WMG / Infinite Stratos

The IS is actually Lost Technology or Imported Alien Phlebotinum.

The IS come with absolutely insane amounts of technology that hasn't existed before: Laser Blade, Deflector Shields, inertialess thrusters, intuitively operated exoskeleton, and, perhaps most physically impossible, Hyperspace Arsenal. None of these abilities were ever implemented in any other military or civilian capacity. There is a strictly limited number of suits, and each is a complete Black Box. They couldn't be possibly invented by a single genius. There are far too many prerequisite steps from hitherto unknown physics to a finished, operational product. Ergo, Tabane might be merely sharing the technology invented by someone else. Her personality quirks could be explained by either her being an alien herself or Touched by Vorlons and having somehow learned Things Man Was Not Meant to Know.

The IS is a piece of alien technology

Going with the theory above, the fact that the IS has a physically impossible Hyperspace Arsenal at it's disposal and that it's quite rare makes my theory plausible. As for the reason why only women can use it, the aliens who created the IS have a X and Z chromosome based genome, which male humans don't possess. However, a scarce quantity of humans are Half-Human Hybrids who descend from the hybridation of aliens and humans. Ichika's ability to pilot the IS therefore comes from a recessive gene which he inherited from a distant ancestor.

The reason why is Ichika's the only male to pilot an IS is because it's part of an extremely elaborate plan that Tabane Shinonono set up and he's clueless about it

Well, for one thing, Tabane's genius puts Albert Einstein's to shame. She is far more intelligent than what she looks and behaves like. Plus, she mentions that the IS units being only pilotable by females was a side-effect that she apparently overlooked and it wasn't intentional. But how can Ichika pilot an IS if he's a guy? It's most likely that Tabane, with her vastly superior technology, actually went to great lengths by brainwashing the whole world into believing that only females can pilot the IS's and that Ichika (whom she knows via Chifuyu) is the only male who can do so. This works so well that everyone believes that only females can pilot it, thus making it easier for her to find the token male who can pilot it and thus further her plans. What exactly her goals are remains to be seen, but whatever it is, its grandiosity and elaborateness would put the likes of Lelouch Lamperouge and Light Yagami to shame in the Magnificent Bastardry department.

Chifuyu gave away her ability to pilot to Ichika

Chifuyu used to be a great pilot, but we never see her getting in an IS, and Ichika has taken hers. Is it because she's an instructor? Does she have some mental block to prevent her from piloting? I think she made the choice to pass on her power to her brother, because he was her biggest weakness. What better way to protect her brother than to give him the power to protect himself?

• As of the recent volumes Tabane has an extra IS core and she also hinted Chifuyu may still have her IS its just that the core is no longer present as Ichika is already using it, if the epilogue is to be believed Tabane will deliver the IS core to Chifuyu.

There was no hacker for the White Knight Incident

We are told in episode 10 by Ichika that in the White Knight Incident, missiles were fired from various nations at Japan by a hacker. However, Ichika might be an Unreliable Narrator who only knows the official story, when the truth is much darker. Faced with the threat of a next generation weapon and the fear that Japan Takes Over the World, the final decision is to just Nuke 'em. When that plan fails, the nations save face by claiming they were hacked. Japan accepts the story officially, but only because they already proved they can win any war that someone else wants to start.

• Doesn't really look like it from Chifuyu's hypothesis. She claims Tabane did all of it For the Lulz.
  • Considering that this is the incident that turned the IS from a cool new military toy with an annoying flaw to THE future of armed warfare, I think it's obvious that Tabane set up both the missiles and White Knight to make the IS look good.
  • The Light Novel seems to confirm this; the incident happened juuust after people started commenting that Tabane's boast of the IS outmatching any weapon system on Earth was ridiculous. And then it beats down enough enemy vehicles to invade a large country. Alone. Without any loss of actual enemy life.

Ichika is an XX Male

It would be a convenient explanation for 'his' ability to pilot an IS.

Ichika is a clone of Chifuyu

The reason why Ichika can pilot an I.S. is due to the latest events of the Light Novels (Ichika not having any photos before 1st grade elementary school, a younger version Chifuyu (Madoka Orimura)), and the fact that Chifuyu always wants Ichika to have photos all the time. So Chifuyu may not be Ichika's sibling, but he could be her son.

