Answer:
The people who built Ember over two centuries before the novel begins. Though the Builders are human, the people of Ember regard them almost as godlike figures. Nothing is known about who the Builders actually were or why they built Ember until Lina and Doon begin to piece together the contents of the Instructions, which detail how to get out of Ember. As Lina and Doon piece the Instructions together, leave Ember, and discover the journal of the woman, one of Ember’s original residents, they discover that the Builders constructed Ember to preserve humanity in the face of some sort of disaster aboveground. The Builders also purposefully withheld information about the existence of the world above and about portable light sources, among other things, so that Ember’s residents would stay put until it was safe to leave the city and return to the Earth’s surface. From what the woman writes in her journal, the Builders were likely a group of scientists and engineers.
Step-by-step explanation: