About Black Shadow
The Black Shadow Squadron fights the good fight in the vastness of space in Microsoft’s Allegiance®.
We maintain a long tradition of fair play and fun.
Black Shadow is the oldest active squad in Allegiance history. Our roots go back to November 1999 when Das Paragon, a small group of beta testers led by Indreju and Malphigian, merged with Eric1020′s group and named themselves The Black Shadow Squadron. The team quickly became the powerhouse of Allegiance. The main @BS Web site was launched in early December 1999 on the Black Rose Society’s Website. Many of our original members are still active today with the team or in the community.
Our squad has long held the reputation for bombing until it hurts. This squad was the only one that would scrimmage with Davidsa’s “The Belters/Jihaad/Shifters” on a weekly basis. One memorable game was decided with both teams firing, at the same time, the final AB into the last surviving tech base. The Belters missile hit first, ending a chance for Black Shadow to deliver a first defeat.
Some of you may have noticed the sector called “Titty Baby.” Titty Baby was not noted for any particular skill. But he was great at being an all-around cool pilot in Black Shadow. His death several years ago shook up the Allegiance community, and the developers kindly named one sector of many maps after him. Since he was our squad mate, we also have added the “(.)(.)” from his signature to ours in honor of his memory. Also of note was the loss of OPTIMUS_PRIME, who also died suddenly in the summer of 2008. Both will be missed by our squad and we will continue to honor their name as part of our roster. Today, the community hosts games in memory of their good nature.
Our leadership history is short. Eric1020 departed after the public release of the game to move on to other online games. BlackViper, who joined Das Paragon just hours before the merger that created Black Shadow, led the squad until late 2005. He was followed by Picobozo and Darkling -two more original members. Both Pico and Darkling served about a year or so each until January 2008 when I took over. I then passed the key to the commander’s private head to another old-school vet Ryjamsan in October 2010. Ryjamsan has since passed the leadership of the squad to both Chakotae and Iron_Wolf, which are planning on bringing the squad back to it’s former glory as one of the top squads in the game.
The strength of Black Shadow has always been the sense of duty to each other. We share a friendship in the game. We expect our members to well respected within the community as players, commanders, teachers. In our history, we’ve had the privilege of hosting the undisputed best players, and we still have (in my opinion) the all-time best bomber pilot, one of the greatest strategists and train of elite nanners, and most certainly, some of the coolest pilots in space. Our core group is made up of very veteran pilots in their 30s, 40s and 50s, but we have had huge growth among the younger pilots finding the game today.
Like the other squads in the community, The Black Shadow have a reputation. We are generally known for …
- keeping a low profile.
- playing fair.
- thinking of team first.
- sharing our beer.
We are bonded by the fact that our real lives ALWAYS come first. As such, our members are expected to play when they can. We are all generally quiet on the message boards because we generally don’t always have time for that. We don’t talk smack, except with each other. We keep our moaning to a minimum. Simply, we care about each other, and we’re having fun playing the best game ever created. We challenge each other to be better players and teammates whenever we are together.
In the end, we get another night of Allegiance.
–written by Javaswiller/edited by Chakotae–
Visit the Allegiance community site for information.