Andromeda Initiative briefings (6/6 Golden Worlds and Settlements)

BansheeOwnage, I'm having a hell of a time trying to quote you and reply, because you had about a dozen "multiquotes", and my iPad hates them since the ads on this site started.

You said the following, regarding the construction of the Arks.
"It can't take place during the Reaper War because the Reapers went straight to Earth after curb-stomping the batarians. It can't be after because it'll (de)canonize endings. It can't be before if it isn't secret, and it would be hard (and pointless) to keep it secret at all. So I'm still drawing a blank as to how this is all supposed to work.

The game itself could be great, the story phenomenal, but the premise will bug me forever."

I think your best bet is to accept some retcons and let it go. The entire premise of intergalactic travel is a colossal asspull to dodge the necessary task of picking a "canon ending" to ME3 and moving forward. Since both the players and devs are too sensitive about that sort of thing (as if we only have a single playthrough each with a single valid choice), we get asspull intergalactic travel. Personally, I grieved for logic and the stories that could've been when the trip to Andromeda was officially announced. Since then, I've just hoped for a great new game, accepting some asspulls are part of the initial transition.

As to the building of the Ark(s), I think the most likely timeframe would seem to be pre-Reaper War. If they were willing to go post-War, we could've skipped this ridiculousness altogether and stayed in the Milky Way. The project wouldn't make sense even in the earliest stages of the Reaper War, as in post-Battle of the Citadel, since rebuilding the Alliance Fleet would gobble up nearly all resources (and did, according to existing lore.) Could they disregard existing lore? Sure. Asspulls are a certainty, as I said.

Continuing the above logic, this takes us back to pre-2183. Does it make a lot of sense for humanity to be seemingly the lead in such an endeavor at this point in history? Not really. We weren't even a member of the Citadel Council, yet. Asspulls will happen, though, and this one seems lesser in my mind. Or, we are looking at a much later departure date, as @upupaway95 and a few others speculated, and this whole Andromeda asspull could've been avoided in favor of staying in the Milky Way.

I don't agree that the Arks needed to be secret. It would be impossible to build something like that secretly in Earth's orbit. Earth is a major hub, and Luna is highly visible with even rudimentary viewing aids. It clearly wasn't being disguised. Sovereign would've known about it. Chasing some colonists to Andromeda wouldn't have been a high priority for the Reapers. It would've most likely been a one-way trip. If the descendants of those explorers ever returned, it certainly wouldn't have been any time soon. So, there's really no reason the project need concern the Reapers, as long as it launched before the Battle of the Citadel. (They don't want anyone knowing they exist and having thousands of years to think on it.)

Rambling format aside, hopefully I made some sense. I don't want to give the impression that I'm down on the game. Quite the contrary, I'm very excited. I just know full well that they can't pull off this plot without some BS and asspulling. I am hopeful that such will be confined to the intitial parts of the story in which we transit to Andromeda. Once there, we will be operating under whatever combination of lore/rules has been established in the early part of MEA, not in the original trilogy, so things can't rightly be judged by the old standards any longer. Also, I expect the true logic-bending craziness will be past once we get the initial transition out of the way. The best thing we can do is prepare ourselves for the inevitable BS in advance and let go of our frustration preemptively. It will make enjoying the rest of the game much easier on release day.