I'll comment here about the planet, as I have a few points that feed into its use in the Authority setting as opposed to a standard/OTU setting.
my first point is that on a planet with effectively no naturally drinkable water, control of the supply of (desalinated) fresh water is clearly the key to power, in a classic case of hydraulic despotism. maybe the reason the Abbey (who has legal right to the planet and could in theory demand the Laity convert, live by their rules, or leave) tolerates the Laity because they control the only supply of drinking water. Maybe their religion has some cultural taboos that mean they cant operate the machinery themselves? only certain jobs are considered acceptable occupations for the faithful (scholar, administrative clerk, solider, etc), and heavy industry/liquid refining was not one of them? maybe they are sworn not the leave the Abby once ordained, so require the Laity to tend those jobs that need external access?
Second, while I get that the Faithful (I will use this term to cover any member of the Abbey, ordained nun or externs) are not supposed to engage in...conventional reproduction, given the large number of men on the planet, and the fact that reproduction is a built-in biological drive that everyone has, the Faithful might find that it needs to choose between having some mechanism to deal with natural born children of the Faithful, or going down a somewhat darker road, and possibly mandating either contraceptive implants, or even sterilisation as a requirement for full Ordination. maybe they require the externs to take hormone suppressants that remove the (biological) urge. All of this would be public knowledge, and something applicants would know about before taking vows (possibly portrayed as a way to help them overcome their innate human weaknesses and stay true to the vows they made, maybe?).
third, a community like this sounds like either the sort of place that would be happy to have the Authority run its starport for it (), or possibly one of those hold-out colonies that doesn't grant privileges to the Authority. hell, it would work as a wilderness colony, set up by those that didn't want to live under the Authorities rule, or so they could found a "perfect", religious society away form the godless masses.
For more on chastity, see the notes I added on the Artemian compound.
It's illegal, but a substantial number of people use it.
The Laity have long ago converted, most of them. The Abbey's religion is also their religion. There are exceptions.
Desalination will be important. But this isn't a despotism. It's a democratic polity.
(yes, I know that the concept of hydraulic despotism isn't necessarily incompatible with the forms of a democracy).
The Abbey would likely share desalination tech and resources with the Laity.
Or maybe the Abbey owns the old industrial complex (the original, core parts, that is) as I had noted, but a Lay confraternity owns and runs most of the desalination plants.
This society definitely won't go about sterilizing people.
More likely, what happens is that a member of the Abbey who becomes pregnant is simply expelled and joins the Laity or leaves Hawa.
And the girls from the Abbey who run off with spacemen? Prayers will be said for them, but the Abbey isn't going to send an extern squad to fetch them back unless it thinks they were kidnapped.
Members of the Abbey who want children volunteer for creche duty. Indeed, there might be competition for that.
RE placement in Authority -verse
Good ideas, Xerxes. I'll leave it vague for now, because I've barely got more than a subsector of random rolled UWPs worked out.
EDIT
Desalination
I settled on how I'll do it:
public utility, shared resource.
Hydraulic despotisms are cool, but I'll use that concept for a different world.
