Well, boys, I reckon this is it - nuclear combat toe to toe with the Roosskies. Now look, boys, I ain't much of a hand at makin' speeches, but I got a pretty fair idea that something doggone important is goin' on back there. And I got a fair idea the kinda personal emotions that some of you fellas may be thinkin'. Heck, I reckon you wouldn't even be human bein's if you didn't have some pretty strong personal feelin's about nuclear combat. I want you to remember one thing, the folks back home is a-countin' on you and by golly, we ain't about to let 'em down.
Major Kong, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb [quote here] [full film available here at archive.org, highly recommend, definitive American dark comedy on the subject]
Hello! We're sort of taking a break from East Asia-specific this week to talk about a great conversation-starter: Thermonuclear war. As developments in this area have not entirely halted in the past few decades, and yet I suspect most [not all--there's probably like one 80-year-old or something] of the readers of this post were either not alive during the Cold War or were too young to really appreciate most of what was happening during that period, I feel that it's important to cover the topic, especially with "great-power competition" being a new buzzword and the possibility that the NPT and the other arms control and limitation agreements that have been prominent for the past few decades falling apart being very real.
I'm sorry in advance if I occasionally get a bit repetitive but I think I've made a fairly comprehensive post on the subject, and I don't think I've particularly biased it one way or the other [though of course, that's what I would think].
Glossary:
Bunker-buster = nuclear warhead designed to destroy hardened sites, like bunkers or missile silos
Nuclear weapon = nuclear bomb = nuclear warhead = weapon that uses an operating principle based on nuclear physics
Thermonuclear weapon = more advanced type of nuclear weapon that uses fusion as its primary energy source rather than fission
Warhead = the part of the weapon that goes boom
Fuze = what sets off the bomb, distinct from fuse, which is an electrical part
Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty = one of the biggest arms control treaties in recent years, barred the US and USSRussia from having land-based missiles that were nuclear capable with a range from 500km to 5500km]
Ballistic missile = missile that travels in ballistic trajectories, fast, difficult to intercept, accuracy problems and always powered by rockets
Cruise missile = missile that travels in the atmosphere, smaller, difficult to intercept but easier than ballistic missiles--but harder to detect, powered by jet engines and air-breathing and thus slower
SRBM = Short-range ballistic missile [1000km range or less, most less than 300km to comply with MTCR or less than 500km to comply with the former INF Treaty]
MRBM = Medium-range ballistic missile [1000km to 3000km range, common in arsenals outside the US and Russia]
IRBM = Intermediate-range ballistic missile [3000km to 5500km range, common in arsenals outside the US and Russia, previously barred by the INF Treaty
ICBM = Intercontinental ballistic missile [5500km+ range, standard in US and Russian arsenals, China, France, and possibly North Korea operate a handful]
SSBN = "boomer" = ballistic missile submarine, nuclear powered and nuclear armed [no conventionally armed ballistic missile subs exist at present to the best of my knowledge, the only proposal being known a Trident conventional version]
Early warning = the systems used to detect missile launches and track them, could be ground-based radars or satellites
MIRV = Multiple independent reentry vehicles, a way to attach multiple warheads to one missile
SLBM = submarine-launched ballistic missile
Tactical nuke = determined by usage, not yield, tactical nukes are meant to be used in conflicts that do not escalate to an all-out nuclear war
Countervalue = a capability to strike against an opponent's cities and hard targets
Counterforce = a capability to strike against an opponent's hardened missile silos
Gravity bomb = nuke dropped from a plane
Nuclear triad = the full set of nuclear delivery methods: Air-launched cruise missiles/bombs, submarine-launched missiles, and ground-based missiles
SDI = "Star Wars" = strategic defense initiative, the origin of all of America's modern missile defense efforts
ABM = anti-ballistic missile
Nuclear sharing = a system via which nuclear warheads, owned by the US, are located in NATO countries [and in the past non-NATO countries] and can be turned over to their management in wartime
Some particular pieces of hardware to know about:
Trident = the submarine-launched ballistic missile currently used by the US and UK, can carry up to 14 warheads in MIRV configuration [typically 4 under treaty limits], solid-fueled and an ICBM as well as a SLBM
Minuteman-III = the current ground-based nuclear deterrent of the United States, ICBM, also MIRVed to handle 3 warheads, built in the 1960s originally and solid-fueled
Peacekeeper = MX = LGM-118 = the most sophisticated ground-based ICBM fielded by the United States and, possibly, by any power, solid-fueled and carried 12 [limited by treaty to 10] MIRVed warheads. Retired in 2005 due to high cost and arms limitation treaties. Meant to replace Minuteman.

1. The Bomb

The very first nuclear bombs relied on fission, the power of splitting atoms of fissile material to generate vast amounts of energy very quickly in a chain reaction. The general principle here is critical mass. Once a critical mass of the fissile material is achieved--usually either Uranium-235 or Plutonium-239--it activates a chain reaction which results in a nuclear explosion. These bombs are very simple in operating principle--pretty much anyone could build one if given the requisite materials. The main problem, and the reason we have not yet seen a nuclear warhead DIY, is that the fissile materials are very difficult to get. One must either synthesize plutonium in an atomic pile or use one of the various methods developed to enrich uranium--gaseous diffusion and centrifuges being the major ones. Either one takes a significant amount of time and specialized equipment, at least to produce nuclear weapons in any quantity. However, when you get down to it, any sufficiently motivated group could build one of these--at least if not stopped by another, more motivated group. Even North Korea could do this.
The next step in evolution was the boosted fission nuke. It represented a nuclear weapon that was more capable, but not radically so. By adding fusion fuel to the nuclear weapon, specifically the fission assembly, you could get a better yield--splitting more of the atoms in the core assembly before it suffered a critical existence failure and got spread out over several square miles. Fission-boosting is also fairly easily done, with the main obstacle being obtaining enough deuterium, lithium, and/or tritium to do the job correctly. These are, to my knowledge, pretty seldom seen; but I would suspect that both Pakistan and North Korea have them.
Thermonuclear weapons are, however, a major leap in capability. Much larger yield warheads can be built, in the multi-megaton range, and miniaturization is also possible, which is very useful for missiles in particular. Thermonuclear weapons rely on adding a fusion "secondary" stage, which is set off by a "primary" fission stage and generates vast quantities of energy. However, thermonuclear weapons are much more difficult to develop than fission-based weapons; largely because they rely on exotic materials and classified physics to operate. The United States itself has had difficulty building new thermonuclear weapons, or refreshing ones in current inventory, because it has lost knowledge of how to build some key materials. Most nuclear powers, however, are believed to or known to possess thermonuclear weapons, the exceptions being Pakistan and North Korea.

2. The Cold War

Nuclear weapons were probably the defining feature of the Cold War, at least once it finally began in earnest in the 1950s. To this day, the Cold War defines the cultural conception of nuclear weapons.
What this is about, though, is more a mechanical than philosophical or sociological discussion, explaining why nukes were, and are, used. Or rather, are planned to be used, because despite hundreds of nuclear tests, nobody has ever used a nuclear weapon in wartime in just over 75 years, since the US dropped a crude plutonium device on the Japanese city of Nagasaki.
The very beginning of nuclear war involved hundreds of strategic bombers--first B-29s, which actually cost more than the Manhattan Project to develop--and then more advanced jet bombers, the most iconic of which and perhaps the most enduring is the B-52 Stratofortress, which the US Air Force expects to remain in service through possibly the end of the century. These were the only viable delivery vehicles, and thus both the US [well, mostly the US] and the Soviet Union rushed to build as many of them as possible, with [unfounded] concerns of a "Bomber Gap" resulting in the construction of thousands of strategic bombers. In the event of war, these bombers would take off from their bases and drop nuclear bombs on enemy positions. For a substantial length in time, the US actually maintained a constant patrol of B-52 bombers with nuclear warheads onboard, which, in the event of a surprise attack, would retaliate against the USSR. It is one of these bombers which Dr Strangelove focuses on--though I should note that only a handful of people actually possessed the ability to launch a nuclear strike, and even then only in contingencies when the president was unavailable, and this persists to this day, excepting submarines--which will be mentioned in a moment.
However, technology marched on, and soon the ballistic missile became the delivery vehicle of choice. Early ballistic missiles were relatively crude, based off of the original V-2 design and whose quality was largely determined by how many Nazis you had stolen at the end of the Second World War. However, technology continued to evolve, and soon ICBMs had enough accuracy to launch countervalue attacks. These attacks targeted cities and aimed to deter an enemy from launching a first strike by ensuring that doing so would destroy the nation of the attacker. This doesn't mean that ballistic missiles were the only delivery method, though. Smaller nuclear weapons were built, designed to be delivered by air. They offered greater accuracy and tactical utility, and lowered the risk of a strategic nuclear exchange breaking out. It was around this time that tactical and strategic nuclear exchanges began to be devised in nuclear theory, with tactical nukes becoming essential to NATO war plans due to the numerical, and sometimes qualitative, inferiority of their conventional forces when faced with Warsaw Pact opponents. Nuclear weapons found their way into practically every kind of format. Nuclear-tipped air-to-air rockets were an early invention, aimed at shooting down massed bomber formations. Nuclear-tipped surface-to-air-missiles soon followed. Nuclear anti-ship missiles, nuclear artillery, and even "backpack nukes" like the Atomic Demolition Munition all were developed for a variety of purposes. Nuclear depth charges, nuclear torpedoes--if you put explosives in something, chances are someone drew up a plan to put a nuke in it. [as an aside, Cold War schemes to use nuclear weapons to perform massive construction projects, such as liquidating the Athabasca Tar Sands or creating a giant salt lake in Egypt, are one of my favorite Cold War relics]. Nukes were the bread and butter of Cold War strategy in a way that seems hardly conceivable today. This is largely why both the US and USSR had stockpiles of tens of thousands of weapons.
Mutual assured destruction, or MAD as it is commonly known, was also derived during this time, suggesting that the way to prevent nuclear war was by ensuring that any initiation of nuclear combat would lead to certain destruction. The development of SSBNs and SLBMs, which provided a way to ensure survivability of the nuclear arsenal and a sure second strike capability--usually countervalue because of the lower accuracy of SLBMs--seemed to make this set in stone. These would avoid destruction in a first strike by hiding within the ocean, and would then launch based off of orders issued from base--or, in the case of Britain, off of orders written by the Prime Minister and secured in the submarines to be opened in event of war.
Unfortunately, life tends to make things more complicated, and this was and is the case with MAD. The first problem that developed was that of the MIRV, or Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicle. This allowed missiles to carry large numbers of warheads, as many as twelve in the case of the LGM-118 Peacekeeper [probably the most sophisticated ICBM ever developed, the Soviet R-36 threw 10 and Trident D5 14 smaller warheads]. As a result of this fact, combined with increasing accuracy of reentry vehicles [especially, it is thought, on the part of the United States], a counterforce strike that could eliminate an enemy's ground-based nuclear deterrent became possible. MIRVs also place a high value on first-strike because each MIRVed missile can destroy numerous enemy silos but is correspondingly more vulnerable to first-strike as it replaces a dozen independent missiles with a single one. As a result limitations of MIRVed warheads have been a major focus of arms reduction treaties and several attempts have been made to ban usage of the technology altogether. Other problems complicated the situation further, such as anti-ballistic missiles, which potentially could shelter a nation from a weak second-strike. However, this broadly describes most of the key elements of nuclear war, skipping over the vast cultural and political impacts of nuclear weapons for the most part, because that's not really what I'm focused on here.

