If you had to axe 3 of the most popular species from ME:A...

I don't care as long as one of the axed ones is the asari.

None. I would walk away. The God of all Things at Bioware, that should mean I have total control over the budget. I will not risk further alienating my fan base.

#1 Asorry. Good riddance.
#2 Geth. Machines. We can always build new, better machines.
#3 Drell. Those flashbacks are annoying and they'd probably croak anyway.

I picked Quarian (weird voices, can't see face,) Geth, (weird voices, a vacuum for a face,) and Asari (Tired of these blue ladies being shoved down our throats.)



Can't live without Turians. Rowr.

You're on my list, fucker.

*researches Bluescreen Protocol*
Feeling obsolete yet?

I went withe same as the OP.

Geth and Quarians have had their big moment, plus both could be almost extinct. Drell are so meh.

Geth & Drell without hesitation.

Really sucked clicking Quarians. But their thing was always, Synth/Organic war and that's over with.

Rowr.

You've missed the point. These are not even in question. You have to butcher non-joke races.
Varren is just an animal though, it doesn't take much lore-space.

Well it seems like you already cut out a good chunk of species in the poll OP.

I didn't vote because I honestly see every race up there as contributing (or should have contributed) to the Ark.

First off, geth and quarians are probably the ones you want most on there. Quarians are used to living with what they can find, living in cramped ships and making it work and salvaging the fuck out of everything and repairing it. And the geth are AIs which means they can run your ship while you're in hibernation and run it better even otherwise than most organics.

Next up, the asari would probably contribute the most economically, as well as being excellent at diplomacy, mediation and first contact because of their weird omniattractiveness thing. I know some people hate that but it's a fact, and the colonists need every advantage they can get. Not to mention that asari stand the best chance of colonizing anyway since you only need one to keep the species going.

Turians are important because of their military background. They'd make good officers and maintain discipline.

Salarians would seem to be outdone by geth/quarians as far as tech goes but I think their niche would be more in the medical/biological research area. Clearly they can do crazy things with genetics. Just keep them away from the krogan.

Krogan are muscle. They're actually less of a priority if you already have the geth, but if you're really expecting trouble, having a bunch of krogan will help immensely.

Drell are realistically the only ones on that list you can stand to lose and not suffer for it in critical areas. They're proven to be delicate organisms (or incapable of adapting if you want to be harsher) and their previous history of needing to be saved by the Hanar is not good precedent for a trip where you a) have to rely on just yourselves and have very limited resources.

Any species not mentioned (batarians, hanar, elcor, volus) etc. are expendable for the same reasons.