The Ones Above are the Scadriali people.

[MacAran]

WoB has it that we have met the Ones Above before.  There are many ways to interpret that remark, but I'm working on the assumption that it means it's a group that has been focused on, not just a group we've met in passing because one of their worldhoppers showed up somewhere.  We don't have a solid timeline of the various cosmere stories, but the post script does tell us Sixth of the Dusk is the farthest forward story chronologically in the AU collection.  This might make it the furthest forward story that we have at all right now.  Edgedancer happens after WoR so, it must be forward of that.  Both Mistborn Secret History and Allomancer Jack going into Mistborn Era 2, so it must be forward of that.  Since Nightblood is on Roshar in WoR then it must be forward of Warbreaker.  

Anyway, important part of this is that the story is forward of (at least parts) of Mistborn Era 2.  Even in era two the Scadriali peoples are already developing interesting machines and technology, some using investiture.  We also know that the plan for Era 3 involves spaceflight.  Khriss even speculates that without the Lord Rulers suppression of advancement that the Scadriali might have already outpaced the rest of the cosmere in technological and scientific development.  If you look at the interests of the Ones Above, specifically the Aviar.  Setting aside entirely the potential interest in the worms that grant the Aviar their talents, who on Scadrial wouldn't want what's basically a coppercloud sitting on their shoulder?  

[soyperson]

I have already posted a thread discussing this.

Here's the link:

After having read Sixth of the Dusk, I still find this theory to hold water.

Edited January 4, 2017 by bleeder

[A Budgie she/her]

I agree. That was my impression after reading Sixth of the Dusk.

[BlackYeti he/him]

2 hours ago, MacAran said:

We also know that the plan for Era 3 involves spaceflight.

Actually it's Era 4 that involves space travel; Era 3 will be a  roughly 1980s tech level urban fantasy type setting.

As for you main point, it is highly likely. The only other real contenders for the Ones Above are the Selish, the Nalthians and the Rosharans. The Rosharans are perhaps the next most likely contender since we know that Dusk has eaten Herdazian food.

[Hemalurgic Headshot he/him]

10 minutes ago, BlackYeti said:

The Rosharans are perhaps the next most likely contender since we know that Dusk has eaten Herdazian food.

But what if the Scadrians met up with the Rosharans and got them some chowta?

[soyperson]

Just now, Hemalurgic_Headshot said:

But what if the Scadrians met up with the Rosharans and got them some chowta?

If it's far enough in the future, cultures could have melded enough for anything to be possible, culturally.

[Hemalurgic Headshot he/him]

I agree

[The One Who Connects he/him]

Least likely is probably Nalthis, since they don't exactly have a way to worldhop, and they (plus Endowment) seem content with things as they are. 

The big hurdle for Selish is finding a way to use the magics offworld, since we've speculated you could use the teleportation Aon to hop planets with the right information. They are chronilogically one of the earliest stories, so there is plenty of time to solve problems like that.

But yea, since we know Scadrial will get FTL eventually, they are the top pick for "meddling with another planet in the future."

[BlackYeti he/him]

5 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

Least likely is probably Nalthis, since they don't exactly have a way to worldhop

Try telling that to Vasher, he seems to be managing quite well. 

Seriously though, what makes you think that there's no way worldhop from Nalthis?

[nervousnerd he/him]

Probably just because most other worlds had more obvious perpendicularities. We likely just haven't seen or recognized a Nalthis one yet.

I think I mentioned before that while it is highly likely to be the Scadrian people, I am more interested in who among them it is. They seem to be highly manipulative and more interested in themselves seemingly to the detriment of the native population. Would this be the group representing the majority of Scadrial or just a small group similar to the Set (or I suppose the Set themselves provided they survive Era 2)?

Also the connection medallion for translating worked in reverse.

Edited January 5, 2017 by nervousnerd

[The One Who Connects he/him]

9 minutes ago, BlackYeti said:

Try telling that to Vasher, he seems to be managing quite well. 

Seriously though, what makes you think that there's no way worldhop from Nalthis?

A statement Brandon made about the Lord Ruler is what makes me think that.

I cannot find the exact quote right now, but it basically asked about if TLR visited other worlds. Brandon replied by saying that while he was holding the power of the Well, he could have if he wanted to.

Brandon has called Roshar and Sel "high power" worlds compared to places like Scadrial, so I figured holding the Well would more than equate to that high power. That logic leap brought me back to Peacegiver's treasure: a whole ~50,000 Breath.

