Any chance of Rachni in Andromeda?

Partially a tongue-n-cheeck thread to add to the list of all those "Is species X in Andromeda?" but also a serious speculation on whether everyone's favorite, lovable space bugs could have made the intergalactic journey much, much earlier than the Initiative.

Now, what do we know about the Rachni? 

• They were around prior to the Prothean Empire, and survived both their former masters' and Reaper's attempts at genocide during the later years of the Prothean cycle. They are also aware of the Reaper's existence and the threat they pose.

• There is mention of Rachni activity, such as migrations and colonization happening throughout the galaxy even before the onset of the Rachni Wars in Bryson's Lab in the Leviathan DLC.

• The Rachni are natural engineers, capable of manipulating and reverse engineering advanced technology; they are even adept enough to assist scientists on the Crucible with no trouble.

• A royal egg was able to survive over two thousand years of interstellar travel after the conclusion of  their invasion, and that this single specimen is perfectly capable of jumpstarting the species again.

• Rachni are naturally resilient to a wide variety of environments and capable of surviving atmospheric conditions that would kill even a Krogan in a matter of seconds all without the need for additional protection. In addition, even lowly drones and workers possess natural weapons and armor on par with modern day equivalents, and all Rachni are combat ready from the moment they hatch. 

With these points in mind would it be truly out of the question to assume that a Rachni colonization/migration to Andromeda could have occurred? Even if the ship used to make the trip wasn't as technologically advanced as the Initiative's craft; and the journey took two to three times longer; that would still put their arrival in the new galaxy within the timeframe of ME:Andromeda. This is a species older than even the Protheans, and one that has the absolute best track record when it comes to surviving attempted genocide; once from the Protheans, another from the Citadel races in the current cycle, and even the Reapers failed to wipe them out.  

Another thing to consider, the Rachni wouldn't need to send a mini-Citadel and massive arks in order to ensure a stable population, nor would they need to worry about a complex system to keep the population in cryo-sleep prior to arriving. A small, fast vessel with a crew complement as small as a single a single royal egg could easily make the trip if needed and would have the same, if not more, logistical advantages over the Initiative's attempt. 

What's more, the Rachni wouldn't need to rely on a small selection of "golden worlds" as viable colonies, and could easily go to ground with literally nothing and still have the means to create a place to live, defend themselves, and thrive on a myriad of different planets. Once the queen has hatched, and has established a colony for herself, you could easily see a Rachni population capable of galactic level deployment within as little as two years, even less time if the queen decides to hatch daughters and have these secondary queens establish their own colonies. Once the basic colonies have been established, moving on to other worlds would be simple as utilizing the racial memories innate in all Queens to start construction of space craft and/or making use of existing species' tech to reverse engineer their own vessels and structures.




Aside from their own affinities, I would be shocked if the founders of the Andromeda Initiative didn't consider securing the space bugs in question for their own use in colonizing the Helius Custer. Seriously, if I had access to the Peak 15 research data on the Rachni contained there; which is widely know to all the council members; the first thing I would do when planning an intergalactic voyage is commission the Salarians to clone a new queen and maintain a small Rachni population on hand as a zero cost colonization and guerrilla force for my Initiative. All those blood and tissue samples on Noveria... it would be child's play for the Salarians to clone the queen; we are talking about a species that was able to clone dinosaur war mounts for the Krogan to ride based off a 2,000 year old fossilized skull after all.