i'll answer a question i think about a lot: WHAT DO THEY EAT?
food is an important resource in the microcosm. planets with singlet populations (ie single species, rare diversity) often have their own farms and the like to support the local populace with native food, but colonies often need a good flow of general-purpose nutrience to keep folks from starving.
food is often grown on dedicated farmworlds. planets are surveyed and selected as needed to satisfy food demands, with a safety margin of about 2 (so per every 1 person, enough food for 2 people). on planets where the sun's just right but the earth isn't rich or the atmosphere isn't the best, hardy algaes are grown that feed on biological waste slurries that are mixed with local regolith; on others, water or other resources may be imported, or star system resources may be exploited to satisfy demand.
since the specific dietary needs of colonists are logistically difficult to satisfy, colony food tends to follow a staple-first pattern; things like grain flour, pastes and purees, distilled extracts, and homogenous nutrient paste are provided, as well as fresh fruit and vegetables from the Galactic Standard register such as the ponto, long fibrous tubers characterised by their knobbled appearance.
typical alongside food shipments are supplements to provide natural and synthetic enzymes for proper digestion despite issues arising from chirality and other biotic factors. these are provided on an as-needed basis and thus require strong government oversight, often leading to a dissolution of the typical anarchosyndicalist organisational structure in favour of a representative democracy. this 'scaffold' government is eventually required to dissolve however, and often does without much issue.
distribution of food is organised by the Syndication Logistics Division, a large group of elected officials and volunteers who organise the flow of requisitioned resources throughout the various movement modes. at the very top are the superfreighters, truly massive ships that travel in convoys along the UMPIRE backbone.
UMPIRE was constructed soon after the early Syndication, once called the Interstellar Coalition, began its pivot towards the decentralised form of governance it is known for today, and spans some 500 lightyears threading the Gossamer, Outer Wilds and a small ways into the Graveyard together. it works through a pitch-and-catch system where a hypermagnetic loop about a kilometre wide essentially "throws" a captured spacetime bubble containing an entering convoy into the network, tossing this ball between relays until it reaches an end gate, at which point the bubble collapses and dissipates into the gate's radiators. it takes a lot of energy - the relay stations not so much, but the base stations take weeks to charge after a good send
from the UMPIRE network, the massive containers mounted to the superfreighters are brought to local distribution stations where they're broken up into smaller containers and typically carried by local couriers. the fact that most things are available to everyone means that folks tend not to steal from one another, and untrustworthy couriers don't last long in the market. it also helps that packages are tracked by Syndication Logistics
from couriers, the little containers go to ground stations where local government takes over and ships bulk packages to local distribution hubs. from there, folks drop in, pick up their requisitions and necessities, and that's that - warehousing is minimal for luxury requisitions, but foodstuffs tend to be stocked well regardless of population demands. it's a nice system when it works... when it doesn't, it doesn't stay that way long!
