So, I was talking recently with this guy and when I happened to mention that I wasn’t blown away by the new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, the way I’d hoped to be, he replied, “Well, that makes sense… you’ve always been more of a Trekkie anyway.”

Whoa, wait… what?!

I have to admit, I was a little taken aback.

Not that I deny being a major Trekkie, of course. How can I, when I honestly can’t remember a time before I’d seen the original Star Trek series? Hell, one of my strongest memories of kindergarten — kindergarten! — is talking to a little girl about this cool guy on TV called Spock. But somehow it surprises me to think that people believe I prefer one of these pop-cultural juggernauts to the other. Certainly I’ve never seen myself as having a preference.

People love their rivalries, though, don’t they? Sports teams, political parties, favorite hamburger chains, what make of pickup truck you drive… the list is endless. For nerds, the irresolvable conflicts are Marvel vs. DC and Star Trek vs. Star Wars. I can tell you from personal experience that nerd rivalries are every bit as bitter as those between football fans. My first real taste of that came from this kid I knew back in college. He was frankly the biggest nerd I’ve ever met, the sort who was absolutely convinced there had to be an “in-universe” explanation for why the sets were different on later seasons of the BBC sci-fi sitcom Red Dwarf than they’d been in the first year. (Um, because the production company got a bigger budget and built new ones?! As nerdy as I proudly am, I’ve always had this stubborn connection to real-world, behind-the-scenes reality.) This guy was so extreme in how seriously he took his fannish interests that he could’ve been a character on The Big Bang Theory. He would’ve been the guy the regular characters on The Big Bang Theory look down on, actually. Anyhow, this guy left me speechless one afternoon by snottily decreeing that he was a Trekkie and he hated Star Wars because there are obviously more story possibilities inherent in a trek than in a war. Um, okay, whatever, man.

Personally, I’ve always found the rivalry between the two properties and/or their fans, this idea that there are two warring camps who can never, ever find common ground, silly.and contrived, in spite of my old college pal’s rotten attitude. If you prefer one over the other, that’s your prerogative, but it’s perfectly possible to enjoy both, and I suspect most people — at least the people who like this stuff at all — like both.

For the record, I consider my affections pretty evenly divided between the two, about 50/50. Over the years, my focus has shifted back and forth between them, largely depending on which was more prominent in the culture at the time (Trek was far more active in the late ’80s and early ’90s, for instance, while Star Wars was in a fallow period then), but I love ’em both more or less equally. I find neither “superior” because they’re not trying to accomplish the same thing, and both franchises have produced lots of dross in name of the almighty marketing machine. From Trek, I’ve taken a lot of my personal sense of morality and ethics, as well as (probably) my urge to explore — or perhaps the stories of exploration have resonated with some trait that was already baked into my character. But Star Wars excites me in a way Trek never has. One appeals to my intellect and the other to my gut, I suppose. They are the poles at either end of my nerdy continuum.

Of course, at the moment, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is more consistently satisfying me than either Trek or Wars, so figure that one out.

This has been another meaningless exercise in navel-gazing brought to you by a late hour and a fuzzy head grabbing inspiration from wherever it can…