The post for today's exercise then goes on to list several topics that folks have come up with over the years. I feel like using that as a list...Exercise:
Spend 15 minutes thinking about two or three of the above "left out topics" and post in the comments any other world-building topics that come to mind that you haven't seen addressed in these threads and would like to.
Clothing: What passes for fashion in your world?
I like the idea that each world has it's own fashion trends. One world may favor the ultra-chic of today's high-end fashions, while another world is mostly "blue jeans and t-shirts". For the Union as a whole, I look a lot to what's come before; Star Trek, Star Wars, and Battletech. Similar worlds, similar themes.
Sanitation and hygiene: We don't read speculative fiction to read up on people going to the bathroom, but how clean is your world? What do large concentrations of people do with their waste (biological waste as well as regular ol' trash)?
The Union tends to have mass-garbage yards where trash is compacted, launched into orbit, and fired into the nearest star. At least that's how it works on most urban settings. The more remote a world, the more necessary it will be to try and recycle anything and everything they can. Composting stations, recycling yards, scrapyards; that's the norm in the Stellar Garden. I think there may be one or two minor powers that will be akin to "70s era US", where it's all fossil fuels, smog, pollution, and garbage yards miles across stinking up the place.
Disease and Treatment, Medicines: Similarly, how does medicine work in your world? What do people do for pain? What do they do about disease? How do people heal? Are there hospitals, healers, infirmaries, medics?
High medicine with advanced cybernetics, pharmaceuticals, and life-preserving surgeries. Certain psychics could even be involved; if they are skilled in bio-manipulation or with mental techniques, they may be called on for delicate matters.
Treatment of the Elderly: A related issue: do your elderly drift away on icebergs? Do they get put into an old folks' home? Do they shift to hyper-productive imaginative lives in a VR world? Are they revered? Reviled?
In urban centers, medical science allows humans to live past 100 years of age, regularly. The elderly live long and active lives, due to supplements. The poor don't quite have the same access, but they still can live a long while. Most are still active members of the community and ideally seen as knowledgeable elders.
Law Enforcement and Incarceration: Long-term incarceration is a modern phenomenon, and one that doesn't seem to work very well, given the overpopulation in prisons. What happens to criminals in your world? Fines? Feuds? Eye-for-an-eye mutilation? Microchipping? Do you have prisons?
The Union maintains various prisons around the Garden. Each world has a few in isolated locations; the goal is to rehabilitate felons and use them as labor in mines, farms, or civic improvement projects. Upon release, they are gene-tagged and on effective parole for the remainder of their lives. The worst criminals are kept away from the public, locked into prisons orbiting dead stars, on planets with harsh climates, or on refurbished asteroid bases. Only the very worst criminals are issued the death penalty (treason or murder of a government official).
Some fun details to add into the setting. Two more days and then this project phase is completed.
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