What's your favorite faction and why?

I'm stuck on the Advent.

I like their attitude, their beautifully graceful ships, and their awesome special abilities.

Nuking a planet just doesn't measure up to the pleasures of listening to the agonized screams of an enemy world going insane and tearing itself apart. Now that's style!

I also seriously suck at scouting, so being able to psychically see anywhere in the galaxy is a big plus for me.

Needless to say, the Revelation is my favorite capitol ship.

I like the TEC because of the massive money they can churn out.

Favorite cap ship is the Halcyon though.

Three posts, three different answers.

Perfect.

Vasari.

For their shield-negating Phase Missiles and for their very cheap yet very strong Pulse Guns and Pulse Beams.
For their superior Armor and Hulls.
For their Phase Stabilizers.
For their superior resource economy(Jikara Navigator's ability, combined Extractor technology).
For their far stronger but less numerous strike craft.
For their tough but expensive ships, nearly all of which have neat abilities(Charged Missiles, Reintegration, etc.).

Their cash economy is kind of weak until they unlock Tier 4 Trade Ports though, their planetary population upgrades are rather useless, and some of their ships(Overseer, Assailant) look weird. But the other two have some even uglier ships(Guardian, Progenitor, Kodiak, Cielo, Marza), and their own weaknesses(weak resource economy for Advent and weak ships/strikecraft for TEC), so the Vasari still come out on top.

The Vasari are my favorite hands down for a number of reasons. From an aesthetic point of view I like all of the Vasari ships except the whale ship. Phase missiles, phase gates, combined resource research. Tougher warships. They even have the coolest voices.

Vasari ftw

Sadly my 8800 GTX recently died and I'm awaiting my RMA, no sins for me

Advent for me - Cleansing Brilliance reminds me of the good old anime style mega gun blowing everything away with Malice it's even cooler