Batman wrote:I guess it's easier to say 'They say Trek loses! They're biased!' than actually look at what goes on on the board, which would result in them finding out that-a lot of us are pretty serious Trek fans, even the ones that agree that Wars would beat Trek like nobody's business disagree about what 'nobody's business' actually means, happily agree that Trek has useful technologies Wars does not, and so on.
Yeah, my level of fandom is generally somewhere like so:
1) Star Trek
2) Warhammer 40,000
3) Babylon 5
4) Star Wars
And I'll readily admit that the Galactic Empire can beat them all bloody. I find it odd, though, that some fans apparently feel threatened when their favorite universe isn't also the most destructively powerful fictional universe depicted ever. What made them a fan, their enjoyment of the stories they were presented with, or their belief that the Federation was the biggest, baddest space empire ever created in sci-fi? I doubt it was the latter, and yet they feel the need to believe that's the case.
For instance, in my opinion Babylon 5 is better written and better conceived than any Star Trek show, but the Federation would thrash the Earth Alliance if they were thrown together into a fight. But so what? It doesn't detract from my enjoyment of Babylon 5 in the slightest. It doesn't diminish JMS's achievements in that series in any way, any more than the Galactic Empire's ability to trounce the Federation within days takes away my enjoyment of TNG's "Tapestry", DS9's "In the Pale Moonlight", or TOS's "The City on the Edge of Forever." I'm principally a Star Trek fan* because of episodes like those I just listed, not because I'm engaged in some kind of fan d*** measuring contest and I need to believe that Star Trek, 40k, Babylon 5, Star Wars, or whatever has the biggest swinging shaft of them all.
*BTW: I'm posting under a 40k ID, but I base internet usernames on my mood at the time that I registered that name more than anything else. I think I'm on a Star Trek site elsewhere with a D&D name and a Star Wars site with a Star Trek name, a Twitter account under the name of a Marvel Universe character, while I used to have a YouTube account under a Star Wars name.