Why the Archon 'failed' as an enemy.

I do agree with that.

I'd say a failure. Come to think of it I can't even remember what the Archon's Motivations were, or why the kett were in Andromeda in the first place. Easily forgettable.

the kett will.likely be expanded in future installments of the franchise.

Because?

Saren was a far better written than the Archon, and he was more integral to the story.  He was actually an antagonist who you hated, and he was one step ahead of you all game.  You wanted to bring him down.  He commits a murder on Eden Prime, and then when you go to the council knowing he's dirty you have no proof, and he's sitting there bold faced lying and gets away.  Then by the time you get the evidence, he's gotten away and you're one step behind him all game.  He gets the cipher right before you, makes it to Ilos right before you, and then succeeds in his plan to drop the Citadel defenses.  I hated Saren and actually wanted to beat him.  But even as much as he's frustrating you, on Virmire you actually start feeling sorry for him because he actually thinks he's doing the right thing, and has no idea he's indoctrinated.  Finally, you allow him to break free from indoctrination long enough to go out on his own terms rather than continue being a puppet.

The Archon on the other hand never offers you any setbacks until the very end of the game, and he is not really a part of the story at all.  In the scenes where you do see him like before Aya, or on his ship, you could replace him with some generic Kett Commander like the one at the exaltation facility on Voeld and those scenes would play out exactly the same.  All he's doing is threatening you, telling you they're superior, anyone can do that.

Imagine if you found the vault first on Voeld, and then the Kett arrived, truly first contact, and they overran your recon team, your dad dies making sure you get out.  Or if there was a planet that wasn't as badly hit by the scourge, and the Archon beat you there or outsmarted you preventing you starting a colony.  Now you have a reason to hate and/or fear the Archon, he would now actually be an antagonist.  But he never gives you a reason to hate him, and since the Kett, in general, are portrayed so poorly, you have no reason to fear him.  I need one of those two things in order to care about the villain.

People have been talking about Loghain, he left you to die at Ostagar, and then pinned the whole thing on you and tried to have you killed.  That was enough for me to be counting the moments until we crossed paths again.  Every time I saw him in a cutscene, I was like I'm wanna kill the dude.  Honestly, I had more feelings towards Arl Howe than I did the Archon because he was responsible for my family getting killed.

There was never a point in ME:A where I cared one way or the other about the Archon, he was kind of just there.

It's kind of clear. I mean you could miss it because it's presented in a way that it's more like a raving madman who wants to take action for power. But at the end, the sibling does say IIRC that he will destroy everything if people don't submit or something like that I think. When you deal with him for the final battle, what is revealed is that he will destroy worlds and the reason why which is very briefly addressed is more of a threat actually. Everyone must submit (to exaltation I presume) or he will destroy worlds. My thought was that burnout of helius is his motivation. I wonder if he has ever been in charge of exalting a cluster? That he's been there 80 years seems to frustrate him. Understandable, but then again, did he expect everyone to just rollover and die. To me, this might be one of the more revealing things about the kett. They are dealing with a race that was barely recovered from the scourge, so not really in the best shape to put up a great fight, and he's losing it because he wants to get it over with. He's been screwing around with remnant for god knows how long because of this, presumably, and again, angara were pretty ripe for picking. I can only imagine how long it would take to exalt other clusters with more evolved species. Or perhaps they don't exalt evolved species. Or he's not done this before.

I think of the reapers and I think it was stated that it takes hundreds of years for them to complete a cycle. And they are uber efficient AI, thousands of them, with indoctrinated disciples doing their bidding as well. I would think it would take a moderately advanced race like the kett far longer which creates more questions than it answers but it does give some insight into them, maybe. Not much but something to work with. Really, it would not have taken much to elaborate on any of it. The whole thing has a very rushed feel to it, one where they probably didn't even know the answers themselves during the writing or else they could have added some more details to it.

Oh absolutely agreed. I was just clarifying why he had his hissy fit trash talk session as you mentioned you weren't sure. And sadly it wasn't really made clear.

Also agreed that saren was much better written. I also mentioned loghain in a post I made in this thread as well. Two great villains. I still enjoy the game, but I find the archon not very compelling. Of course, I am the kind of person that likes a lot of depth in my characters and especially villains. The kett have potential to be much more. I've played around with it in my thoughts and come up with some different scenarios where they would be more interesting - like if they were dying out and began exalting in an attempt to find genes that could keep them from dying out (if it was some sort of genetic issue which interestingly stemmed from the fact that they were created by the jaadan as well, but the jaadan didn't get them quite right). Any idea I have thought always starts out with them not being set out on domination but more that they started out trying to solve some issue they had and over time this is who they became. One idea I had started out with them doing this to save another species that was the one who had the genetic flaws or could no longer procreate, and that both races benefited from exaltation, so much that they began to look for other races who wanted to be exalted as well and of course, over time it evolved into less 'willing' participation to completely forced. Those ideas I think make them more interesting, but yes they are ultimately still borg knockoffs. However, how they got there could be a fascinating story to tell and even more so if there were kett who passed on stories of how they began and who they used to be, the better version of themselves, and those kett wanted to go back to that - having a resistance movement within the kett that were against what they are doing and want to see it stop. They still have some interesting potential, but I don't know if BW will even bother to try to make them more compelling. The Reapers turned out to be far less compelling than many had hoped. So I'm not sure if I should hold out hope that kett will be revealed as more complex or just remain shells of a race ripped from star trek.

First off every Gillian in nearly every medium can be compared to another if you try hard enough. If any villain would be remotely comparable to the Borg it's the Reapers themselves. If you are simply comparing them because they "assimilate" other cultures that's not enough. First off the Borg did so to make themselves stronger. The Kett's true motivation is still unknown. One reason I like them is imo they are unknown like the Reapers originally were. There is much more to explore with them. As for the Cylons I don't see that comparison at all even if your talking about the Original ones.

Archon failed because there was no

The Archon wants to exalt the whole cluster with the Remnant and those that he can't or won't exalt he will destroy.

I'm curious as to where the Kett homeworld is. Is it in Andromeda somewhere who knows? Hope we get to find out.

This

The best villains are the ones who take actions which, under different circumstances, you could see yourself doing.