Few organizations can claim longevity on NationStates. The Black Hawks emerged on 2 July, 2005, the brainchild of the infamous Halcones. Halcones received advice and assistance on setting up a forum from Silver Tongue and Domination from Invaders. Through recruiting, The Black Hawks gained members including Missing dog head, All holy names, Anarchy 2005, and Black buzzards. In the beginning, TBH was viewed as “loud noobs” according to Halcones. More valuable members joined TBH such as The Constant Pressing Lure of Crushing Our Enemies, The TBH Commander of Red Back, The Soaring Hawk of Sorenity2, Holbornius and Jarron. Red Back was a native of 3 mile island, a region raided by TBH before joining the organization.

Another recruitment tactic that Halcones used was: Project Alpha. He created a new region called The Great British Empire, under puppet accounts. According to Halcones, “The plan with TGBE was to setup an attractive region, which would pull in lots of new nations. We would then merge it with The Black Hawks, bringing a sudden surge of new nations into TBH. This didn't go as well as planned.”

In the summer of 2006, The Black Hawks went through a period of inactivity. Halcones decided to merge TBH with The Blades of Conquest, another raiding group. In the Blades of Conquest, Halcones became Head of Intelligence, and made the Phantom Operatives, a close inner circle of long serving Black Hawks - this included Halcones, Jarron, Marthior, Sorenity2, Holbornius, Red Back and others. The Phantom Operatives started to become independent of BoC and The Black Hawks were recreated out of the Phantom Operatives in November of 2006. The Great British Empire was merged with TBH bringing in Lisvania from TGBE. Lisvani replaced Halcones as the Commander in Chief of The Black Hawks, while Halcones concentrated on intelligence.

Halcones set up Project Omicron - an intelligence project with the aim to setup a new defender intelligence summit, called Global Defence Intelligence Summit (GDIS). Red seven, from Counter Terrorism Unit brought evidence that Halcones was a double agent. The evidence suggested that Halcones had joined the Counter Terrorism Unit under the name of Zarvon, and was feeding them secret intelligence information on the Black Hawks, and was attempting to lead The Black Hawks and The Blades of Conquest into war with CTU. After his conviction and because of real life issues, Halcones took a break from Nationstates. Thus, the region of The Black Hawks lost its founder.

Red Back founded Red Back Island and Sorenity2 founded [Region=F.E.A.R.] Both of these raiding regions grew in time. On April 1st, 2007, it was announced that Red Back, with the help of Sorenity2, would be re-founding The Black Hawks. The regions 'TBH' and 'The Black Hawks Nest' were created temporarily until Red Back completed the long process of re-founding the main region, 'The Black Hawks', which he completed in early June 2007. Red Back worked with Sorenity2 to merge their two raider regions together, recreating The Black Hawks.

Due to issues with the forum host, TBH moved to a new forum in March of 2008. In December of 2009, the council decided to stop maintaining forum embassies, so that TBH could focus exclusively on raiding. One of The Black Hawk’s first forums was destroyed by an RLA spy during the latter half of 2005. TBH’s flag was designed by RLA spy, The Red Factions. The current forum has been used since August of 2011. Around this time was also when the council decided to permit people who rank Sergeants and above the ability to lead raids for TBH as opposed to solely Field Marshals as was the case before.

The Black Hawks began raiding multiple regions in late 2010. When Halcones returned in December of 2010 and worked his way back up to Field Marshal, he put a focus on what became “tag raiding.” Between February 2011-August 2011, TBH became known for tag raiding. In April of 2011, The Black Hawks became the first region to be condemned by the Security Council exclusively for raiding.

The Black Hawks transitioned to a new forum hosted by zetaboards during the Summer of 2011. This change in forum also came with the rank of sergeant gaining the ability to lead raids. In the Fall of 2011, Halcones suddenly became inactive. With Red Back, COE, and Halcones inactive, the activity of The Black Hawks dropped. In November of 2011, Jakker was promoted to Field Marshal. With Jakker leading raids, The Black Hawks’ focus shifted to raiding larger targets.

