Light doesn't work like that!
So we accept that the Mass Effect (relays) break space time on a local level, that's fine since it's needed for the series to work. But, they'd need a technobabble sender in Andromeda to get superluminal information back to the Milky Way.
Erm I know how light works...who said anything about it being an optical telescope ? More than likely they would use radio telescopes (which I know are still limited to light speed, so you don't need to tell me that) like the NASA scientists use these days to read planets. I mean NASA is able to discover potential earth like planets 500 light years away today.
Is it really that hard to convince yourself that they can do the same for Andromeda using Mass relays in this universe ? I mean if you have a problem with this then you should have a problem with FTL travel in the first place because travelling faster than light isn't actually possible as physics doesn't work like that. But yet there are theories to get around that even in our world. Why is it so hard to imagine that such a thing can happen in a universe where it isn't a theory anymore and mass as well as radio information can be sent thousands of times faster than light?
I mean the game does its job of explaining this shit using technobabble that makes up for this universe, whether it's sufficient for you or not to convince yourself is an entirely different argument.
Actually, no. Mass Relays are pretty thoroughly explained in the original trilogy and that explanation is at least logical enough to not be considered "space magic". How exactly you use mass effect fields which reduce the mass of objects making FTL possible in a telescope is a mystery to me and does sound like space magic. Photons (or anything which can be used to "see" really) don't have mass so you can't use mass effect field for any kind of far reconnaissance.
How do they do FTL communications in this universe, despite the fact that they have no actual mass ? You should have a problem with that too then.
Mass effect fields can only reduce the mass of the object, they are still bound by physics and as such limited to speed of light. The idea behind FTL in Mass Effect seems to be Alcubierre drive and the mass effect field simply seems to be a way to reduce the mass of the ship to something small enough that it can be propelled by warping the space time fabric around it without requiring immense amount of power.
How are the relays and other forms of FTL travel not "space magic" though? As I think I noted earlier in this thread, there is no connection between reduced mass and FTL travel in real-world physics. No matter how small your mass gets, you are still constrained by special relativity to the speed of light. Am I misremembering the technobabble about how FTL travel works in the Mass Effect universe?
There is, lower mass means lower negative energy requirement to propel the ship by warping space time fabric.