• In the anime, Charlotte notes that it's extremely strange for him to have the same special move as his sister. The main problem with this is timing; there is no evidence cloning is widespread, so it's unlikely Chifuyu would get a clone just because she wanted a younger brother. The most obvious motive, of course, is copying Chifuyu's ability with the IS (possibly as a test of exactly why males are incompatible). However, Houki remembers him from prior to the IS being unveiled. There are two main ways to reconcile this: 1. Tabane spent several years designing the IS and cloned him during that period, or 2. Mind-imprinting technology exists and was used on both of them to fabricate a conveniently unverifiable backstory.
• Due to some spoilers from Volume 10 being revealed, this theory is starting to gain traction.
  • Jossed — Chifuyu, Ichika and Madoka are Artificial Humans, and while M and Chifuyu are clones of each other, Ichika is not. All three are Designer Babies, though.

Chifuyu is the White Knight

Tabane already lampshade this but further confirmation of Chifuyu's involvement in the case is still needed. Still there are various hints of Chifuyu being much more than a mere sports champion. That will also explain the last WMG as this will be a very good reason to clone her or make bussiness(German Intelligency sharing info with her about Ichika's location in exanche of a year of tutoring their soldiers, for example). Finally, the "White Knight" incident is close to the date when Tabane revealed the IS to the world and, at the time, Shinonono and Orimura families was still close to each other.

• Still doesn't explain how Ichika came to be when he was already training with Houki. And Houki herself definitely remembers Ichika unless both of them somehow had their brains altered in some way.
• Confirmed: Chifuyu was Shirokishi/The White Knight.

The one's responsible for kidnapping Ichika is the nation who's representative was about to battle Chifuyu. Germany found out about it and decided to "cash in".

Think about it, that nation knew about Chifuyu's abilities, and therefore saw they had no hope of winning. The only thing that crossed their minds was to win by disqualification, and what better way to get Chifuyu disqualified is by kidnapping Ichika. Germany found out about it, and "offered" to help her find Ichika's location in exchange for her teaching their students. If this is true, may god have mercy on their souls, because Chifuyu will not.

• This sounds way too cool to not be Canon.
• The thing that's always bugged me for this is that the tournament took "my brother was kidnapped, I'm going to save him" as a forfeit. Although I suppose she could've been a bitch about it ("Fuck you all, I forfeit! I have to save my brother!") or maybe 'cuz it's illegal to use IS's for real combat.
  • Jossed. Phantom Task is the one who kidnapped him. Autumn tells Ichika about a "grand reunion" of sorts.

Why Ichika Can Use IS Cores

As of episode 12, Tabane states outright that Ichika can use any core, that it wasn't intentional on her part, and she has no idea how it happened. Here's my theory: Tabane used the most badass person she knew, Chifuyu Orimura, as the model for the advanced Powered Armor she was developing for the military. On crafting the core, she made a breakthrough that allows for all the "magic" (hammerspace, massive power reserves, etc) that the IS has, but it only worked when a living person wore it—Tabane tried it herself, and it worked fine, so she hammered out any errors and took it to her backers. That's where they found out that because Tabane's model was female, the cores only work for women, and no one could reverse engineer it enough for it to work with men. Maybe Tabane even tried building it from the ground up with a male model, but couldn't get it right (you really can't force genius you know). Which brings us to Ichika. His DNA is close enough to Chifuyu's that the core still works for him. I don't know how close, exactly, siblings usually are genetically—I know parents are 50% (obviously), but I'm not sure whether siblings are more or less. This also fits well with the "Ichika is Chifuyu's clone" theory. If the only difference is a couple chromosomes, then obviously he's close enough.

Summary: The IS cores only work for Chifuyu. Everyone else is determined as "close enough" merely by being female; Ichika, as her brother (or clone), is close enough on his own merits. And yes, this probably means Chifuyu's dad could use an IS too.

Charlotte Dunois and Charlotte from Puella Magi Madoka Magica are the same character

It is stated in her bio that Madoka Charlotte loves cheese. Ms. Dunois, for her part, is French and therefore a Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey...