3. Arms control and non-proliferation

From the moment the US first got its hands on the bomb, it sought to keep it away from everyone else, including a very miffed Britain which had been promised access to the secrets learned from the Manhattan Project as a result of the contributions of its "Tube Alloys" program to the American development of the bomb. The Atomic Energy Act of 1946, or McMahon Act, has largely set American nuclear policy since its creation. Britain ultimately developed its own nuclear bomb, and the Soviets, in a large part thanks to the involvement of traitorous American nuclear scientists, developed their own bomb as well. By the 1950s, the world was in a frantic race to build the bomb--those who had it, to build more of them, and those who didn't, to get them. Even Sweden ran a nuclear weapons program. France got the bomb, and China did as well--much to the chagrin of the Soviets, who had undergone a dramatic split with the Chinese a few years earlier and whose original research work was invaluable in contributing to the Chinese nuclear program. It must be understood that back in those days building nuclear weapons was much more difficult than it is now, without computers or without even easy resources as to how they functioned. Nowadays, I can learn how to build a nuke off of Wikipedia, and, barring the ten tons of heavy water, hundreds of kilograms of natural uranium, and large quantity of nitric acid required, doing so is a relatively trivial task.
The real shift, however, began around 1970. The first major act in this was the development of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, in which all the nuclear powers promised to work towards the reduction and abolition of nuclear weapons, and in return the majority of non-nuclear powers agreed not to build nukes, and it is upon this foundation that the modern order is built. However, it has hardly proved perfectly successful--only six years later the detonation of the first Indian nuclear weapon occurred, which had been built using Canadian technology that had not been adequately controlled, or, indeed, controlled at all--the reactors Canada sells are, by the way, essentially DIY kits for nuclear weapons. As a result, an increasingly involved control regime began to be built. The IAEA was founded and membership was generally required for the ownership of nuclear reactors. The nuclear powers banded together to ensure that critical components of nuclear programs were not exported, pressured nations in their own blocs into cancelling nuclear programs [as the US did to both South Korea and Taiwan], and, barring some relatively low-profile cheating on the part of China, which has sold peripheral equipment to North Korea, Pakistan, and Iran, this vast patchwork mostly held together. As a result, instead of a predicted 30-40 nuclear weapons states, there are only 9 today.
Also around this time, both the US and USSR recognized that spending large quantities on building ever-increasing quantities of nuclear weapons without either side gaining any decisive advantage was helping absolutely nobody, and the two states began to agree to various reductions in arms and limitations in weapons development, including the ABM treaty and SALT.

4. Anti-ballistic missiles and Star Wars

Eventually, starting in around the 1970s, people got the idea that maybe you could stop ICBMs. This sounds absolutely ludicrous--but it wasn't, per se, impossible, and it led to a lot of really advanced, science-fiction sounding technology.
The very first method was to launch interceptor rockets that carried H-bombs of their own, aiming to detonate them close enough to the missiles that they would either destroy the reentry vehicles, their electronics, or cause a non-critical "fissile" of the warhead. This was halted, however, by the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, one of the first big arms limitations agreements, and also by a simple fact: Ground-based missile interceptors are generally much more expensive than building additional missiles--for instance, the US Ground-Based Midcourse Defense costs more to produce, missile for missile, than a LGM-118 with 12 warheads. This treaty actually held for its full term, despite what you may have expected, as it did not limit research, only the actual building of anti-ballistic missile systems, and actually, IIRC, excluded space-based defenses via omission. However, until Ronald Reagan came along, the idea of ABMs was largely cast to the wayside.
Reagan, however, revived the idea quite famously in his Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed "Star Wars" by many. It explored a number of ideas, many of which were quite outlandish--one of the more successful proposals, at least in terms of how much funding or attention was devoted to it, involved setting off nuclear warheads in space to power x-ray lasers to shoot down enemy missiles, which if nothing else sounded really cool. By far the most practical program to emerge out of this, however [a rather relative merit], was called "Brilliant Pebbles". It relied on a constellation of tens of thousands of kinetic interceptors, small, only a few kilograms each, which would target and destroy any ballistic missiles in low orbit. This plan was supposed to solve the issue where interceptors were more expensive than missiles, and allow the US unquestioned missile superiority.
It was also around this time when surface-to-air missile systems, originally designed with the mission to shoot down aircraft, began gaining limited anti-ballistic missile capabilities, which were... somewhat underwhelming in the Gulf War, though the technology was brand new at the time.

5. Peace dividend

When the Cold War finally ended, one of the parts of the peace dividend that probably made more sense than most was the vast savings made on nuclear weapons. The trend had already begun in the late Cold War, but once the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed, stockpiles fell from tens of thousands of warheads to just a few thousand on the part of the US and Russia. All sides had a vested interest in arms reduction, and so those thousands of warheads were disassembled and largely turned into fuel for nuclear reactors.
Ballistic missile defenses also got cut. The original Brilliant Pebbles scheme was cancelled and replaced with a less-expensive but substantially less effective program called the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense, which relies on a relative handful of interceptor missiles in Alaska to shoot down ballistic missiles in the midcourse stage; primarily designed with China or North Korea in mind [oddly enough the first ballistic missile defense program of the US was also designed with the intent of stopping a Chinese nuclear attack]. Ironically Ground-Based Midcourse Defense ended up costing a large portion [more than half] of what the final Brilliant Pebbles implementations were proposed at, for a system with very limited capabilities [this cancellation may have also been part of what killed the DC-X spacecraft].
Vast fleets of SSBNs were disassembled. Expensive delivery platforms and programs, like the MX Peacekeeper, were scrapped. All in all, the threat of nuclear war practically vanished, excepting on the subcontinent, where India and Pakistan engaged in nuclear showboating multiple times. It's really hard to understate the sheer magnitude of what happened, with the number of warheads in existence shrinking from around 70,000 to 10,000 or so, with around half of those today being inactive. The US Navy went from stocking multiple warheads on each ship to removing them entirely from the fleet, aside from, of course, the SSBNs.
The successor states of the USSR, aside from Russia itself, were successfully convinced to hand over their nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees--Ukraine most infamously--and their fissile materials were turned into [relatively] harmless nuclear fuel. South Africa became the first nation with an independently developed nuclear arsenal to voluntarily denuclearize, admittedly largely out of fear of what the black population might do with the bomb.
Other areas saw major reductions and non--proliferation efforts. The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program decommissioned large quantities of nuclear delivery vehicles and Soviet biological and chemical weapons sites. The Missile Technology Control Regime expanded and enveloped most nations with the capability to develop ballistic missiles and long-range cruise missiles, making nuclear weapons delivery difficult for the aspiring third world dictator--for instance, an Iraqi program to develop a ballistic missile in partnership with Argentina was scrapped by American pressure and Argentine admittance into the MTCR. While India and Pakistan still harassed each other, their open non-nuclear conventional war assuaged some concerns while raising others [perhaps nuclear powers could engage in conventional war after all]. Nuclear programs in several countries were stopped by diplomatic pressure, as in Libya, rather than by Israeli bombing campaigns.
For a time, all was peaceful. In the last decade or so, however, things have changed--and for the most part, they have done so below the radar of even Washington policymakers.

