Comparing science fiction when authors set the rules

Why compare science fiction with real technology, and which setting gets physics right?

Comparisons can be useful within stated assumptions; The Lost Fleet is offered as a relatively constrained example with explicit fictional exceptions.

The Lost Fleet is suggested as a setting with relatively limited concessions, principally faster-than-light travel and the null field. Comparing fictional technologies requires knowing the scale and rules of each setting. Interest in comparisons does not depend on all those rules matching reality. Scientific understanding also changes, so older fiction reflects assumptions that later work can overturn. Star Trek's supposed accuracy for its period is a conversational judgment here, without a technical demonstration.