• Insane Troll Logic aside (funny example still), this has been Jossed unintentionally since we learn in Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie: Rebellion the true nature of Charlotte who suffice to say looks nothing like IS Charlotte and acts fairly differently.

Tabane is the leader of Phantom Task, just like the leader of Celestial Being in Mobile Suit Gundam 00 is Aeolia Schenberg.

Think about it, why would she create the I.S. in the first place anyways?

• Guess not, the second season's episode 10 shows that Phantom Task had to approach her on their own to try to get her to build I.S.'s for them.

Silverio Gospel was not unmanned

First and most obvious, in the light novels it was manned by the American representative, Natasha Fairs. But in the anime, there's still the fact that the thing had a very obvious visual heads-up-display, which would obviously be completely redundant for a drone. Of course, that does mean that Ichika impaled her in the chest, but she could still get medical attention.

• Second season's over and the pilot never appeared so it looks like she was Adapted Out.

Ichika's IS will fall in love with him

From what episode 12 seems to show, Ichika's IS has some sort of female AI. This is a harem anime. Do the math.

• Of course, the AI is the White Knight, and almost certainly his sister (or the ghost of his sister? Mental clone? Whatever). That doesn't invalidate anything, just pointing it out.
  • Which would make things very awkward for Chifuyu if that does happen and someone points this out in-universe
  Random Student: So Ichika's IS is in love with him?
  Chifuyu: It would seem so.
  Random Student: But isn't the core of his IS the same core you used to use, and which, back when you used it, would have formatted based on your battle style?
  Chifuyu: .....Yes.
  Random Student: So..... does that mean you-
  Chifuyu: Finish that sentence and you will regret it.

  • That requires the fact that Byakushiki/Setsura's core "belongs to the IS Chifuyu piloted" to be revealed first.

M will fall in love with Ichika

It's inevitable, though anybody can guess it wouldn't be very healthy relationship...

• Not to mention a little...awkward...

Tabane was all along implied to be shipping her sister with Ichika

• The basis: the purpose of Akatsubaki's one-off ability. It actually goes hand-in-hand with Byakkushiki and its one-off ability, which drains its own shield energy in favor of a shield-nullifying attack. Now, to whom did Tabane give that IS in the first place?

Ichika's "Clueless Chick-Magnet" personality is all an act.

• Ichika really doesn't want his harem. He likes all of the girls, but he will never be able to pick just one, lest the others attack him for it. If this was any other harem anime, this would be fine, but no, all the girls are armed to the teeth with their IS Suits, so Ichika will continue to act completely clueless so he doesn't get his ass beat down by the girls he didn't choose. Rin has already proven she's a bit Yandere for Ichika. People have said that only Negi and Natsuru are this dense, but is he really? Or does he simply have a well-developed sense of self-preservation?
  • Comfirmed as far as the light novels are concerned, as he's aware of the blow up that would occur if he choose one girl too soon, not to mention futher implications. It's unknown if this is the case in the anime.

Cecilia has weaponized her status as a Lethal Chef.

• Fan opinion polls have consistently shown that of the original 5 girls, Cecilia is the least popular. She is aware of this. Hence in Season 2 Episode 10, she decided to make the most of her day in the limelight and eliminate as much of the competition as she could, and it worked, with only Lingyin and Kanzashi escaping her wrath, the latter probably because Cecilia doesn't know enough about her to make a plan of attack. End result: she managed to hospitalize 3/5 of her competition and got to spend most of the night getting Ichika to feel her up under the guise of "cooking", All According to Plan. Ohohohohoho!

