Why are there no Reapers in Andromeda?

ReferenceERROR! Line 2: "beyond Milky Way" not defined or exceeds scope.
ReferenceERROR! Line 5: "another galaxy" not defined or exceeds scope.
ReferenceERROR! Line 13: "other galaxies" not defined or exceeds scope.

Program not compiled.

Don't make me bust out a "Yo dawg" meme to demonstrate Reaper scope.

Hmmm... that sounds familiar.

Ah yes, Reapers. The immortal race of sentient starships allegedly waiting in dark space. We have dismissed that claim.

There is zero, as in absolutely no indication that the Reapers were restricted to this galaxy.  There mandate "as stated by both Leviathans and the Catalyst itself" was to preserve life at all costs.  Not Milky Way life, life in general.

And given they were able to justify mulching their creators as well as all other advanced life to pop up in the last billion years as fulfilling that mandate, we know they can think outside the box and twist their purpose in unexpected ways.

It's quite simple:

It's impossible to prove, with the information we have so far, if they did or did not go to other galaxies.

Anything more it's just our speculation and/or opinion.

Is it possible? Yes.

Is it probable? No.

Mine is: going to another galaxy would be just too cost prohibitive.
Assume they reap at least from 1.000.000.000 years. (That's the oldest record we have, but it might be 2 billion, 5 billion).
The Leviathans were around much longer than that, and they imply they colonized the galaxy, nothing further.
They also imply that only one reaper is built each cycle. So you can assume there's 20.000 to 250.000 reapers, approximately (and the universe is only 13.8 billion years old). Nothing reaching millions yet, by the time of Mass Effect.
Now, discount the cycles that no Reaper was built (like the Prothean cycle, which EDI states they might have failed) and discount the cuttlefishes they lost in battle, like the dead one in ME2 or the Leviathan of Dis.

If they go to another galaxy, they might find really advanced organics (if they do this in their first few cycles) or synthetics that already destroyed their creators and might give our travelers a run for their money (Yes, I'm assuming all this on the principle that they are right about this conflict). Remember, they don't know how life shaped up in other galaxies yet. Their edge over the Leviathans was by surprise alone, because the Catalyst already knew their secrets, strengths and weaknesses and they did not perceive it as a threat (think, the most advanced organic race ever from the Milky Way was destroyed while the Catalyst didn't have a single reaper. It did all that by analyzing the galaxy for a long time before it got to a 'solution' and caught them with their pants down.)

The Reapers may have gone to other places, but I BELIEVE they didn't, because it was more effective to experiment with the Milky Way alone until the crazy kid (it was Shepard's vision, I know, but still funny) was able to come up with another solution or have enough numbers to storm a more vulnerable galaxy.

Obviously the writer's don't want to have the Reapers in Andromeda. They could all be dead, under Shepard's control or under the synthesis effect. Excluding them from Andromeda means the writers won't have to chose a cannon ending. Their story ended in the original trilogy bringing them into Andromeda would hinder to new story the writers want to tell. The Reapers were, as antagonist, too powerful (there was no conventional way any species in the Milky Way could have won). They were so overwhelmingly powerful that they were difficult to handle for the writers because anytime they showed up in person, they would win for the simple reason there is nothing that can stand up to them. If the Reapers, whether as enemies or allies, show up in Andromeda the writers have to choose a canon. If it's destruction, how are they there? If it's as control/synthesis and they're allies, something equally or more powerful must exist in Andromeda or the Reapers would simply steamroll over all the problems the Milky Way races encounter? If not allies (but still synthesised/controlled) why would they go there and what would they do?

Whether they've been there before... there's no way of knowing but like other have said, I think they kept to the Milky Way because that was the scope the Catalyst was interested in. The Catalyst was looking for a better solution, the cycles was just a temporary fix, an it kept it's experiments to the Milky Way (and if you only do something once every 50 000 years, it's going to be slow as hell). I don't think it was lying, it believed its own theories about organics and synthetics, but just because the Catalyst believed it doesn't make it true. Even though the catalyst had been programmed with a faulty premise to begin with, it couldn't let go because it was a core part of it. It might have decided to spread it's "solution" to other parts of the universe once it had one that satisfied it.

Also, I don't agree with the idea that if the Reapers didn't harvest the advanced life in Andromeda, that there should be races/synthetics on their level (or close to it) there. The Reapers don't have a patent on societal destruction. It could happen (maybe not on the same scale or as suddenly as with the Reapers) because of infighting between the races of Andromeda, epidemics, cultures stagnating under the weight of their own size, religious beliefs keeping back progress, or "intelligent" life could have appeared much later than in the Milky Way etc. Reapers (or something similar) are not the only reasons Andromeda is on a similar level as the Milky Way races.

That's procedure not scope.

Procedure, not scope.

You have not proven how the scope could possibly have been properly defined, given how bad the Leviathans were at programming this thing.

Still went beyond Leviathan intentions

Still went beyond Leviathan intentions

"Limit activities to this galaxy", maybe?

Oh, and "Don't kill us"

That's just it. The programming was too broad. There is no indication at all that the system was closed. They are supposed to "preserve life" And they did, by their own definition. But nowhere is there any indication there was a limitation to this galaxy. Neither the Reapers nor the Leviathans mention such a limitation. They are the proverbial AI designed to make paper clips.

I wish this theme hadn't been butchered; treated with a bit of thought (no singularity BS, with nonsensical notions like robot DNA), and good writing (no Casper the friendly Catalyst), it's a very interesting theme.

In fact, Asimov uses it to link his 'Robot' and 'Empire' & 'Foundation' series. Two of our robot heroes come up with a 4th law of Robotics, which involves working for the good of the entirety of humanity (whereas the first 3 laws concern the good of individual human beings, in robots' relationships with them). But then, they end up doing something ... a little controversial.



Asimov doesn't develop this too far, though, since what he was doing was essentially to link existing novel series because the publishers kept buggering him to do so, for the sake of new novels.

Remnants could be like the protheans of andromeda that were killed by the reapers of andromeda. Same shit, different galaxy.