TNG - The Ensigns of Command

[Nealithi]

In brief: it's a subtype of fiction in which the speculative is approached with attempts to understand rather than with awe.

Star Wars isn't actually SF - or it's very poor SF - because the setting is science-fictional but is only a backdrop, while the story itself is entirely about mysticism.

Gonna say you are simplifying things to make two popular franchises seem evil. Star Wars fits mostly in science fantasy. More mystic elements pervade. Star Trek is soft science fiction. Much handwaving to get to the stories. (In Voyager's case too much handwaving)
What you are asking for is called Hard science fiction. Where as much of proper science as we know it is used.

[Jonathan101]

Let's face it- there are a LOT of ways that Star Wars is more scientific and grounded than Star Trek ever was.

I don't think that the loss of Bajor was a direct consequence of the Federation-Cardassian War- as I understand it, it was purely about border disputes and the Treaty established firm borders that left Federation citizens on the wrong side, leading to the Maquis. The Cardassians simply abandoned Bajor due to it being too costly, with the war probably just adding to the expenses.

My memory is that the Federation, while they'd have absolutely won a true war with Cardassia, badly needed to not have one of those. One of the reasons they had Sisko's backstory be Wolf 359 was to emphasize the losses to the Borg and how vulnerable and depleted their forces were. So a full scale war with anyone would have left them so weakened that the other major powers would have had their way with them after the fact.

The Federation-Cardassian War was before the start of TNG.

[Madner Kami]

Let's face it- there are a LOT of ways that Star Wars is more scientific and grounded than Star Trek ever was.

Huh?

[Jonathan101]

Let's face it- there are a LOT of ways that Star Wars is more scientific and grounded than Star Trek ever was.

Huh?

Star Trek has hardly any android help and often makes excuses for it; Star Wars has literal armies of droids doing all kinds of labour.

Star Trek has replicators, transport, time travel and other stuff that probably isn't scientifically possible; Star Wars is more restrained with things like that.

Star Trek has the Q, Organians and other crazy aliens with insane reality warping powers while Star Wars is pretty tame by comparison.

etc

[Madner Kami]

[clearspira]

Let's face it- there are a LOT of ways that Star Wars is more scientific and grounded than Star Trek ever was.

Huh?

Star Trek has hardly any android help and often makes excuses for it; Star Wars has literal armies of droids doing all kinds of labour.

Star Trek has replicators, transport, time travel and other stuff that probably isn't scientifically possible; Star Wars is more restrained with things like that.

Star Trek has the Q, Organians and other crazy aliens with insane reality warping powers while Star Wars is pretty tame by comparison.

etc

I actually kind of agree with the first two paragraphs. The third however has really taken a battering in recent years. Palpatine isn't Q or the Organians, but he is at survives ''being thrown down a 1000 foot shaft, and have a Death Star blow up in his face, and have Death Star crash to Endor, and somehow miraculously not drown'' level.
And Rey with her thirty or so powers is easily approaching your lower level Star Trek fake god.

[AllanO]

What we do know is that the Cardassian Union was in a bad enough state after the war that they felt compelled to leave Bajor, and then they went through a period of political instability and unrest. We also know that they are militarily weaker than the Federation and there is no way that they could have won, while their opponents are diplomatic and pacifistic and look for peaceful solutions wherever possible. It is more likely that the Cardassians were losing, sued for or were offered peace, and the Federation agreed to it because they wanted to avoid further bloodshed.

The no-win-scenario that always sits in my mind is that most of the human colonies in the dispute area looked like they were one photon torpedo away from being wiped out and far from Federation home basess etc. (ie they would be easy to destroy). So sure the Federation was guaranteed to win any conflict with the Cardassians sooner or later, however in the time it would take to force the question the Cardassians could use hit and run mass destruction terror tactics to decimate the outlying colonies. So if the federation had continued the war they would have won a decisive victory settling all claims etc. in the Federation (and their citizens and affiliates) favour and all those colonists would have gotten very nice memorials on planets no longer threatened by Cardassian forces.

This is just my personal head cannon and that does not mean much, but I feel like something like this is consistent with what we see in DS9.

[bguy]

The Federation-Cardassian War was before the start of TNG.

The war started before TNG, but the peace treaty was concluded during TNG's run (and post-Wolf 359). As such it's certainly plausible that the Federation might have been especially generous to the Cardassians in the treaty so as to keep the war from flaring back up at a time when the Federation was in a vulnerable state.

[Dargaron]

I actually kind of agree with the first two paragraphs. The third however has really taken a battering in recent years. Palpatine isn't Q or the Organians, but he is at survives ''being thrown down a 1000 foot shaft, and have a Death Star blow up in his face, and have Death Star crash to Endor, and somehow miraculously not drown'' level.
And Rey with her thirty or so powers is easily approaching your lower level Star Trek fake god.

If by "in recent years" you mean "since 1991," because that's when Dark Empire was released, complete with revived Palpatine and his fleet destroying "force storm."

EDIT: That said, I feel like Star Wars does deserve slightly more "sci-fi cred" just because they at least attempt to justify most if not all of their explicitly supernatural material under the umbrella of "the Force," with some expectation that Force use has common features.
Whereas Star Trek has a whole grab bag of unrelated magic goings-on like The Q, the Nexus, the literal Greek God Apollo and whoever it was that left Armus behind when they ascended.

[Frustration]

Gonna say you are simplifying things to make two popular franchises seem evil.

No, just to point out that one of those franchises is actually fantasy in a technological setting.

Star Trek is (when written well) highly rationalist, even though its SF isn't especially 'hard'. It's SF in ways that Star Wars isn't.

Tangential point: I'd argue that both have become evil, but not for any reasons related to the ideas being discussed here.

Star Wars fits mostly in science fantasy.

Nope. There is no science in Star Wars. You could replace everything with magic and it wouldn't change anything important. You could even make everything mundane and realistic, and you'd get the story George Lucas ripped off: The Hidden Fortress. Same story, different backdrop.

What you are asking for is called Hard science fiction. Where as much of proper science as we know it is used.

No, I understand perfectly well what I'm saying. The issue is not whether the science is hard or soft, but whether it exists.