User blog comment:Zathronas/Analysis by an author: World of Remnant, Kingdoms/@comment-4909254-20140919025130/@comment-9090085-20140919051944

I don't believe Cinder and co. are posing as students from Atlas. In Welcome to Beacon, both Cinder and Neptune say they are visiting from Haven; and Sun later says that he moved to Mistral from Vacuo, suggesting Haven Academy is in Mistral. So Cinder and co. are posing as students from Mistral.

That doesn't tell us where they learned to fight before posing as students(after all, Pyrrha is originally from Mistral too, and Weiss's family lives in Atlas), and it doesn't really change your theory, but I thought I'd point that out.

I am really hoping we see some interaction between Ironwood and Ruby; we already skipped the "backlash" from the Paladin rampage earlier, and it would be a shame if they missed this opportunity to give us more insight into Ironwood's character. That, and I don't think he's the person behind what's going on(at least, not directly); I have no evidence for that view, I just have it.

The person I personally think is the "mastermind" is... well, our Mysterious Narrator. Why? Well...

In the RWBY Afterbuzz show for the World of Remnant episode, Gray mentions that Jen Taylor's character will be appearing further down the line. She's also the character that "argues" with Ozpin in the narration for Ruby Rose. Plus, while we've had plenty of references to the "Queen" the most powerful piece on the board, we haven't heard anything about the "King" the most valuable piece on the board. And I'm pretty sure there's no rule that states the "King" has to be male.

Of course, this theory is pretty shaky at best, and Cinder might have her own goals/reasons for why she's here. If the two of them are working together, I half expect Jen's character to providing the metric tons of cash for their "little operation".