User blog comment:Ygrain/How the ending might make sense/@comment-5503561-20120614141925/@comment-1341687-20120616035608

It was my impression that Javik was around for about the last 100 years of the war. That's plenty of time to know and learn about the species that are expected to come up in the next cycle as well as safeguards being put in place around that time. The asari being one of them. Mostly because he was expecting to be revived (as were all those going in stasis) after the Reapers and well before the next cycle and the other species would serve as the new subjects of the glorious empire.

As far as the Crucible, we are told that it was thought of in some cycle before the Protheans. Depending on their discovery and translation and figuring out what it was, they may have only begun understanding in the end. So they just made sure to include their notes and hid the research for the next cycle. If anything, we should be more wondered about the data being on Mars and not in a ruin closer to the asari, the "chosen" race.

It's easy to forget while playing, how much time is actually passing in-game from start to finish. I won't say more than months, but long enough to do more with the information they had. Especially since they had more species working. Species who all tackle problems in areas better from other angles or better at certain issues all together. Protheans never really come off as "out-the-box" people. All their plans basically boiled down to 'wait it out'.