6. A Return To The Old Days?

Things in the past decade or so, however, have changed the nuclear situation substantially.
First on the list is that North Korea now has nuclear weapons and, it seems, a deterrent. This has seriously tested the efficacy of non-proliferation already, with the merit of non-proliferation when North Korea and Pakistan have weapons being rather suspect. Iran is also building nukes. North Korea's case was, and is, dangerous in particular because it suggests that, barring strong support from a great power, nukes are the only way to maintain autonomy [Ukraine and Libya both offering examples of why surrendering nukes, or even a nuclear program, is a bad idea to the world], and that they aren't too difficult to get. North Korea also may well already be engaging in proliferation activities as a revenue source--it's already known that they sell ballistic missile delivery vehicles and have exported materials related to chemical weapons production in the past, so exporting nuclear technology is hardly a stretch, especially given that North Korea is not seriously threatened by these activities and they provide a useful revenue source for the regime. As a result, the non-proliferation circle built over decades by the various great powers now has a rather large North Korea-shaped hole in it. This, however, isn't leading to big changes in Russia, China, and the United States. Rather, technological advancements, largely by the US and China, are slowly nibbling away at the tenuous nuclear peace.
Second is the problem, for Russia, created by the new Trident super-fuze. Under cover of a "refurbishment" of the Trident warhead family, a new fuze was introduced. However, this fuze is no mere one-for-one replacement: Instead, it allows the warhead to detonate within a range of zones that could destroy the target, allowing warheads that would previously overfly the target and miss to instead detonate in an airbust directly above said target. In effect, it increased the power of Trident by as many as five times, and has made it into a counterforce or first strike weapon. Quoted figures are a .86 probability of kill for a 10kpsi target, about as hard as defensive structures get, and .99 probability of kill for a standard, 2kpsi hardened target. As most of Russia's missile silos are only secure to the point of the latter, and Russia uses liquid-fueled ICBMs for the most part that are much more sensitive to attack than Western or Chinese solid-fueled ones, what this means is that Trident is now capable of wiping out Russia's entire ground-based strategic deterrent at extremely short notice. This has, it seems, quite possibly frightened Russian leadership, and is the likely reason why they have been desperately trying to devise new outlandish delivery vehicles, like an unmanned nuclear torpedo or a nuclear-powered cruise missile. This is further complicated by the fact that Russia has more or less completely lost its space-based ballistic missile warning network and does not seem to have the capability to replace it, which means that Russia must rely on land-based early warning radars to inform it of a nuclear strike. As a result, Russia will have as little as ten minutes of warning for an incoming nuclear attack, and will have essentially no idea what it will look like or what scale it is on. When Russian sources say they'll treat any ballistic missile strike as a nuclear attack, they probably aren't lying, because their sensor network is so bad they can't tell whether a sounding rocket is a nuclear first strike, and their survivability is so bad they can't afford to not launch.
There's also the interesting problem presented by the development of a new low-yield Trident warhead. While it might possibly have some use, many believe that low-yield nuclear weapons are dangerous because they blur the line between conventional and tactical nuclear war, and the use of Trident as a delivery vehicle runs a substantial risk on account of the fact that it may be difficult for an adversary [such as Russia] to discern that the vehicle is a tactical nuclear strike rather than the beginning of a strategic exchange. These same very concerns scuppered a conventional variant of Trident proposed for the Prompt Global Strike program, which would have used Trident to launch large conventional payloads, a bad idea for multiple reasons.
Arms agreements that defined the 1990s and 2000s have also begun to fall apart. The cancellation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was just the latest in what has been a slowly escalating trend since the 2002 expiration of the anti-ballistic missile treaty. The Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement, for instance, which required the US and Russia to convert their stockpiles of plutonium into MOX reactor fuel, is also dead, ostensibly for financial reasons on the part of the US, but quite possibly to allow the US to retain its 80+ tons of plutonium in a diluted form so it can be easily converted back into warheads [keep in mind only a few kilograms of plutonium is needed for a warhead so we're talking about thousands of devices in the several hundred kiloton range].
Why this is happening is an interesting question, and it seems that both the US and Russia [but, to be honest, mostly the US] are involved in the end of these arms restriction treaties. The first problem, and most obvious, is China. China has a general policy of not engaging in arms-limitation treaties, viewing them as a way for dominant powers to retain their position, and has a nuclear arms reduction policy that amounts to "get rid of all of your nukes and then we'll talk". With China becoming an increasingly significant threat to the United States, the arms controls placed on it by agreement with Russia have become problematic for American strategic planners. In particular, the limitation on intermediate-range forces was seen as a major difficulty given the increasingly capable conventionally armed intermediate range ballistic and cruise missiles that are one of the edges the PLAN holds; and, I suspect [but cannot prove] that planners within the US government view tactical nuclear war with China as a very real thing they should plan for, with the US using nukes first to gain a decisive tactical advantage and not escalating to a strategic exchange--this is enabled by the fact that China has essentially no tactical nuclear weapons, seems to believe it can avoid nuclear war with the United States [or possibly not--I've heard both], and a very small strategic stockpile of which only around 50 missiles can hit the continental US. Russia, on the other hand, has a rather different problem. Its conventional forces in Europe are inferior in quality and quantity to what NATO can field, so it has to plan to make up the difference with nuclear weapons. Furthermore, the increasing sophistication of American capabilities in ways which Russia simply cannot match means that the survivability of the Russian nuclear force is beginning to be called into question, and thus a larger arsenal is required to ensure that a strategic deterrent can be maintained as it has traditionally. As a result, both parties are abandoning arms treaties with, well, reckless abandon.
Finally, the development of increasingly capable ballistic missile defenses, especially by the United States--which now holds pretty much all the cards in the event of nuclear war--means that nations will be required to develop either new and more sophisticated delivery vehicles, or, alternatively, produce more warheads, to ensure that they can maintain deterrence. These include the SM-3 anti-ballistic missile, which can intercept ballistic missiles in the midcourse stage, though only shorter ranged ones and not full ICBMs at the moment, and which is being deployed by the US not only aboard its numerous destroyer fleet but also in "AEGIS Ashore" sites in Eastern Europe [which also caused concern by Russia because these units could easily fire ground-launched cruise missiles that were banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty], and were to be deployed in Japan before local opposition halted construction. The US also designed THAAD, or Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, which provides an interceptor to destroy even ICBMs in the terminal stage, and has made significant improvements to the Patriot missile system which enhance its ABM capabilities. The US has also discussed reviving technologies from previously abandoned schemes such as the YAL-1, a 747 that aimed to shoot down ballistic missiles with lasers at a range of hundreds of kilometers [though it was suggested the new implementation be on a stealth drone] and even considered further research into space-based interceptors--which seem far more feasible in a day and age when private companies are already putting up constellations of advanced communications satellites in similar numbers to those proposed for the "Brilliant Pebbles" scheme.

7. Conclusion

As a result of these shifts, the current lull in nuclear war preparations and small nuclear arsenals of today may not last much longer. Indeed, to an extent, the lull has already ended.
Without a doubt Biden will try to negotiate a renewal of New START--he himself has stated his intent to do so multiple times, but the short time window he has in which to renew it [it expires on 5 February 2021, little more than a week after his inauguration] means that whether he will be successful is uncertain. Even if New START is renewed or brought back in a new form I would expect it to be much less restrictive and a de facto abandonment of the arms reduction that has characterized the last thirty years of nuclear policy. I also don't think that New START, even extended, will last past 2026--that's the point when major nuclear modernizations are set to begin to the US arsenal, including the introduction of the Columbia-class SSBN into service and replacement of the 1960s-era Minuteman III ICBM that constitutes the ground-based deterrent.
Both the US and Russia are poised to make major modernizations to their nuclear arsenals and I expect both of their stockpiles to grow barring a renewal of New START as presently constituted. I also expect that the US may well begin preparing to build new facilities for nuclear weapons production, as its old ones have pretty much all closed at this point. Nuclear weapons may also begin to see a return to the naval field, with nuclear-tipped anti-ship missiles and torpedoes possibly seeing revivals--watch for a return to the US's historic nuclear ambiguity policy on whether or not its ships carry nuclear weapons.
New forecasts say that China is poised to double its nuclear arsenal in the next decade, and I suspect these ones will actually turn out, because China knows that their arsenal at present is too small to pose an effective deterrent to tactical nuclear war and may, within a relatively short time, become an ineffective strategic deterrent.
The list of states with nuclear weapons is likely to grow--South Korea is a near sure bet for reasons I have described previously, but I would not be surprised to see more states get the bomb. Iran seems likely to build one unless stopped via force, and they've gotten quite close already. However, more than the number of states which will possess nuclear weapons outright will grow, I predict a major expansion in nations which attempt to reach a nuclear-latent state. The recent burst of smallsat launchers provides a perfect cover for ballistic missile systems to be developed; drone technology and electronics have made cruise missiles easier than ever to design, and nuclear power will be sought after by a large number of states with potentially ulterior motives--once a sufficient stockpile of used fuel is made reprocessing it to extract the plutonium within is relatively trivial, and I expect more states to push for reprocessing technology and "full control over the nuclear fuel-cycle". As a result, strategic planners may ultimately have to reckon with a world in which most nations [or far more than the 9 current nuclear-armed states] could well develop modest nuclear arsenals within a few months to a few years.
As for what the US should do--well, my opinion is that the US should just embrace the inevitable. During the Cold War, the US saw that France wasn't going to be stopped from building the bomb--so instead they helped the French build their weapons and thus gained the trust and friendship of the entire French strategic community, at least to an extent where their nuclear and even conventional forces were de facto reintegrated into NATO.
That has lessons for today, I think. If something is going to happen one way or another, the US should just embrace it and try to help the process along and gain the trust and friendship of the nation involved, provided such a move is not directly contrary to American interests. For instance, take South Korea. If it becomes clear that South Korea intends to build nuclear weapons, the US would be better off discretely enabling that by amending its Section 123 agreement and clandestinely supporting the program than trying to fight it.
The US should also seriously reconsider whether it should maintain a non-proliferation stance, although I can see strong cases on both sides. Non-proliferation has failed to stop Pakistan or North Korea, and at that point it's really rather questionable whether it works, but for the moment it's the only thing that's holding the Middle East and world as a whole back from a nuclear arms race. If Iran does get the bomb, I doubt that the US will continue to hold onto that position. At that point [or this point] most of the nations the US doesn't want to have the bomb either already have it, cannot be stopped from getting it without war, or just flat out can't build it due to lack of money, will, and resources. It's unlikely that the US will openly support proliferation, especially Congress, but I find it quite probable that the US may well take a "wink-and-a-nudge" approach to the whole issue. A Section 123 Agreement might be amended to allow reprocessing and a solid-fuelled smallsat launcher sold or authorized, but how was the US government to know that the nation was pursuing nuclear weapons?
Furthermore, the US should start preparing as if an all-out nuclear arms race may resume, because it may well do so. Developing a new comprehensive ballistic missile defense strategy is part of this, possibly including Brilliant Pebbles--I'm a strong advocate of at least researching the solution especially given that so many hurdles already have been met by private companies like SpaceX--but also terminal defenses and directed-energy weapons. The US should also begin thoroughly examining the use of nuclear weapons in a modern context and prepare facilities needed for the production of additional warheads, including possibly a lithium-separation site to manufacture additional tritium, as well as reprocessing sites to produce additional plutonium.
[citations in comments due to max character limit]

