World Brainstorming:
1 garden of eden
2 conscious earth, conforms to man
3 conscious man, conform to earth
4 No more women/men
5 Land of chosen people presided over by an active God
6 Wile E coyote...gods of acme intervene on predator prey
7 underworld
8 the ark (afloat forever)
9 island of broken toys
10 creation protype ( place for all the iterations of animals)
11 doomsday device
12 deluge
1+2+3+5+8+12
A progress allegory--
The Ark: Vessel that progresses from maternal guide to vigilant God, intervening on the generations in its hold.
People Begin to question and threaten the Journey, and the Ark eliminates this dissonance by carefully reverting its cargo to a primeval horde ( social Engineering, social progress).
This is a solitary experience. You are one of the few rational minds who had a hand in developing the Ark. Consequently, when the Ark purges what it considers the bad seeds and embarks upon its social re-engineering in deep space, you are isolated but spared. Your character sleeps through the ages, and is revived at various milestones in the Ark's agenda, for a time-lost discourse (centuries are passing).
You have access to the various surveillance feeds inside the ark - you get to watch. (social womb)