"Star Wars" has always been a fantasy series draped in sci-fi cosplay. For all the spaceships, robots, and planet-smashing laser beams, George Lucas's galaxy far, far away is as much about magic and the people who wield it as "The Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter". Even a cynic like Han Solo eventually had to concede that Obi-Wan Kenobi's "mumbo jumbo" about the Force was true. The inner workings of the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive were never quite so important.
Star Trek is different; the resolutely sci-fi voyages of James T Kirk, Jean-Luc Picard, and their successors on the final frontier are much more likely to be underpinned by science or, at least, the franchise's version of it. The technology — to paraphrase Arthur C Clarke — may be so advanced that it's more or less indistinguishable from magic, but faster-than-light travel, teleportation, and even Greek deities have all been given explanations that wouldn't seem out of place in a 23rd-century physics textbook.