Updated list of Global Beermoney opportunities (+180!) - June 2020

Introduction

The current, and now previous, Beermoney Global list started nearly 5 years ago. It’s been updated and has grown over all that time, but it also became a hassle to keep current. It was time to build a new list from scratch based on my experience in the Beermoney world over all these years and all the contributions all of you have been making in this sub.
The lists consist of opportunities that are available in at least one country that is not the US. This means there are sites which only work in Canada or the UK. There’s sites which are open to the whole world, but this does not mean everyone can really earn something on it. It’s all still very demographic and therefore location dependent. This list should give you a starting point to try out and find what works for you. I’m not using everything myself as I prefer to focus on a few, so not all are tested by me. They are found in this sub, other subreddits and other resources where people claim to have success.
I’ve chosen the format of a simple table with the bare minimum of information to keep things clean. It includes a link, how you earn, personal payment proof if available and sign-up bonus codes if applicable. Some of these bonuses are also one-time use codes specifically made for this sub! For the ones I don’t have payment proof (yet) feel free to provide some as a comment or via modmail so others know it’s legit. I am working on detailed instructions for each method that I personally use which will include things like cashout minimum, cashout options, tips & tricks,... For now I’ve split things up based on the type of earning like passive or mobile. Because of this there’s sometimes an overlap as some are both passive and on mobile or both earning crypto and a GPT (Get Paid To) website.
The lists are obviously not complete so I invite you to keep posting new ones in the sub, as a comment to this post, or in modmail. Especially if you have sites or apps which work for one single specific country I can start building a list, just like I did for The Netherlands and Belgium. If you recognize things which are in fact scams or not worth it let me know as well.

Beermoney opportunities

Get Paid To (Surveys, tasks, offers, videos, clicking links, play games, searching)

Register here	How to earn	Payment proof	Sign-up bonus code
ySense - The best global site	Surveys, tasks, offers, videos	Paypal, Paypal	/
PrizeRebel	Surveys, tasks, offers, videos	Paypal, Paypal	Enter code 'beermoneyglobal'
SerpClix	Google searching	Paypal, Paypal	/
Swagbucks & SwagButton	Surveys, tasks, offers, videos, shopping & cashback, games, apps	Paypal	/
GG2U	Surveys, tasks, offers, videos	Paypal	$1.00 if register here
Keep Rewarding	Surveys, tasks, offers, videos, PTC	Pending	$0.25 if register here
Ebesucher	Surfing, reading mails	Bank transfer	/
Reward XP	Surveys, tasks, offers, videos	Paypal	$0.50 if register here
Gain.gg	Surveys, tasks, offers, videos	Paypal	$0.10 if register here
Timebucks	Surveys, tasks, offers, videos, Tik Tok, Shopping	Bitcoin	$1.00 if register here
GamerMine	Surveys, offers, videos, tasks,	Pending	$1.00 if register here
Gamehag	Tasks, offers, play games, post on forum, writing	Pending	/
BTCSurveys	Surveys	Pending	/
FruitLab	Watch & upload video game clips	Pending	100 pips if register here
Clickworker	Transcripts, tasks, UHRS (categorizing), surveys	Paypal	/
FreeSkins	Surveys, offers, tasks, videos	Pending	100 coins if register here
iRazoo	Games, surveys, videos, offers, apps	Pending	Enter code 'AK7DB2' for 500 points when signing up
EarnCrypto	Data entry, surveys, offers, tasks, videos, games, apps	Pending	/
Blockreward	Apps, surveys, videos, tasks, offers	Pending	$2.00 if register here and earn 20000b + $2.00 if earn 10000b within 30 days
PaidViewPoint	Surveys	Paypal	/
GrabPoints	Suverys, videos, offers, games, apps	Pending	500 points if register here
RewardingWays	Surveys, offers, tasks, videos, contests	Pending	$0.20 if register here
SuperPay	Surveys, offers, tasks, videos, contests	Pending	$0.20 if register here
InstaGC	Surveys, tasks, videos, apps	Pending	/
GiftHunterClub	Surveys, offers, videos, apps, games	Pending	$0.75 if register here
Idle-Empire	Surveys, offers, videos, mining, apps, games	Pending	500 points if register here
PicoWorkers	Tasks, games, apps	Pending	/
ViewFruit	Surveys	Pending	/
Mobrog (change language if needed)	Surveys	Pending	/
Surveytime	Surveys	Pending	/
Giveaway Pros	Offers, videos	Pending	/
SEO Sprint (Russian, use Google Translate)	Tasks	Pending	/
Earnhoney	Surveys, tasks, offers, videos	Pending	/
Toluna	Surveys	Pending	/
Spidermetrix	Surveys	Pending	/
BeerSurveys	Surveys, tasks, offers	Pending	/
CrowdHolding	Co-create with startups	Pending	/
Diaworkers	Tasks	Pending	/
Presearch	Search & Earn	Pending	/
Univox Community	Surveys	Pending	/
YouGov	Surveys	Pending	/
Spare5	Tasks	Paypal	/
Rewardia	Surveys, polls, games, videos, puzzles, trivia	Pending	3000 points extra (when you earn 3000 points) if register here
Earnably	Surveys, tasks, offers, videos	Pending	/
Neevo	Tasks	Pending	/
Rakuten Insight (country specific links)	Surveys	Pending	/
The Panel Station	Surveys	Pending	/
Remotasks	Tasks	Pending	/
Pureprofile	Surveys	Pending	/
UserCrowd	Tasks	PayPal	/
Sruvey Village	Surveys	Pending	/
InboxDollars/InboxPounds	Surveys, offers, videos, shopping	Pending	/
Qmee	Surveys	Pending	/
MicroWorkers	Tasks	Pending	/
Cinchbucks	Surveys, offers, tasks, videos	Pending	/
Rewards1	Suverys, videos, offers, games, apps, polls, contests	Pending	/
Vindale	Surveys	Pending	/
PointClub	Surveys	Pending	/
TGM Panel	Surveys	Pending	/
PaidPoints	Tasks, offers, traffic exchange, ad clicking	Pending	/
RapidWorkers	Tasks	Pending	/
AnyTask	Sell your skills	Pending	/
Bounty0x	Tasks	Pending	/
Opinion World	Surveys	Pending	/
Lifepoints	Surveys	Pending	/

Passive (desktop & mobile)

Register here	How to earn	Payment proof	Sign-up bonus code
HoneyGain	Desktop & mobile phone bandwith sharing (wifi + data)	Paypal, Paypal	$5.00 if register here
FluidStack	Desktop bandwith sharing (Linux needed)	Paypal	/
PacketStream	Desktop bandwith sharing	Paypal	/
LoadTeam	CPU power sharing	Pending	$0.20 if register here
Gener8	Browser extension	Pending	10 tokens if register here
Kryptex	Crypto mining	Bitcoin	/
Ebesucher	Surfing, reading mails	Bank transfer	/
Honeyminer	Mining	Pending	1000 satoshis if register here
LazyBucks	Rent out your Facebook account	Pending	/
HideoutTV and link to Reward XP to cashout	Videos	Paypal	/
Honey	Discounts & Cashback	/	500 Honey Gold if register here
Fitplay	Games	Pending	$0.33 if register here
Mistplay	Games	Pending	/
Money SMS	Receive SMS	Pending	/
McMoney	Receive SMS	Pending	$0.22 if using code '60LGG3PR'
SMS Profit Net	Receive SMS	Pending	/
Simcash	Send SMS [risky]	Pending	/
Cash4sms	Send [risky] & receive SMS	Pending	/
ControlMySMS	Receive SMS	Pending	/
Birdchain	Send SMS [risky]	Pending	/
Sweatcoin	Walking	Pending	/
COIN	Explore	Pending	1000 coins if register here
Panel App	Surveys, location sharing	Pending	/
Phoneum	Games, mining	Pending	/

