Help.

I can't worldbuild.

So here I am, asking for advice, suggestions, and inspiration from the best people I know. I'm gonna heap together the very basics I know and we'll go from there, depending on how much reaction this thread gets.

Basically the Basics:
In the world of "Air Jumper" there is a mega-political-confederation currently called the United Treaty Confederation, or UTC for short. The UTC has banded together sixty-seven inhabitable or semi-inhabitable planets under its wings, including or possibly in addition to one successfully terraformed and settled world. The cultures of each individual planet is extremely diverse. I'd love to go into those later but what I need right now is this UTC.

How does it work? Why is it called this--and if there is a name change, what would it be to and also why? How does this governing system actually work? How did it come to such power? These are all questions I should know and don't. XD

I know the leader is called the Proctor. He's basically president of the known universe. I also know his position was supposed to be temporary but became permanent long ago--long before the current Proctor's time.

Other than that.... well, please feel free to ask questions and randomly, brilliantly brainstorm.

It's called the United Treaty Confederation because there was a major planetary civil war in which the confederate planets won and signed a treaty with their fellow confederates should anyone ever dare oppress them again.

LOL I'm going with this for now. *moves on*

What happens if Proctor gets assassinated? Is there a board that rules, a Vice Proctor, an heir?

Hmm, I think United Treaty Confederation might be rather redundant. Being united is part of what it means to be a Confederacy. I guess do with that what you will as it could certainly be deliberate on their part or symbolic in some way, if it's a sprawling bureaucratic government that is also inefficient and a little inept.

Some more questions would be about the distribution of power. Are the systems mainly independent or ruled by a more formalized central government? Is there an elected body of representatives? Are they appointed?

There is a "Vice Proctor", who surely has an actual title which is not just "vice proctor" but I haven't come up with something I like just yet. (open to suggestion) As it goes, he/she--not a fleshed out character at all, just vaguely mentioned thus far--is very much the Proctor's right hand and second in power and respect. Underneath and around them however there is a board. Again, I have few names. I'm not too worried about the titles, because I can come up with those fairly easily once the actual structure is in place. Anyway. The UTC is not a dictatorship. The Proctor is more Prime Minister than Emperor. He's obviously in charge, but there are votes and it all has to go through the proper chain of command. He can't decree that the best color is yellow and suddenly it is so.

The Proctor is also protected. He rarely travels off-planet for political reasons (and therefore not publicized ones as much as physically possible). Were an assassination to occur, the VP would be elected Proctor until the next usual election season--like our Vice Presidents. I wrote down somewhere how long the elected Proctor is in office, seems like it was between 5-7 years...

Excellent points. Yes, this is one of the reasons I have considered changing the name. It's redundant and there's no real meaning behind it at this point. The history of what formed the Treaty and therefore the Union/Confederation is vague at best. That's another thing I need to work on.

The planetary systems are about as much their own thing as the United States are in a lot of ways I didn't really think about until just now. (Or, in another way, similar to a string of groups of the same native tribe. Connected and forming a whole, but largely their own people.) They are fairly independent, although the Proctor and the Confederation make and enforce the the over-arcing laws, the individual planets also have their own systems of self government--just that these governments are under the control of the UTC.

As long as the little governments don't irritate the big one, they're basically left to their own devices and encouraged to vote faithfully. If they try to be too independent or start making decisions the UTC doesn't approve of, the big government retains the power to come in and force their will on the little ones. That would be an extreme case. Basically, the UTC is happy that the planets aren't at war and that there is a steady trade between them which keeps them all rich and powerful as opposed to any neighboring reaches of populated space.

And yes, each planet has its own representatives. Among which, notably for the story's case, would appear the last victor of the Air Jump Crown, for whichever home planet they stand for. Other than any current AJ champion who takes their honorary and much respected place on any home council, it depends on the planet, really. In general, the entire reach of space--all the planets in the systems united by the UTC--vote on the members of the UTC council. For individual little planets, some vote in their leaders, others are lead by a ruling family, but typically these are very old government systems which were in place before the UTC even came about and through various final negotiations have retained their power in a slightly more limited, or better put: more regulated form.

**The primary reason for the UTC's existence is to unite the planets, keep them from starting wars amongst themselves which leave them and their surrounding systems open to attack, and to create a wealth of independent, secluded trade between them.

The one thing about the name that gives me pause is that "confederations" tend to be groups of countries ('states" considering themselves such in the old sense of the word) or nations that are fairly loosely united. Any political system in which there is a real "central government" with any real power to make the members of the group conform to its decisions doesn't really fit that.