ironically enough to create a living world with intelligent life. Why the pathfinder needed an AI to use the revenant tech but the Angaran one went mad. Why the scourge decimated these planets but could also be cleared using the tech....but no one could do that before the pathfinder? Why the Jardaan never returned but the Kett did and throughout all of their conquest they never interacted?
And to me that’s the natural way to tell Mass Effects story after the Synthetic/Organic focused theme.
Instead of a near omnipotent being that cleanses life a technologically advanced race that creates it and then is the genesis for their own undoing.
It’s not so insurmountable and hopeless as the reaper war. Not as systematic and patterned, predetermined and controlled.
The natural order is chaotic, merciless, and ironic.
It just makes sense to me that all of these variables and life forms are a divergence of the same being. The way the Kett treated the Angarans almost like family...long lost cousins but hated the initiative. Even the Krogan are exalted to be used as a weapon against the pathfinders, not kin like the Angara.
It could’ve been soooo much better if that’s where they were going with it.
"The scourge comes about, not as an “attack” at all but the product of some cataclysmic event that ravaged these terraformed worlds"
There are Jardaan recordings aboard the Meridian command module, describing the Scourge as:
"The Opposition's weapon may cause widespread damage. All our weapons, our ships, will not be able to protect us… protect my goal."
"We need to disengage Meridian from command core, which will remain here to draw fire. Meridian contains all the work of the Jardaan. Nothing else matters. I will send it far. We can return one day. Continue the process of renewal. End of log."
"And so the Jardaan leave Meridian adrift and for the time being, abandoned their efforts in the Heleus cluster considering the event too catastrophic to ensure the Angaran’s survival."
It did not take much effort from a Pathfinder - someone who does not fully understand Jardaan tech - to operate/fix all the broken Remnant machines with relative ease up to 600 years after the Jardaan left (or vanished from) Heleus. It is not a difficult thing for the Jardaan to return and fix the cluster if they are still around. The far more "primitive" Initiative did it.
"The Jardaan have slowly all but forgotten themselves; now a cultish and dystopian society ensuring their reproduction and prosperity via conquest the Jardaan are no more...there is only the Kett."
As suggested by every Kett recording about this topic in the game: The Kett have no reproductive organs, their survival and/or evolution depend on the process of Exaltation, it's just how the Kett empire grows since the discovery of Exaltation.
There are many more Archons hitting different clusters in Andromeda, The Kett had already consumed hundreds if not thousands of species before Heleus.
Alec Ryder said at the start of the game - before the Initiative left the Milky Way, the golden worlds were perfectly fine. The game made it perfectly clear that they were deemed golden worlds because they were habitable planets and the Scourge happened during the trip. So...
1) Construction of the terraforming installations.
2) Creation of the Angara prototype race.
3) War with the "Opposition" - which could be another alien race known as the Jheln OR, more likely, the Jardaan and the Jheln are opposing factions in a civil war.
4) Scourge attack and the Jardaan people's mysterious disappearance.
5) Kett invasion.
... all happened in the span of 600 years while the Arks are crossing over.
Also to support this - something I already said: the Kett already finished off thousands of species prior to Heleus therefor the Jardaan really could not "slowly become Kett" over time and "forget who they were" in 600-700 years, that would be an absurd story if true.
"Elsewhere in Andromeda on the Jardaan home world of Sarhesen in the distant past the Scourge has spread all throughout the galaxy. Leaving the Jardaan in a state of a long suspended dark age."
"Maybe my theory is a little loose fitting but it makes sense to me. Why the Angara would be fitting to exalt but not many of the colony races."
The initial goal of this game's Archon in particular is to gain knowledge of Jardaan tech and dominate the Heleus cluster and beyond so they can slowly convert all the sentient species with genes that benefit the Kett's evolution, Milky Way races included. This is shown in the holo displays of the various captured Andromeda and Milky Way races on the Archon's ship, highlighting the species' genetic advantages - the Kett's interest is very clear cut as to why they do this. The idea of weaponizing the Meridian only came as a late game decision by an agitated Archon. In either case it's not about the survival of a dying empire due to the Scourge.
While I cannot answer the question, the theories so far can all be disproved by information available and mostly told through voice by SAM to the player in the game.