Crypto (faucets, mining, GPT)

Register here	How to earn	Payment proof	Sign-up bonus code
Cointiply	Faucet, surveys, tasks, offers, videos	Bitcoin	Enter code 'beermoneyglobal'
FreeBitcoin	Faucet, lottery, betting, passive interest	Bitcoin	/
AdBTC	Click ads, active window surfing, autosurfing	Pending	/
Faucetpay	Faucet Wallet, exchange, offers, tasks, trading	Pending	/
Faucet Crypto	Faucet, ads clicking, offers, shortlinks	Pending	/
More Money	Faucet, ads clicking, offers, shortlinks	Pending	/
Kryptex	Crypto mining	Pending	/
Quicrypto	Surveys, tasks, offers, games, videos	Pending	/
Coinpot	Faucet	Bitcoin	/
Honeyminer	Mining	Pending	1000 satoshis if register here
BitShark	Faucet, games	Pending	/
Publish0x	Read & write articles	Pending	/
Starbits	Faucet (need FaucetPay account)	Pending	/
Coinpayu	Ads clicking, videos, offers	Pending	/
BTCSurveys	Surveys	Pending	/
Blockreward	Apps, surveys, videos	Pending	$2.00 if register here and earn 20000b + $2.00 if earn 10000b within 30 days
Coinbase	Crypto sign-up bonuses	Bank transfer	See links in thread
LBRY.tv	Watch videos	Pending	/
Pi Network	Crypto mining	Pending (see here)	To join you need a referral link
EarnCrypto	Data entry, surveys, offers, tasks, videos, games, apps	Pending	/
Phoneum	Games, mining	Pending	/

Mobile

Register here	How to earn	Payment proof	Sign-up bonus code
Cointiply	Faucet, surveys, tasks, offers, videos	Bitcoin	Enter code 'beermoneyglobal'
HoneyGain	Desktop & mobile phone bandwith sharing (wifi + data)	Paypal	$5.00 if register here
Google Opinion Rewards	Surveys	Play Store credit	/
FreeBitcoin	Faucet, lottery, betting, passive interest	Bitcoin	/
AppKarma	Games, quizes, surveys	Pending	Enter code 'Proim' for 300 points when signing up
CashKarma	Surveys, offers, games	Pending	Enter code 'Proim' for 300 points when signing up
Cash Alarm	Games	Pending	Receive 25% of my earnings if register here
Cash Magnet	Games, offers, tasks, videos	Pending	/
AttaPoll	Surveys	Pending	/
ClipClaps	Videos, games, raffles	PayPall	$1.00 & Diamond Chest if register here
Quicrypto	Surveys, tasks, offers, games, videos	Pending	/
Poll Pay	Surveys	Pending	$0.30 if using code '4CS6L4SQ8D' when signing up
BuzzBreak	Read news, videos, offers, surveys	Pending	Enter code 'B06472489' when signing up
Userlytics	Software testing	Pending	/
WowApp	Games, offers, surveys, videos, chat, phone unlock, calling, cashback, shopping cashback, browsing, news reading	Pending	/
CuriousCat	Surveys	Pending	/
Quickthoughts	Surveys	Pending	/
Fitplay	Games	Pending	$0.33 if register here
TV-Two Make Money	Apps, games, Youtube, browsing	Pending	555 credits if register here
Mistplay	Games	Pending	/
FeaturePoints	Suveys, offers, apps, cashback	Pending	50 points if register here
Money SMS	Receive SMS	Pending	/
BIGtoken	Suveys, location sharing, social media account	Pending	Use code 'GMGALLOIA'
McMoney	Receive SMS	Pending	$0.22 if using code '60LGG3PR'
Pi Network	Crypto mining	Pending (see here)	To join you need a referral link
Roamler	Mystery shopping	Pending	/
SMS Profit Net	Receive SMS	Pending	/
Streetbees	Surveys, tasks, create videos, take pictures	Pending	Enter code '6115GF' when signing up
Simcash	Send SMS [risky]	Pending	/
VoxPopMe	Video feedback	Pending	/
Cash4sms	Send [risky] & receive SMS	Pending	/
Citizen Me	Surveys	Pending	/
ControlMySMS	Receive SMS	Pending	/
Birdchain	Send SMS [risky]	Pending	/
Sweatcoin	Walking	Pending	/
COIN	Explore	Pending	1000 coins if register here
Panel App	Surveys, location sharing	Pending	/
GiftHunterClub	Surveys, offers, videos, apps, games	Pending	$0.75 if register here
Phoneum	Games, mining	Pending	/

Research

Register here	How to earn	Payment proof	Sign-up bonus code
Respondent	Interviews, research, surveys	Pending	/
Prolific	Surveys, research	Paypal	/

User testing

Register here	How to earn	Payment proof	Sign-up bonus code
TestingTime	Software testing	Paypal	/
uTest	Software testing	Pending	/
PingPong	Software testing	Pending	/
TryMyUI	Software/UI testing	Pending	/
Testbirds	Software/UI testing	Pending	/
Pulselabs	Voice app testing	Pending	/
PlaytestCloud	Game testing	Pending	/
Userlytics	Software testing	Pending	/

Investing (revenue share)

Register here	How to earn	Payment proof	Sign-up bonus code
PaidVerts	Ad clicking, offers, revenue sharing	Bitcoin	/
MyTrafficValue	Games, investing	PayPal	/

Selling (designs on merchandise, skills/gigs)

Register here	How to earn	Payment proof	Sign-up bonus code
Fiverr	Sell your skills	Pending	20% off on first purchase if register here
Redbubble	Sell your designs	Pending	/
Zeerk	Sell your skills	Pending	/
TeePublic	Sell your designs	Pending	/
Teespring	Sell your designs	Pending	/

Transcribing/Translating

Register here	How to earn	Payment proof	Sign-up bonus code
Rev	Transcribing, captioning, foreign subtitles	Pending	/
Gotranscript	Transcribing, translating captioning, foreign subtitles	Pending	/
TranscribeMe	Transcribing, translating, data annotation	Pending	/
Unbabel	Translating	Pending	/

Others

Register here	How to earn	Payment proof	Sign-up bonus code
Wealthy Affiliate	Learn affiliate marketing	Pending	/
Brave	Brows internet	Pending	/
Andromo	Develop apps	Pending	/

The Netherlands specific

For The Netherlands there are a few very good options next to a bunch of ‘spaarprogramma’s. There ‘spaarprogramma’s are all the same where you receive and click a bunch of e-mails, advertisements, banners,... I advise you to create a separate e-mail address or use a good filter in your inbox as you will be spammed to death. I believe they can be a nice piece of beermoney but they take quite the effort.

Register here	How to earn	Payment proof	Sign-up bonus code
Euroclix	Surveys, shopping & cashback, offers, energy/internet providers	Bank transfer	€1.95 if register here
StemPunt	Surveys	Gift cards	500 points if register here
Cashback XL	Shopping cashback, health insurance discount	Bank transfer	/
Scoupy	Shopping cashback, free products	Pending	/
Cashback Korting	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€7.50 if register here
Lady Cashback	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€7.50 if register here
Enqueteclub	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€7.50 if register here
Snel Verdienen	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€2.50 if register here
Spaar Actief	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.00 if register here
Klik Je Zakgeld	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.00 if register here
Zinngeld	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€0.10 if register here
My Clics	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.25 if register here
Direct Verdiend	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€2.00 if register here
Spaar4Cash	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.50 if register here
Qassa	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	/
My Flavours	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.00 if register here
Cash Ze	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.00 if register here
Geld Race	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.25 if register here
iPay	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.25 if register here
Double Points	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€2.00 if register here
Mailbeurs	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.50 if register here
Qlics	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.25 if register here
Centmail	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.50 if register here
Extra Euro	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.25 if register here
Gekken Goud	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.00 if register here
Dutch Euro	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.50 if register here
Nu Cash	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.00 if register
Snel Euro	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.00 if register here
Cash Hier	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.50 if register here
Betaalde Mails	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€2.00 if register here
Goudmails	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.00 if register here
Online Cashen	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.00 if register here
Crazy Mails	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.00 if register here
Cash Paradijs	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.00 if register here
Smart Clix	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€5.00 if register here
24/7 Discount	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	/
Beetje Zakgeld	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.25 if register here
Geldmolen	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.75 if register here
Online Zakcentje	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.50 if register here
Geldcircus	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€0.75 if register here
Lady Clix	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€0.99 if register here
Geldwolf	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.00 if register here
Zilvervloot	Read mails, click banners, shopping cashback, shopping deals, compare (GWL, data, internet, tv, insurances), offers, surveys	Pending	€1.00 if register here

Belgium specific

Register here	How to earn	Payment proof	Sign-up bonus code
Buffl	Surveys	Gift cards	/

Sign-up bonuses

The one-time sign-up bonus programs are still to be found here. If you find a new one let me know so I can create the post to keep all the ref links together.

Saving money

Although it’s not really about making money online, it’s still nice to save some money as well when shopping online.

