We do talk about "Star Trek styled pleb science" (whatever it means), realism is boring (plus, space combat is impossible from science point of view, actually, even space travel is impossible unless we use magic like "warp" :)) and I don't care who gets insulted (they don't need to play my game, they won't like it in the first place anyway). Me not going for any compromises :D
You know, when we are not talking about Star Trek styled pleb science, the wars in space take a whole another shade. Space war is more like a gigantic stealth submarine skirmish campaign, only that there are hundreds of submarines on both sides. This would happen in reality and reality is kinda boring, but pleb science may insult anyone who knows even a little about science, but it is very awesome to watch. So there must be a compromise between entertaining pleb science and sweet realism.
The universe is made of exactly 500 planets connected by starlanes. The edge is quite near and it's existence can be proved by scrolling the mouse in any direction :) Oh yes, and universe is perfectly flat :)
As far as events are concerned, the edge of the universe is your limit.
On a more serious note, unless the player makes "suspension of disbelief" it won't work. Going for a realism in a 4X strategy game is a suicide.
