Maybe they’re testing to see if and how we prove we’re in a simulation as part of figuring out if they are themselves in one

Maybe they’re re-creating the circumstances of their own world to test theories that they can apply in the real world, and since they can ponder whether or not they’re in a simulation then we have to be able to as well or we’d act too differently

Maybe it’s a total accident. They’re actually studying something over in Andromeda and we’re just a funny accident created as a byproduct of the rules of the simulation