Register here	How to earn	Payment proof	Sign-up bonus code
Honey	Discounts & Cashback	/	500 Honey Gold if register here
G2A	Game keys	/	/
Kinguin	Game keys	/	/
Allkeyshop	Game keys	/	/
AliExpress	Save on online shopping	/	$24 coupons if register here
Gearbest	Save on online shopping	/	/

Other subs & resources

Wrestling Observer Rewind ★ Jul. 22, 2002

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
PREVIOUSLY:


1-7-2002	1-14-2002	1-21-2002	1-28-2002
2-4-2002	2-11-2002	2-18-2002	2-25-2002
3-4-2002	3-11-2002	3-18-2002	3-25-2002
4-1-2002	4-8-2002	4-15-2002	4-22-2002
4-29-2002	5-6-2002	5-13-2002	5-20-2002
5-27-2002	6-3-2002	6-10-2002	6-17-2002
6-24-2002	7-1-2002	7-8-2002	7-15-2002

WWE hit the reset button again with a new storyline assigning general managers to each brand, and it featured the shocking debut of Eric Bischoff. The new storyline will have Bischoff as the heel GM of Raw, while Stephanie McMahon will be the babyface GM of Smackdown, while Vince McMahon will take more of a backseat role and reduce his TV presence. Of course, just 5 weeks ago, Vince panicked and blew up the existing "feuding GMs" storyline between himself and Ric Flair, so now we're re-starting it with new people I guess. It feels like a last-ditch effort to save the brand extension, which has been an utter flop since day one, with no effort to differentiate the shows and only resulting in diluting the talent and falling ratings.
Bischoff and McMahon struck a secret deal about 10 days prior to his debut. Bischoff had talks with WWE last year about coming in during the original Invasion angle, except they only wanted him to do a one-off match with Vince for the PPV (which Vince would obviously have won), but Bischoff turned down that offer. But this time, they agreed to a more long-term deal. Bischoff didn't know he was going to debut on Raw until just a day or two prior, when Vince called him and told him to be there. The whole thing was kept secret and almost no one other than Vince himself knew about it. This is believed to be a unique contract, in which it's a short-term deal with the option to renew it for longer-term if the angle gets over. His only role is as a television character, it's strictly a performance contract. Bischoff is not going to be a part of management or creative.
When Bischoff walked across the screen in the backstage segment, almost everyone in the company was just as shocked as the viewers at home. Bischoff's debut saw him come out and hug Vince, which Dave thinks about is the dumbest possible way to introduce him. Sure, the Invasion angle is over but WCW's corpse isn't completely cold yet. It's only been a year or so. There is probably still plenty of money to be made in Bischoff as an outsider trying to destroy Vince McMahon and the WWE. But as always, that would involve Vince allowing himself or WWE to look vulnerable against an "outsider" and his utter refusal to do that is a big part of what tanked the Invasion. But that's par for the course. Bischoff cut a promo, giving the fake "WWE version" of the Monday Night Wars history (Dave points out multiple inaccuracies that WWE still clings on today, such as claiming they stole Hulk Hogan from WWF. Of course, Hulk had been in NJPW and hadn't worked for WWF for nearly a year at the time WCW signed him. Things like that.). Dave thinks it became one of those promos full of old stuff or inside references where so much of it is about things that the average fan doesn't know or care about. Dave thinks most of this audience in 2002 isn't familiar with Alundra Blayze, they don't know Raw used to be taped instead of live, and they don't care about 83-week TV ratings streaks (Dave also notes that Bischoff said 84 on this show, which is incorrect). And once again, it became one of those promos talking about how much WWE sucks lately, which is something you don't want to keep pointing out to the fans who are still watching because you just make them feel dumb for supporting something that even the people producing it knows sucks. Shit like that is partly what drove off WCW fans. Bischoff also gloated about almost putting WWE out of business, and to the many guys in the locker room who remember that vividly, it wasn't a joke or a storyline. Those are guys who really were fighting for their job against a guy who really was trying to put them out of business. Bischoff has tremendous heat from the locker room, with a lot of people who worked for him in WCW or who resent him from the WWE side....they don't want Bischoff there.

WATCH: Eric Bischoff debuts in on WWE Raw - 2002

This angle was going to take place regardless, but it's thought that the injury to Kevin Nash may have moved things up a couple of weeks because Vince once again panicked when his plans went down in flames. Nash had surgery last week. Because of the location of the tear, it's not quite as serious as the tear Triple H suffered last year. But Nash is also 10 years older. However, he has vowed to return, noting he doesn't want his career to end like that. With his age and his track record of injuries (this is his 22nd surgery, dating back to his collegiate basketball days), Dave isn't sure how much Nash will be able to offer if/when he returns next year. Also, while nobody wanted Nash to get hurt, the mood in the locker room was said to be much happier this week without him around, as the whole Nash/X-Pac/Shawn/Triple H group isn't very well liked these days (the more things change...)
Speaking of X-Pac, a weird situation with him this week led to him being suspended by WWE. The day of the Raw when Nash tore his quad, X-Pac missed his flight to the show. Why? Well, he was hospitalized earlier that day in Minneapolis. Again, you ask, why? No idea. Sounds like X-Pac sure would like to know also. He called WWE saying he was in the emergency room and had no idea how he got there. He left the ER and made new travel arrangements and he got to Raw 90 minutes before the show started. And then he went out there that night and worked his match (and Dave says looked more impressive than he had in a long time). However, after the match, he still couldn't explain to WWE officials how or why he was in the hospital earlier that day and so they were naturally suspicious. As a result, X-Pac has been suspended and removed from all upcoming bookings until they get a medical report on what the deal is. Dave says X-Pac has been acting out of control for weeks now and it's been well-documented (threatening to quit if match finishes weren't changed week after week). The feeling backstage was that as long as Nash was around to go to bat for him, he was basically protected, but no longer. With Hall fired, Nash out for probably a year, X-Pac suspended, and Hogan a babyface, the feeling within the company is that the NWO angle is dead. Shawn Michaels is still expected to appear at upcoming house shows and Raws in some new role, since much of the advertising for those shows was based around him appearing, but this is probably the end of the road for the NWO. (This kinda flew under the radar, but yeah, X-Pac never wrestled another match in WWE. The match where Nash tore his quad remains to this day the last time X-Pac ever worked a match in a WWE ring. He gets released soon after this and we all know in retrospect that he was dealing with some drug issues throughout this time).
Dave provides some details on Vince Russo's first (and only) creative meeting when he was briefly rehired by WWE last month. Russo apparently proposed a Raw vs. Smackdown feud that would eventually lead to reviving one of them as WCW and reigniting the WCW vs. WWE war. This time, they would have Eric Bischoff leading the WCW side, while Russo suggested Mick Foley as the leader of the WWE side. It was pretty much made clear to Russo during the meeting that if they were to do a Raw vs. Smackdown angle, it would be Stephanie in charge of the WWE side, not Foley, and sure enough, that's what is expected to happen (but without the whole WCW-revival part). Russo's idea was pretty much a combination of the 2001 Invasion angle and the 2000 WCW Bischoff/Russo angle. Dave notes that Russo wanted to essentially start from scratch again, strip everyone of their belts the way they did in 2000, and bring in Bret Hart and Goldberg to be involved as well.
A big recap of UFC's debut show in England, which featured rising star Frank Mir getting beat in what should have been an upset, but word is Mir didn't take the fight seriously and barely trained. As a result, he got murked in the first round. Also, while in England, some people in Tito Ortiz's camp got into a big drunken bar brawl with fellow fighter Lee Murray. Chuck Liddell was somewhere involved too. Anyway, long story short, some people tell the story that Murray knocked Ortiz out. Ortiz denies it (to this day, this is a famous MMA story and both men tell different versions, so depending on who you believe I guess).
TNA's 4th show ended with a strong angle that actually got them some national publicity. It involved Tennessee Titans players Frank Miller and Zach Piller hopping the rail and attacking Jeff Jarrett and some other wrestlers, resulting in a big brawl to end the show. So how much of it was real or shoot? Well, Russo is involved, so who knows. The official story is that Jarrett and Piller were supposed to shove each other from across the rail, but that's it. From NFL sources, Dave has actually heard the same thing. It was supposed to stop at a shoving confrontation, and then Malice would come pull Jarrett away. That was the story as Russo allegedly wrote it. But reportedly, Piller had been drinking and he ended up hopping the rail and straight up overpowered Jarrett like it was nothing and took him down. Whether this was a shoot or a work is still unknown, but it ended up getting them coverage on SportsCenter and Dave says it's possible it was a work that only a few people were in on. If it was a work, nobody else was in on it. Ron Harris, who works backstage, almost rushed to the ring to save Jarrett and Malice (who wasn't supposed to touch the football players) got involved and broke it up quickly. After the show, the players were backstage laughing and joking with Jarrett and Miller has been openly telling people it was all planned and they were told to make it look as real as possible, but it's still unknown if jumping the rail and tackling Jarrett was part of the plan or not. Several other Titans players were at ringside with them and saw it unfold, but mostly didn't get involved. So now after the publicity, TNA is trying to see if they can make a match out of this. Either way, it's starting to feel like an elaborate work that none of the rest of the roster was clued in on, which is exactly the kind of shit Russo used to do constantly in WCW that soured morale among the locker room, and for this to happen on Russo's first night in, with an angle he wrote, sure feels a little familiar.

