The pic above is of a galactic cluster that's 13.5 billion ly away.
How did we get here before light from this cluster did? Even given a few moments of hyper-expansion immediately after the Big Bang -- which may have given us a bit of a head start on the light -- how could all the mass in the Milky Way and beyond have gotten here before it, especially since, from "our" point of view, the light has been closing the gap at c, and started closing the gap 13.5 billion years ago when the universe was much smaller than it is today?
I'll believe what you say. But I probably won't understand it because of a million bad assumptions on my part. :-)
How did we get here before light from this cluster did? Even given a few moments of hyper-expansion immediately after the Big Bang -- which may have given us a bit of a head start on the light -- how could all the mass in the Milky Way and beyond have gotten here before it, especially since, from "our" point of view, the light has been closing the gap at c, and started closing the gap 13.5 billion years ago when the universe was much smaller than it is today? The trick is that the different observers will disagree on the size of the gap, thanks to relativity.
Let's start with a "neutral" observer, who is equidistant between the Earth and the distant cluster, and with respect to whom they are moving at equal and opposite velocities. What does he see?
At some distance between the Earth and the cluster, the cluster lets out a pulse of light. (We will also assume that the observer sees the Earth let out a pulse of light towards the cluster, at exactly the same moment.) The light moves towards the Earth at a velocity c. In the observer's rest frame, the time it takes is much larger than the initial distance divided by the velocity. This is because the Earth is moving away from the cluster; the light is trying to hit a moving target. By the time the light catches up to the Earth, it has moved a considerable distance. Even Newton would have understood this.
But what does it look like from the Earth's point of view? Well, that's very different. There are a number of post-Newtonian concepts at work here. I'll spare you the math, but trust me, it works out.
First of all, the distance from the Earth to the cluster, at the moment the Earth lets out its pulse, is actually shorter (yes, shorter) than what was observed by the "neutral" observer. (I'm assuming that all observers correct for the finite speed of light when making distance calculations, of course.) This is because of the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction along the direction of motion.
Also, as you know, the light is also moving at c with respect to the Earth, whereas Newton would have expected a smaller velocity (using Galilean relativity). Both of these factors make it seem like the light should get here in short order.
But that assumes that all observers will agree upon the time that the pulse is released. In reality, that isn't so. Two events that are simultaneous in one frame of reference will not be simultaneous in another. In this case, from the Earth's perspective, the pulse of light does not get emitted by the cluster until well after the Earth sends out its pulse.
From the Earth's point of view, events are unfolding much more slowly on the distant cluster, even after you correct for the Doppler effect (finite light speed). This effect is called "time dilation".
There are parts of the universe that are moving so quickly away from us that, even though we were only a tiny distance apart at one time, they haven't had time to begin forming material objects. In that part of the universe, from our point of view, the Big Bang is still going on. And in those references frames, at a time when there are galaxies and worlds in those places, the Earth hasn't yet had time to form.
(I stress that that isn't an illusion of perspective; I'm assuming that we compensate for the finite speed of light. What I'm making is a point about the nature of time itself.)