I think this could be balanced within the Mohs scale of sci fi hardness [1]. Sure there can be some hand-waving 'magic pixie dust' where you need to advance the technology to match the story, but many space operas choose a single limitation and do a deep-dive into it. Iain M Banks does this an awful lot in the culture series.

1. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MohsScaleOfScien...