WATCH: Tennessee Titans/TNA brawl

Puerto Rico's IWA had its most successful show in company history, drawing more than 11,000 fans (without a single WWE name on the card) to see the payoff of an angle with Savio Vega fighting for control of the company. WHO SAID SAVIO AIN'T A DRAW?!
On the other side of things, WWC has postponed its anniversary show from August to September in order to give themselves more time to build up big angles and storylines. Seems like something they probably should have been planning earlier? IWA has become the dominant promotion in Puerto Rico and WWC felt they didn't have the build-up necessary to do a big-money show right now. Especially after this IWA show did such big business, anything less would be an embarrassment.
Bischoff's debut on Raw was a pretty big hit. How big, you ask? During Bischoff's in-ring promo after his debut, Raw added nearly 1.1 million new viewers from the previous segment. Meaning that as soon as Bischoff walked across the screen backstage, tons of wrestling fans started calling their friends telling them, "Holy shit, Eric Bischoff is on Raw, turn it on!" The bad news is that as soon as Bischoff's promo was over, a lot of them tuned right back out, leading to a huge drop-off for the rest of the show. On the flip side, this week's Smackdown, featuring the heavily-hyped return of The Rock ended up being the 7th lowest rated episode of the show in history (4th if you don't count holidays). Rock's not a draw, bet he won't even be in the business in a couple more years.
Kenta Kobashi is finally back in the ring, wrestling undercard prelim tag matches for NOAH. Even though he's in tags and doing limited in-ring work, his knees are said to be already killing him and one of them totally locked up on him after one of his recent matches. But he still hasn't missed any dates.
NJPW announced that Kensuke Sasaki will face Pancrase star Minoru Suzuki at the Tokyo Dome in October. This match was actually planned for the big Tokyo Dome show back in May, but negotiations fell apart because Pancrase didn't like the idea of Suzuki doing a worked pro-wrestling match. Suzuki started his career in NJPW back in 1988 and was being groomed to be a big star for the company, but he quit and joined UWF because he preferred to work shoot-style matches. In 1993, he and a few other guys all started Pancrase, which he's been doing ever since. These days, Suzuki's days of fighting for them at a top level are over and he usually only competes against nobodies or in catch wrestling (grappling and submission only, no striking). Anyway, for those curious, this didn't happen. Not sure why yet, I haven't gotten that far, but Suzuki doesn't return to NJPW until 2003.
Goldberg is said to be leaning very much against going to WWE anytime soon and is instead eyeing his options of working big shows in Japan. He's contemplating an offer to make an appearance at Toryumon's show in Tokyo in September, but only an appearance. He doesn't plan to wrestle until later in the year (don't think the Toryumon appearance happens, but he does end up working a few matches in Japan here soon).
Bret Hart is still hoping to make his scheduled appearance for Jacques Rougeau's upcoming indie show in Montreal. If you recall, Rougeau's big show there last year drew over 11,000 fans and he's got himself another big stadium to fill this year and Bret was expected to be the biggest draw. Whether he'll be healthy enough to make the show, following his recent stroke, remains to be seen but he's determined to try. As of this week, Hart is able to lift his left arm over his head. Just a week ago, he couldn't move it at all. His grip strength is also coming back and he's able to walk short distances. His vocal cords were also damaged but have started strengthening again and he's able to talk again (though he can't cut a wrestling promo yet, Dave says, so he might not be doing much other than coming out and waving to the crowd if he does make it). He's still having some vision problems also, but not too bad all things considered.
Dave says that "no matter what you may hear," a lot of people involved in TNA behind the scenes are very unhappy about Vince Russo being brought in. He also says that a lot of people associate Russo and Ed Ferrara together, but they actually had a major falling out awhile back and hadn't been on speaking terms until now. When it became clear Russo was coming back, Ferrara reached out to Russo and the two sides made up. He goes on record saying for sure that neither Mike Tenay or Bill Behrens are happy about Russo's arrival, among others, but says everyone is being professional.
Notes from TNA Weekly PPV: Crowd of about 1,500, only about half paid. Dave says it was easily the best of the 4 shows they've had so far. About 85% of it was written and booked by Jerry Jarrett and the original writing team before Russo was hired, but Russo did make some changes. Dave says some people are beginning to get tired of Don West on commentary already and he definitely brings a ton of enthusiasm (but nothing else, Dave adds) to the table. During the Ken Shamrock vs. Omori match, the crowd was distracted by one of the cage dancers near the entrance who was apparently showing her ass to the crowd. Former WCW wrestler Crowbar (real name Chris Ford) worked a tag match under the name Tempest and Dave notes that when Ford worked a try-out match for WWE awhile back, he also signed over the name Crowbar to them when he did (guessing Dave is mistaken about this. He never used the name Crowbar in TNA, but he's been using it everywhere else ever since for the last 18 years). Brian Christopher is now going by his real name, Brian Lawler, and cut a promo on Jerry Lawler about being a bad father. It got a lot of heat but now they've made fans want to see a match that they can't deliver. K-Krush faced NASCAR driver Hermie Sadler and got DQ'd. Dave says Krush was absolutely awesome here, actually carrying Sadler to a watchable match. Sadler was awful of course, but the Gayda/Stratus match from Raw was light years worse, so hey, who cares? TNA tried to bring in Hermie's more famous older brother Elliott Sadler, but that fell through because Elliott has some type of affiliation with WWE, though Dave isn't sure what (I did the research and apparently Elliott drove a Summerslam-themed car during a race around this time, so I assume that's it).
More notes from TNA Weekly PPV, since this recap is huge and big, unbroken paragraphs suck: Mark and Jay Brisco worked a brief match until Malice ran in and destroyed everyone (Dave says this was a Russo addition to the show. Dave also says the Briscos will be great some day and notes that on this show, the announcers lied and said both of them are 18, when in fact, Mark Brisco is still 17 and therefore not even allowed to wrestle in many commission states). Former porn star and ECW valet Jasmine St. Claire debuted and gave Jeremy Borash a lap dance, took off her underwear, and was about to strip nude until a big angle stopped it. And yes, in case it wasn't obvious, this was another Russo addition. AJ Styles and Jerry Lynn are the tag team champions and ended up in a big brawl backstage. If you've been paying attention to the show the last 2 weeks, you would have recognized that they were doing a slow build with these two partners having friction, but Russo convinced Jarrett to hurry up and pull the trigger on the split, so here we are. Dave thinks this had no impact at all because it felt completely rushed, the story hadn't progressed far enough yet for these two to already be coming to blows. Another interview with the Dupps saying "shit" repeatedly was, yes, another Russo addition. Try not to cut yourself on all this edginess. Shamrock vs. NOAH star Takao Omori ended in a no contest because of politics. Shamrock was supposed to win clean, but then NOAH decided they didn't want Omori to do a job, so this is what we got. Dave thinks TNA should have said screw them then and just not used Omori because it's not like TNA's fanbase knows who the fuck he is anyway. Omori was said to have been spaced out all day beforehand and looked bad in the match. Crowd didn't care and they pumped in a ton of fake crowd noise for it. Jeff Jarrett ran in and took everyone out with chair shots, including "NWA rep" Harley Race, who ate a brutal unprotected chair shot to the head from Jeff and Dave thinks that's not good for anyone's brain, especially a guy pushing 60. Race was there basically to help Omori since Harley's small promotion in St. Louis has a relationship with NOAH. And finally, the 6-man X-Division #1 contenders match was excellent. Dave thinks WWE really missed the boat on Jerry Lynn and K-Krush. He admits Lynn probably couldn't have ever been a top guy in WWE or anything, but he makes everybody he wrestles look like a million bucks and guys like that are priceless to have on your roster. They also pumped a bunch of crowd noise in for this match, and at one point, the fake crowd noise loop stopped and there was a moment where it went from a loud roaring crowd to dead silence in a blink. Also, a fight in the stands distracted the crowd near the end. But great match otherwise. Show ended with the Titans players angle.
In other news, The Shane Twins have been working as the masked penis wrestlers The Johnsons in TNA but the penis aspect of it has been played down to almost nothing. Upcoming plans were for the team to unmask and revert back to the Shane Twins, but when Russo came aboard, that plan got scrapped and they will remain The Johnsons for now. Because dammit, Russo will get to make penis jokes on TV or he's going to die trying.
Many of the key names in TNA (Shamrock, AJ Styles, Jerry Lynn, Mike Tenay, among others) have now signed 1-year contracts. Scott Hall was rumored to have also signed a 1-year deal, but Hall is telling people it's not true and he's only committed for 4 more dates. Low-Ki is signed through the end of the year.
At the recent K-1 vs. PRIDE show, there was a huge upset when PRIDE fighter Quinton Jackson knocked out Cyril Abidi, one of the top kickboxers in the world. The "plan" was for Abidi to win and then go on to a bigger money match with Don Frye, but that's what happens when you try to plan things around a shoot.
And I'm sorry, I know this ain't an MMA recap, but this is too good: at the UFC press conference for the UK show this week, Dana White showed up with a bag filled with $250,000 in cash and challenged UK boxing promoter Frank Warren to put up any fighter in his stable and White would find a UFC fighter of the same weight to fight him, winner takes all the money. If you recall, Warren made some statements a few weeks back calling UFC fighters unskilled steroid freaks and claiming that his boxers could beat any of them in a real fight. So Dana showed up with a whole bag of cash, doing Dana things.
Notes from Raw: Vince came out to the NWO music and said that's the last time we'll ever hear it and that the NWO is dead, so as expected, that's it for that gimmick. Tommy Dreamer is back to his old ECW gimmick and is already 1000x more over than the jobber-eating-gross-stuff gimmick WWE gave him. There was a Coach/Booker T segment backstage which is when Eric Bischoff walked through the shot, leaving everybody with their mouths hanging open, and then his promo. Another hype video for Rey Mysterio debuting on Smackdown next week. Former WCW wrestler and recent developmental guy Johnny The Bull made his Raw debut winning the hardcore title, and Dave is baffled how he got the call up because he's one of the worst guys they have in developmental and is nowhere near ready. But it's all about how he looks. Undertaker & Lesnar beat RVD & Flair in the main event and afterward, Lesnar turned on Undertaker in a good angle, though Dave doesn't have high hopes for the inevitable match.

