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I'm not sure that's really true. What would it take to wipe out all the denizens of a star system? Maybe a few million atomic bombs? Certainly less than the

I'm not sure that's really true. What would it take to wipe out all the denizens of a star system? Maybe a few million atomic bombs? Certainly less than the mass of a small moon. And if that then gave you control of a whole star system's worth of matter and energy, it should be more than enough to fuel the conquest of the next star, and so on. So it's certainly feasible for an advanced race to build a star empire; the question is why they'd want to do it. If we're talking about humans you might say ambition or imagination. If Vulcans, maybe they'd think it logical to pre-emptively become stronger than any potential aggressors.

maxerickson 10y ago
That would work against a system incapable of similar production, but given roughly equal capacity, the target system could devote a small planets worth of material to defensive missiles. You could slam a bunch of mass into a system at extreme speeds, but then they just have to hop into life boats until the storm ends (if they have the capacity to ponder traveling the stars, they have the capacity to spend a decade on a space station).