The Expanse (both a recently completed book series and a cancelled yet mostly complete TV adaptation) is pretty good at this; it sets up a world with complex political dynamics, and lets things mostly evolve as a result of those dynamics, with the main characters largely just along for the ride. It takes the science parts super seriously too: ships have to worry about acceleration and debris fields during battle, communications have to account for the speed of light, that sort of thing. There's only the occasional injection of new technologies to push things forward about once per book/season.