The sci-fi take is basically "what would the future look like if we had interstellar FTL travel and enhanced humans, but no computers, lasers, or bullets?" It'

The sci-fi take is basically "what would the future look like if we had interstellar FTL travel and enhanced humans, but no computers, lasers, or bullets?" It's hard to imagine any kind of modern government where your armies have to be trained in hand-to-hand rather than conscripted with rifles, and where you can't have computers to keep track of records. I can understand why you might not buy into it, but it is very much a speculative fiction type book.