I figured that having enough power to Worldhop would match one of the upper Heightenings. Maybe 6th since having every Returned be capable of it seemed overpowered.

But as Nervousnerd pointed out, I forgot about Endowment's Shardpool.

either way, I should've said they don't have an obvious way to world hop

[Jondesu he/him]

Do we know if having met them means the world that they're from, or the actual group? I can see the Set, or perhaps whatever larger organization they're part of, being responsible for a plot like the one in Sixth of the Dust, but I don't recall if we'd "met" them at the time of that WoB.

[nervousnerd he/him]

Well, the Wax and Wayne series (Era 2) came about because Brandon was trying to expand the timeline to explain how the Catacendre lead to the developments that will be shown in Era 3 and beyond. The Set may therefore be limited to that Era with a new enemy developing in the next. That may just be my assumption though and perhaps the Red Haze, Trell, and the Set will not all be solved in the next book. It is sort of a lot to wrap up and there is also the worldhopper involvement with the Set that may mean it is not self contained. Perhaps it started self contained but expanded into something else that he decided to use in the worldbuilding of the next era though.

[Vissy]

Yeah definitely it's not possible to wrap all of that in just one book, at least it doesn't seem like it.

[Farnsworth]

Another reason why it's Scadrial: the machine essentially is a brass-burning device! Do we know of any other type of investiture (besides the sort on First of the Sun) that detects thoughts? They just found some way to burn bronze and let a computer do it instead of a person. Then they found a way to detect whatever it was the birds were doing. It's different from what we've seen bronze do before, but it's less of a stretch than the Surges somehow doing it.

[nervousnerd he/him]

Well, the machine has always made me wonder how it would have caused death if it only let you detect investiture. The smaller version certainly seems bronzish in that it detects nearby sources of investiture but the machine itself seemed like it might do more than they first thought.

[Farnsworth]

I don't think the Ones Above could possibly have a machine that kills people as a side effect. I think it's more likely that there is something in the metabolism of people from First of the Sun that makes it kill them. Maybe since they live on a though detecting world they have an odd reaction to emotional allomancy?

[nervousnerd he/him]

I suppose it could also be so powerful as to harm those it detects. I don't know. I just think there is more to the machine.

[Jondesu he/him]

I didn't get the impression the machine harmed the people. I think they were worried the Ones Above would use the excuse of them gaining that knowledge to then justify basically taking over their world, and then the Aviar, Patji, their way of life and self-governance, would all be exploited. Maybe the effects of the machine would have basically driven the creatures on Patji mad, since we saw they were definitely affected.

[Pagerunner he/him]

21 hours ago, Figberts said:

Another reason why it's Scadrial: the machine essentially is a brass-burning device! Do we know of any other type of investiture (besides the sort on First of the Sun) that detects thoughts? They just found some way to burn bronze and let a computer do it instead of a person. Then they found a way to detect whatever it was the birds were doing. It's different from what we've seen bronze do before, but it's less of a stretch than the Surges somehow doing it.

Not surges, but there are fabrials (I think they're called Alerters) that light up when someone approaches that could fit the bill. There's also the Awakener's life sense, if they can find a mechanical way to harness Breath. And, there is a method for Elantrians to inscribe Aons to equipment (metal plates in Elantris, maybe Nazh's gun), so they probably have a way to create such a device.

[nervousnerd he/him]

6 hours ago, Jondesu said:

I didn't get the impression the machine harmed the people. I think they were worried the Ones Above would use the excuse of them gaining that knowledge to then justify basically taking over their world, and then the Aviar, Patji, their way of life and self-governance, would all be exploited. Maybe the effects of the machine would have basically driven the creatures on Patji mad, since we saw they were definitely affected.

Yeah, I understood that part but I just thought there was something more immediate. I suppose Sak could have just been showing the abstract danger associated with the machine in a similar way to when she showed Sixth dead bodies before he entered the NITC compound. The bodies in those cases were dead but showed seemingly no sign of how it happened and therefore may be more about danger than death.

[Jondesu he/him]

1 hour ago, nervousnerd said:

Yeah, I understood that part but I just thought there was something more immediate. I suppose Sak could have just been showing the abstract danger associated with the machine in a similar way to when she showed Sixth dead bodies before he entered the NITC compound. The bodies in those cases were dead but showed seemingly no sign of how it happened and therefore may be more about danger than death.

The machine seemed to mess up the Aviar abilities, so I assumed that was just an erroneous prediction like had happened earlier in the story.