While thinking of a brief history the Ark it occurred to me:
1) the elder cared for and raised hundreds of young children
2) these children would need to be educated
3) the society of the Ark would have defined rules, roles, and mores
These observations are important (to me) in order to give the players a framework to interact with NPCs in the Ark. Each is addressed below for my campaign.
1) the Elder identified young leaders (future Bosses) and tasked them with assisting him in organizing/supervising daily tasks: food distribution, waste removal, etc. The young bosses wouldn't always supervise the same groups and no 'factions' would be established, but loose affiliations would develop among groups. Eventually, a routine develops freeing the Elder to focus on other tasks such as...
2) educating the children. The Elder used a combination of live and recorded lectures to teach the children. I'm picturing 10 classrooms full of children sitting cross-legged, staring up at a battery powered netbook LCD monitor secured on the shoulders of a lab coat wearing mannequin. The screen is filled with the Elder's head lecturing on a variety of subjects. Children eagerly taking turns at the hand-crank battery charger whenever the low battery light flickers on. Live lectures are reserved for the smartest children and whenever Ark ethics are taught...
3) various systems of punishments and rewards are incorporated to teach right and wrong behaviors. The most important of which is to not to harm your Ark brothers and sisters. Using your mutant powers to seriously harm an Ark brother or sister is forbidden and the punishment is exile. Physical altercations are punished much less harshly but murdering an Ark member would also result in exile. (with no Ark supplies)
This is the state of affairs in my setting when players begin the game and have defined NPC friends and enemies.
To those of you who are more familiar with the setting: do you see anything that conflicts with the setting as defined in the book?