Closest thing would be an ancient society that was supposed to have repositioned a bunch of black holes to create the Maw (the thing that makes the Kessel run so dangerous), but Kasz is right. You can't really beat the Q. Omnipotence is omnipotence, and can only be matched by omnipotence, which Star Wars did not have, even in the super-expanded universe

I don't get the hate for Enterprise. The show hit the ground running, the story was tightly knit through over 80 episodes, and had some really intense moments throughout. Name me another Trek show that can claim that. Every other incarnation of Trek had at least one mind-numbing, boring, kill-me-now season. There were boring episodes of Enterprise but even those were rather rare. Out of the Trek series, Enterprise was definitely the least "boring".

BTW, have you watched the last two seasons of DS9? I'm right there with you about the first four seasons being boring but holy shit, seasons five and six completely make up for it once the Dominion War goes epic.

I don't see the point of bringing up Q in this "debate". The Q are completely third party and could just as easily side with the Empire as the Federation.

This assumes that we are pitching the entities against one another, rather than the universes themselves. The terms of conflict need to be clearly delineated

the spacecraft of the Empire seem hardier by far, but even basic ships in the Federation seem to be able to dick with spacetime in a way that even the most advanced Star Wars tech cannot. hmm...

For me it is probably:

1. Next Generation (tie)
1. Voyager (season 4-7 in particular) (tie)
3. Star Trek Film series (Some definite high points, but does not have the bulk of content or great moments of the above series)
4. Deep Space 9 (mostly because I couldn't get into it.)
5. Original Series
6. Animated Series (if it counts, I don't know if it really does)
Unranked: Enterprise (because I haven't seen it)

I think my two favourite Star Trek races are:
* The Hirogen - Tony Todd played one of the most badass aliens they ever came across when he played the Alpha Hirogen. Although my favourite episode involved the Hirogen transforming Voyager into a giant mobile holodeck, and put it to the World War II setting, with the Federation brainwashed as La Resistance, and the Hirogen played the role of the Nazi Master Race =P .... Neelix was in another section, and was an Iron Age Klingon War Chief, one of the best moments was the charge of the Klingons against the Nazis =P
* The Borg (for obvious reasons, they're just damn cool).


I can understand how people can like Deep Space 9, it is similar to other Sci-Fi shows that focus on one theme, rather than have a large variety of themes. Although I think my main attraction to Star Trek over other science fiction shows is that it likes to shake up the environment very often. You don't get too many similar episodes in the other series', but in Deep Space 9, it seems a lot of the episodes are on the same themes.  Voyager had a fairly continuous story, but unlike Deep Space 9, that continuous story arc actually dominated very few episodes - there was lots of variety in Voyager. I think if I was more into the sort of soap-opera continuous storyline type show, I would like Deep Space 9 the best; but I'm not.

Remember that compared to the Empire's fleet, Federation ships are toys AND the Empire has thousands of Star Destroyers versus a much smaller Federation fleet. A Star Destroyer is 4-5 times the size of the original Enterprise. A Super Star Destroyer, well...

Here's a handy chart:

http://conservationreport.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/spaceship-size-comparison-chart.gif

And all this talk about Voyager being good is going to force me to watch the last two seasons. They're the only seasons of Trek that I haven't seen but after the first four seasons of Voyager, I just couldn't take any more. The early days of that show are so, so terrible.

I kind of view it like this:

The Federation is built for peace. It's a relatively small collection of planets centered around peaceful cohabitation.

The Empire is built for war. It's a massive collection of oppressed planets built on the ashes of the Republic.

The Empire wins every time. They have way more ships, way bigger ships, more resources, a dedicated army of clones, and a tyrannical leader.

Honestly, how could they NOT win? Even if, say, a Galaxy class cruiser has better tech than a Star Destroyer, the Empire can throw 5 SDs at every Federation ship and invade major planets with clone armies.

They're not really comparable.
It's all just personal preference.

While I enjoy the old Star Trek episodes with Kirk and Spock, I still prefer Star Wars.

well the Death Stars and Executor-class Star Destroyers would own...