Character

Charlotte Dunois

Charlotte was born as a daughter of a mistress to the CEO of Dunois Industry, the largest IS-production and development corporation in France. Her presence wasn't noticed by the Dunois family, even by the CEO himself, until Charlotte came to him after her mother died and left a letter explaining her ties to him. (In the anime, Charlotte's father knew about her, but they stayed at a separate area far from the company and home, until her mother died 2 years prior to the story and a representative came to take her back.) Being an "unwanted daughter" in the Dunois family, she was constantly mistreated and abused by them. When it was discovered that she had great aptitude for IS piloting, the CEO thought of a plan to keep his company afloat, which was being pressured hard for not showing much progress in development of 3rd Gen. IS. Unlike the other powerful European nations, France did not join the EU and was in turn forced to develop a 3rd Gen. IS all by itself. This burden fell heavily on Dunois Industry. When the company continuously failed to show any viable results, the French government considered withdrawing its IS development and production rights, which made the CEO even more frantic about the matter. Unable to produce satisfactory results, the CEO decided to obtain the data from elsewhere, and faked Charlotte's gender. Believing Charlotte to be the world's "2nd male" IS pilot, the French government chose her as one of its representative candidates, and sent her to IS Academy. According to Dunois' plan, Charlotte was to get close to Ichika (this part was no problem, since Charlotte (under the alias of "Charles") and Ichika were the only "male" in the IS Academy, and would naturally be assigned same room) and steal important data from his IS, Byakushiki, which was viewed as the newest 3rd Gen. IS at that time.