You might try fitting your story into Larry Niven’s Known-Space/Man-Kzin Wars Universe. Since Niven allowed other writers access to what is now a shared universe, over 15 books of short stories, novelettes, novellas and novels have been written by numerous authors. The Tech timeline goes from 19th Century India, through the age of fusion reaction drives, Bussard Ramjets, and the 3-days per lightyear Hyperdrive. You could set your story in any period along more that 1000 years of technology. The Kzinti Occupation years on Wunderland are ripe for Resistance stories, as are the post-liberation years of political upheaval as surviving working-class colonists try to overthrow the semi-aristocratic Herrenmen who are descended from the original Fifteen Families in the first colony ships, who claimed all the good farmland, industrial concerns, and control of the government.
Orion's Cold Fire
All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
If there’s anything Niven and his frequent collaborator Jerry Pournelle have written that I haven’t read, I’m not aware of it. I really liked the Ringworld series and think that the Puppeteers, Kzin and Protectors to be great examples of the Sci Fi genre.
Personally, I’d really like to have a spacecraft based on a General Products #2 hull.