If you want lower stake stuff, you could use plot hooks like an organized crime ring (including some local officials) using a local coop as a front to move smuggled contraband or stolen goods (maybe some dangerous old world tech wound up in malicious or careless hands, and the tacitly-tolerated criminal syndicate is believed to have smuggled it in either knowingly or not), resolving a dispute over some farmers stealing supplies from the communal farm for their own private plots, dealing with the aftermath of local corruption that led to a deadly infrastructure accident (a train derailed because corners were cut in laying the rails, a bridge collapsed because substandard materials were used, etc), that sort of thing. Small-scale, more personal level crimes where there's more negligence than malice.