In 2012, The Black Hawks teamed up with multiple groups including The Black Riders, United Imperial Armed Forces, Unknown, Lone Wolves United, and DEN to raid regions with large populations and high endorsement counts on the delegates. In January of 2012, The HAVEN't they learnt their lesson about trusting this circling shark of Mallorea and Riva, a Lieutenant of The United Defenders League switch sides and joined The Black Hawks. Only a few weeks later, The Ghost of Spartzerium, the second in command of UDL joined TBH also. The highlights of 2012 for TBH included the raid of Capitalist Paradise which involved an update team of 23 raiding a region of 300 nations and a delegate holding over 60 endorsements, and the raid of Eastern Islands of Dharma, which was a region founded by Unibot, the founder of UDL and housed many defenders.

In July of 2012, TBH invented “spelling raids.” An idea originally by Severisen, these were tag raids that spelled a certain phrase using a letter from the raided region’s name (usually the first letter). Spartz led the first-ever spelling raids with the phrase “Fendas Suck.”

During the summer of 2013, Jakker became inactive which caused TBH to go through a period of inactivity. While raids still occurred sporadically, the activity of the region diminished. In August of 2014, Jakker returned to Nationstates with the raid of Canada. Jakker continued to lead TBH until July of 2015 when a new council was established that included Ever-Wandering Souls.

In honor of TBH’s 10 year anniversary, Jakker created RaiderCon, an annual convention that celebrates the history of raiding, in July of 2015. This event also included the establishment of the Raiding Hall of Fame, which enshrines the greatest contributors to raiding in NationStates history. Souls capped RaiderCon by taking back the region of The Black Riders. After the founder had been deleted, nations came together to take over the former raiding region. An undercover infiltration was led by Souls whose puppet, Harenhime, was unknowingly put into the delegacy.

For years, The Black Hawks have sought to unseat delegates who had consistently been in power for a long period of time. This goal became more of a focus starting in January of 2015 with the raid of Texas. With the delegacy having non-excutive power, TBH led a raiding group into the region to endorse a native to snap NewTexas’ streak of 3776 days.

Other delegate streaks soon fell afterwards including Antarctica’s streak of 3808 days, United States’ streak of 3304 days, and Forest’s streak of 2989 days. Virtually all long delegacy streaks have ended thanks to TBH.

Thanks to the efforts of Plagentine, medals were introduced into TBH’s reward system in January 2016. These serve to recognize players within and outside of The Black Hawks who have provided appreciated service to the region.

In April 2016, a script known as Predator used by some raiders was found to be illegal and moderators handed out punishments to players including some from The Black Hawks. In response to the incident, the Council of the Hawks implemented certain policies to protect TBH’s community and future as a region. One such policy was the required council approval of scripts before usage.

Reventus Koth was added to the Council of the Hawks in May 2016 with Plagentine stepping down.

During an update in August of 2016, Raionitu led teams of Hawks to hit 121 regions. Dubbed, “Operation Blackout,” this set the new all-time record for number of regions raided in one region. Not only did TBH set a new standard for tag raiding, but all targets were triggered manually.

The Black Hawks moved their main off-site communications to Discord during August 2016. Although the region’s forum is still regarded as the main source for introductions, announcements, and record-keeping, TBH’s discord server has allowed for greater community engagement with games, roleplay, and other allies.

The Council of the Hawks had two new additions with The sygian joining in October 2016 and Raionitu in March 2017.

In March of 2017, The Black Hawks became the first region in NS history to gain a second condemnation without the intention of repealing the other. TBH’s two condemnations stand as a testament to the region’s significant long-term raiding impact.

For over 12 years, The Black Hawks have been a top raiding organization and we hope to continue to carry on the legacy of the most feared organization in Nationstates.