The initial idea for Black Widow was conceived by Elliott Parks, with Amanda Jenkins, Tracy Storm, Joyle Lynch, and a host of others all contributing ideas and resources to the project.

Parks formulated the plan after seeing the results of a glass of water falling off a table during a meeting. The glass shattered, shards becoming embedded in the legs of a man sitting nearby. The water itself spread out across the floor, seeping into an electrical outlet and shorting out the holographic display unit there. Finally, a handful of people received cuts to their hands whilst picking up the glass pieces.

Parks' idea was to lure the Pandoran fleet into Confederation space and implement a similar attack, though one making use of thousands of nuclear warheads and the Stephanie asteroid family in the Temper system. The route into Confederation space had been largely sealed off by the allied forces, preventing the navigation buoys and jumpgates from supplying positional information. A single buoy in the Temper system was therefore set up to broadcast a weak signal.

The operation was designed to run over two main phases - Phase one would involve luring the Pandoran fleet into Temper, at which point the nuclear warheads would be detonated, eliminating a great number of the warships and starfighters, but also shattered the asteroids in the Stephanie family. The asteroid chunks would cause additional damage to the vessels in the area, acting as an ad hoc mass-driver-style weapon. Phase two would involve the mop up of any of the Enemy fleet that had either managed to escape or had been held back from the initial jump.

Black Widow was implemented on 5th November, 2621. The first phase went exactly as planned, with around 90% of the ships that arrived in Temper being destroyed in the combined nuclear / asteroid assault. On inspection of the remains of the Enemy fleet, the allied forces discovered that neither Dragon or Chimera had made the initial jump (although carriers such as Kraken had done, and had been destroyed). Jason Zackaria and Julian Rissard were considered to therefore still be alive.

With phase one complete, the allied forces jumped to the Adetton system, to engage a number of enemy warships that had been discovered there, undergoing repairs. The allied forces were led by Tracy Storm and Phoenix.

Early on in the encounter, Elliott Parks voiced concerns that all did not appear right - the enemy forces were not making an effort to fight back and were only drawing the allies out. Storm, however, ignored Parks' suggestion to pull out of the Adetton system. Sometime later, the full weight of the true Pandoran army arrived, tens of thousands of warship and starfighters, Dragon and Chimera among them. Against such odds, the allied forces stood little chance and very few managed to escape the system.

Of the thirty major vessels that travelled to Imperial space to commence the mop-up, only six returned - Griffin, Leviathan, Amarok, Talos, Black Orchid, and the Vortex of Justice. Recorded major losses included Phoenix, Ironside, Cratos, Ice Storm, Caledfwlch, Churchill, Livingstone, Sussex, and a trio of Independent battleships known as The Three Colours.

Black Widow was officially declared a huge failure and was seen by many as a tipping point in the war against the Pandorans; the strength of the army met at Adetton was significantly larger than anyone had dared to expect, and around four times heavier than that which had jumped into the Temper system two days earlier.