There is cloning going on

• Tabanes comment about being "over-spec'ed" has me thinking. What if Japan committed a small program to create super scientists/soldiers. Tabane fits both archtypes (having invented the IS and handling the 3 PT members without any arms and not breaking a sweat). Houki might be a pure soldier type, the same goes for all Orimura siblings. And later Laura was created from the very same technology. All of them being able to pilot an IS is just an unintended side effect.
  • This just might be plausible. Of all the main characters, it's the Orimuras, the Shinononos, & Laura who do not have parents. Sure, Chifuyu said that her parents abandoned her & Ichika, but can we really trust her word on this especially after she told Ichika that they don't have any other siblings even though he had a near-death experience with Madoka. We've at least seen flashbacks of Cecilia, Charlotte, and Rin's parents.
    • The Shinonono sisters do have parents. The anime didn't really touch on it, but the novels and the 2nd manga do. Their father's name is Ryuuin, and he was the one who trained Houki in kendo. Ichika remembers him well. Don't remember if anything was mentioned about the mother, though. The comments about the Orimuras and Laura still hold water though, especially because Ichika stated in the manga reboot that he doesn't even remember what his parents look like.
  • Everything revealed about Chloe Chronicle pours more fuel on the fire for this theory.
  • Isn't it extremely likely that M/Madoka is a clone of Chifuyu created as her foil/antithesis for malicious purposes? This could also explain why she wants to kill Chifuyu so badly. Perhaps she was created with a gene modification that greatly accelerates the aging process at the expense of drastically reduced overall lifespan too, a la Solid Snake? Her existence is a major sign of some sort of cloning muckery.
  • Just because Orimuras have parents doesn't exclude some sort of muckery, for all we know they might have masterminded the tweaking of their kids, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED-style, since Kira's father used him to make the ultimate cordinator

Episodes 11 & 12 of Season 2 will be covered in Volume 9.

• All right so I'm largely parroting the fellow on MyAnimeList who did that "novel vs. anime" summary, but it does make sense. The novels left off with Tabane asking Madoka what kind of suit she wanted, and the season finale showed us that Kurokishi is insanely overpowered, so there's a very good chance we will see Kurokishi debut in the next volume.

Tabane (and possibly Chifuyu) was/were altered by an alien artifact in order to bring IS into this world.

• Tabane: She doesn't acknowledge people other than her sister, and the Orimura family.
  • No one is that smart and that high-specced.
  • Even as fast as technology had advanced in their world, there's no way that they were on the verge of discovering/creating something as complex as an IS Core. They have incredible power-production for their size as well as Core 001 being hinted at having a rudimentary level of sentience.
  • She acts as if she's playing one massive game with Chifuyu - one that could potentially decide the fate of the world. For her part, Tabane doesn't give a damn about the world, but she respects Chifuyu's opinion enough to be a part of it.
  • In Vol. 8, she seems stumped that she can't locate Kurezakura, Chifuyu's IS. Why is she so concerned with that one particular IS when there are literally hundreds of others that are later generation? She was so concerned that she sent an armed force into ISA just to confirm her suspicion.

• Chifuyu: Her physical capability is just a bit lower than Tabane's.
  • No matter what, someone wielding a blade meant for an IS to stop a lazer-blade attack from even a student in a personal IS is still unbelievable. Just how strong is she?
  • She also seems to display a minor mind-reading capability that she can use on people other than Ichika.
  • For being friendly with Tabane, Chifuyu seems more wary of her friend than anything else. She also seems resigned to the fact that she will eventually fight against someone powerful enough to defeat her and to date, no other IS pilot can come close to her...

Ichika is mildly autistic.

• This would explain a lot about being a Clueless Chick-Magnet.

Volume 10 Plot Speculation.

• The 10th volume was released a few months back. Unfortunately, no one seems to have fully translated the contents of this volume. There is one particular illustration in that volume, Ichika crying in Honne's arms◊, that has led to Speculation Fuel. The question is, what has upset him to that point?
  • Let's start with this one. What if he had found out the truth about his origins?

The IS is not the be-all, end-all weapon that it is purported to be in-series.

• Let's just say that the main reason why the nations that signed the Alaska Treaty in the first place, despite it basically being rammed down their throats, is not just what the IS brings to the table in and of itself. Sure, it's a serious game-changer, but at best it's a force multiplier when used properly, especially in conjunction with conventional forces (which we sadly don't see in canon). No, the reason why was that these signatory nations don't want to admit how vulnerable their nuclear arsenals were after the "White Knight" incident. There's no guarantee that Tabane wouldn't pull a repeat of such an incident on the nations that refuse to sign it.