That is part of the point I was trying to make above. In James P. Hogan's "Giants" series, the alien Ganymeans have gravitational engineering, which means a lot more than sticking to the floor in spaceships. Their planetary cities have "Enterprise-like" shapes that should not be able to stand up, yet are more robust than much smaller structures over-built out of steel, like the Empire State Building. (A plane crashed into the ESB in the '40s, and that building is still here. The Trade Towers, while admittedly taking a much heftier wallop, were also built to much closer tolerances.)
You can find lots of handwavium on-line about how the Federation warp drives work like Alcubierre drives, or some other "stasis field" fantasy. That basically means that the ship itself and everyone in it never experience any acceleration forces. But is some of the ship's structure "virtual"? That is, is an unpowered ship fragile, while a powered ship is embedded in advanced technology amber? Mr. Flint? Bueller? How big can your dinosaur get before its bones and muscles cannot support it? Heck, the Doomsday Machine was made out of fantasy material "neutronium." What is Star Wars's Death Star made from?
