Roy Calbeck

Sergeant Roy Calbeck was a member of the Strike Lance, 11th Recon Company, 11th Recon Battalion, 71st Light Horse Regiment of the Eridani Light Horse as of 3025.^[1]

Vehicle

Calbeck was known to command a Galleon Light Tank.^[1]

The character was adopted as online persona by Scott "Calbeck" Malcomson, author of a history piece for the Eridani Light Horse that has since been declared non-canonical (see Eridani Light Horse lawsuit for details) and superseded by a different history. In that alternate history written by Malcomson, Roy Calbeck became a character of some significance, being the only survivor of the entire 71st Light Horse Regiment after a disastrous battle against Clan Jade Falcon and Clan Steel Viper on Orkney in 3051 where the Clans massacred the wounded enemy soldiers after the first battle. As the sole survivor, he was breveted to the rank of Major as a placeholder commander pending the regiment's reconstitution and placed on indefinite leave, at which point he found the nearest starport bar, attempted to drink himself to death over the course of several days, and according to witnesses disappeared into thin air. To the irritation of the intelligence operative writing the history report, subsequent reports stated that Major Calbeck had not only returned to command part of the newly-rebuilt 71st Light Horse Regiment, but also that he had the appearance of an anthropomorphic unicorn similar to that shown on the shoulder patch of the 71st's 11th Recon Company. This report was dismissed by the operative, using the "unreliable narrator" style commonly used in Battletech products to denote an in-joke or otherwise deliberately ambiguous content.

After Malcomson's work was removed from the site by Topps and other fans began making attacks on both his person and his work, he followed the example of J.K. Rowling, who had then just recently clarified Dumbledore's sexuality in a response post to inquiring fans. When Battletech fans seeking to dismiss Malcomson's work and personal character brought up his long-standing status as a "furry" as another reason for their displeasure, he published a post titled "Battletech Has a Unicorn In It". In this post, he asserted that when Calbeck had attempted to drink himself to death he fell between worlds in the process, and had transformed into a unicorn resembling the 11th Recon Company's shoulder patch as a means of processing the alcohol.

This was in fact the character arc Malcomson had been pursuing when roleplaying Calbeck since the early '90s. Calbeck's interdimensional travels are the means by which Malcomson role-plays the character in other settings, and as such have no impact on the character's relation to Battletech - except that, as stated in both versions of his published ELH History, Calbeck remained stuck in his unicorn form on his eventual return to service with the ELH.

Per the decisions of the 9th Circuit, Malcomson's original published works remain contributions to the Battletech property, over which he has sole rights, but "Battletech Has a Unicorn In It" has no more impact on the property in part, or as a whole, than Rowling's original forum-post declarations regarding Dumbledore did.