@Jnei -- You left it up to me, so I'll include both. In my own writing I try to remain as realistic as possible because it doesn't strain the disbelief too much, even though I know people are accustomed to ships where people walk around in "local gravity" and nothing is different. These incredible devices are a literary tool to allow the story, but I find the reality and difficulties of actual space travel to be far more interesting and engaging.

So, to that end, I thought the handling in 2001: A Space Odyssey was well done, and the ship, Discovery One, was definitely a kick ass presentation. Equally, the social aspects of the story were great.

On the Fantasy end of the scale, I was taken by the USCSS Nostromo used in Alien, though I am a little put off by pressure structures built with flat plates. They look wild, but are far from realistic/practical/feasible.

In Fantasy cultural depictions I loved the work done in The Fifth Element and their play on religion. I'm still in love with Leeloo and can't get the Diva Plavalaguna out of my head.

The greatest ship, the Millennium Falcon. That is my final answer.

Greatest spacecraft in my opinion is the TARDIS. Goes anywhere, anytime, has a personality, and is always bigger on the inside the runner up would be Lexx also a ship with personality that eats planets
I'm not sure I can pick the greatest society or race because there are always caveats to each. The greatest war would be coming from a story by Ray Bradbury, where the whole planet lay in wait for humans to come back just so it could completely destroy them. Probably best definition of revenge served best cold lol.

"Atlantis" itself, from Stargate Atlantis. The whole city is a spaceship.

Im going to say peter f Hamilton the naked god trilogy or anything by William Gibson lol

Greatest spacecraft: Heart of Gold ala Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Greatest society: The Foundation
Greatest war: the events described in The Forever War

The TARDIS is the greatest spacecraft. But I admit, my heart belongs to Serenity. Shiny!

What is the greatest god? ...And what religion told the biggest lie?

I don't know the answers to those questions. I considered just making up some cool sounding shit and pretending to be obscure but my brain is set to slow today.

Greatest ship, Destiny from Stargate SGU Greatest Society Federation Star Trek Greatest war The Dominion War Star Trek Deep Space Nine

The PROMETHEUS of course.

Hydran Paladin
The Ancients
Daniel Jackson vs The Ori

Serenity is the greatest spacecraft. There's just something about it!

Technically speaking earth is the best spaceship

Enterprise? I dig that holodeck.

How about Greatest Villain too?

I'll go with the Archimandrite Luseferous of the Starveling Cult, from The Algebraist.

I'm going to nominate Fuzzy sapiens as the best race. The Grad Student space force from Anathem for greatest (use of) ships and best war.

Realistic or Fantasy? The reason I ask is because it makes a lot of difference.

vulcans as they are logical. marvel fighting all the aliens, HULK SMASH and maybe the ships on guardians of the galaxy. avatar is an amazing film that really mimics what the civilised humans have done to all the indigenous peoples around the globe.

Mine: a Culture General Systems Vehicle, the Xeelee (whose Nightfighter spacecraft almost got the Xeelee in the list twice, but I like the Culture craft's AI and humorous names) and the Idiran-Culture War.

I love the Robert A. Heinlein universe; although the settings differ in his stories, there are usually flying robo taxis, self-aware computers, Martian beings with great psychic abilities, etc. I also greatly enjoyed the John Scalzi Old Man's War series universe.

I DON'T like Asimov's universes-to me, he's often redundant,, and it's obvious, for instance, in the Rama series, that after the first book, he generated ideas, then turned the writing over to some hack to finish the books for him.

NCC-1701D . Picard, Jean-Luc Picard