In a galaxy far, far away.

Literally not in our galaxy. Not in a close one either. Star Trek is, with the exception of 1 episode (?), in the milky way galaxy.

Which is why I've always thought that KTOR is a far better fit. Precisely because you can kind of just have medieval fantasy with lasers. There isn't this big overarching empire with their ever inbigening anti-planet devices.

Because it's fantasy it's kind of gone off the rails to a certain extent, there was a reason that all of the good shows are smaller in scale. Andor could be about the French resistance in the second world war and it would still work. Mandalorian could be a western.

I mean it's implied that Q is just from a super advanced civilisation, rather than being innately magic. One of the first things we learn from Q is that he believes humanity has a chance of being a society that will some day be on the same level as them.

IMO the Q are presented as more of a Clarke's Third Law ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic") kinda thing. Think about how the Mintakans view Picard in the episode Who Watches the Watchers - they view him as being a magical, god-like being, due to them looking at him through the lense of a primative society. That's how the Q are meant to appear to us.

The Force in Star Wars is never presented that way. It's literally just a magical force that you can either tap into, or you cannot.

Gundam has so many reboots and varying timelines and stuff.

I personally think 8TH MS Team is the peak show for a grounded war story version.

My daughter likes going to cons just to look at the cosplay and she never buys anything, so I guess they only conned her out of the entry fee.

And fans are blowhards trying to push their favourite thing on others a spread it further and further.