WATCH: Rey Mysterio debut vignette

Notes from Smackdown: it was a pretty bad show and for a pretty surprising reason. It was all built around Rock and he was awful. Rather than trying to sell a PPV, he came off like he was trying too hard to be a funny, "cool" guy and became a parody of himself. Dave is a huge Rock fan and thinks it was painful. He did a big in-ring promo segment with rapper Busta Rhymes that was just an elaborate plug for his new Halloween: Resurrection movie ("coming out in July?" Dave asks incredulously and, right, wtf?). Even Rock using Angle's own ankle lock against him at the end of the show looked hilariously fake and Dave has no interest in the Rock/Angle match at Vengeance after this show. Edge & Hogan defending the tag titles was a super heated match and Dave can't understand it. The live crowds are still nuclear hot for Hogan, but it's not translating at all into TV ratings or ticket sales. But man, the people who do buy tickets sure do love him. They seem to be slow-burning a Randy Orton heel turn. The Nidia segment at the buffet was great and Dave thinks they may have stumbled across a pretty great gimmick with her.

WATCH: The Rock & Busta Rhymes Smackdown segment

The crew got a little backstage pep talk before Raw this week, mostly given by the agents (John Laurinaitis, Arn Anderson, and Fit Finlay) as well as Triple H. In particular, Triple H talked about there being too many people in the locker room who think they deserve a push ahead of the newer guys because they've been there longer. He said too many guys are sitting back waiting for someone to give them a push rather than breaking out from the pack and earning the push. He said he got over on his own when management was trying to hold him down after the MSG curtain call incident. Said too many guys are being lazy, playing cards and playing video games backstage rather than watching the matches and learning. He said just because you've had a few good matches on TV doesn't mean you know how to work or deserve a push, and also said everyone needs to work harder at house shows because attendance is down and it was guys like him who worked hard to re-build the company the last time business was down. Needless to say, for a locker room full of people who feel like they bust their asses only to get their legs cut off and hit a glass ceiling (often at the hands of the same guy giving the speech), this went over just about as well as you'd expect with the rest of the locker room. Not that anything Triple H said is wrong. Dave agrees with most of it. But considering who the messenger was, it was not well-received.
Lots of backstage talk about last week's Bradshaw/Trish Stratus vs. Chris Nowinski/Jackie Gayda match, which was among the worst matches anyone has seen in years. Fit Finlay is the usual trainer and agent for the women and usually goes over their matches and spots with them, but in this case, Sgt. Slaughter put together this match. Gayda missed a few spots early in the match and seemed to panic and it all fell apart from there. Backstage, she was fully aware of how bad it was and was said to be extremely upset. There's been talk of sending her down to OVW for more training, but she'll probably still be on TV because she's fresh off winning Tough Enough.
Steve Austin hasn't had any contact with anyone in WWE except for Jack Lanza, who was the agent Austin often worked with for his matches. All that's known now is Austin told Lanza he's still training hard and Lanza felt like he's getting antsy sitting at home and may be ready to return already (I think he's got bigger problems at home). But Austin and Vince still have not spoken and there's still a lot of bad feelings there.
In light of recent events, Dave digs up the transcript from an old Prodigy online chat from 1996, in which Eric Bischoff was asked if he would ever work for Vince McMahon. His response: "I would rather chew off my fingers."
Writer Brian Gewertz reportedly has some heat over Raw's declining ratings. The problem is, no matter who it is (Gewertz, Heyman, Russo, or even Stephanie), the final approval for everything you see on television comes down to Vince McMahon. He deserves the credit when it's good and the blame when it's bad, end of story. It's a common occurrence for Vince to rip up a script and tell the writers to come up with something new, so any bad segment that makes it to TV is on him, and resulting in lots of last minute changes. Some people are even blaming Gewertz for Kevin Nash's recent injury because Gewertz wrote the match into the script the day of the show, so Nash wasn't even aware he was going to be wrestling until a couple hours before they went on the air and I guess he didn't have time to properly stretch and get ready, and ended up tearing his quad 10 seconds in. Same thing with Cena's debut, that was a day-of decision, and luckily Cena was already on the road with the crew working dark matches, so he was available. But again, Dave says you can't blame Gewertz for either of those things because, once again, it's Vince who is constantly changing his mind and forcing last minute rewrites and whatnot every week. How is Gewertz or any other writer supposed to build long-term stories under those conditions? (Man, this sure feels familiar)
Latest on DDP, he and wife Kimberly are planning on moving from Atlanta to Los Angeles to try their hand at acting careers. They've both saved a lot of money from their years in wrestling and can afford to take a chance on this kind of thing I guess. (DDP has done a handful of acting roles, mostly in the mid-00s, but obviously nothing of note. And Kimberly Page did a few movies, including a starring role with DDP in a movie called The Scam Artist that I can't find anywhere, and of course, her most famous role as "chick who's tit fell out" in The 40 Year Old Virgin).
Randy Orton suffered a concussion in a house show match with Batista. Orton was trying to sell a clothesline by flying in the air and taking a big flat back bump, but hit his head on the mat coming down and was knocked unconscious. He should be back in a week or so though, because it's not like concussions are serious injuries or anything. EMT's helped him out of the ring and he walked to the back under his own power but he was knocked clean the fuck out for a bit there.
This week's episode of WWE Confidential featured Big Show and Bradshaw playing a game of HORSE with the winner "getting a shot to sexually harass Linda Miles." So obviously they're out of ideas for this show. (Yeah JBL is on some full-blown Jerry Lawler shit with Miles here).

WATCH: JBL perving on Linda Miles for 5 minutes under the guise of playing basketball

John Cena is still finishing up in OVW and working the upcoming big Six Flags show in Louisville. Despite being a big babyface on TV, he's still a heel in OVW and is playing a gimmick where his main roster success is going to his head.
The New York Daily News ran a story on the "Sex, Lies & Headlocks" book that is coming out soon about Vince McMahon and noted several revelations in the book, such as Vince being paranoid about his office being bugged in 1993 prior to the steroid trial and how he wouldn't sit or talk near windows because he thought the FBI was listening in. It also talked about how Vince gave a job interview to Matt Lauer to host the WBF Bodystars show but didn't think Lauer had the right look, among other things. When asked for comment, WWE responded "No one in WWE has any interest in reading it. No one cares to." Dave says that's 2002 carny talk for, "Can you get us an advance copy?"

NEXT WEDNESDAY: Raw appears to turn a corner (lol no), WWE making major cutbacks and severing developmental ties, TNA also making major budget cuts, WWE Vengeance fallout, and more...

Debunking some Legends Palpatine wank

Star Wars is easily the worst franchise to talk about on WhoWouldWin by far. At least with Naruto or Dragon Ball Z or One Punch Man there's some difference in the comments once in a while. But literally, and I mean literally, the replies of every single Star Wars thread, no matter the character, no matter the matchup, are exactly the same every single time without fail.
Here's every Star Wars thread on WhoWouldWin ever:

Star Wars character vs. other character
Round 1: Canon
Round 2: Legends

Top comment with 3k+ upvotes: Star Wars character loses round 1, but in round 2 they absolutely godstomp 10/10 times they speedblitz the other character at FTL speeds and slash them seventeen thousand times in an attosecond with their lightsaber, or they use their Planetary+++ Force abilities to choke the other person to death and while they're choking them they stab them, or they make their heart stop or rip their organs out their chest with the Force in a microsecond. The other character literally can't even hit them because they're FTL and have nanosecond level precog that lets them avoid every hit ever. Palpatine can destroy planets Obi-Wan can open black holes with his mind Luke is literally a Force God who can annihilate half the galaxy with a blink LEGENDS IS CRAZY BRO!!!
Reply to that comment with 500+ upvotes: Yeah bro, this is kind of a complete and total godstomp, don't know why OP bothered posting it lol legends always wins LEGENDS IS CRAZY BRO!!!
Reply to first comment, score below threshold, hidden: Um, scans?
Now, for all you people unfamiliar with Star Wars, you're probably wondering what "Legends" is. Legends is simply the official term used to refer to the old Expanded Universe content made for Star Wars, so books, comics, anything other than the movies pretty much. After buying Star Wars, Disney went and made the majority of the Expanded Universe part of its own separate non-canon continuity, meaning there's two versions of most Star Wars characters: Canon and Legends. "Star Wars Legends," or just "Legends" is used to refer to the Legends continuity as a whole.
Legends, and I'm brave enough to say this, is the single most wanked series in battleboarding history. The way people talk about it, you'd think every book is a non-stop balls to the wall orgy of FTL and planet-busting feats. It's to the point where you don't have to link any scans or post any clips: just saying the words "LEGENDS IS CRAZY BRO" is a bulletproof argument in and of itself.
But is Legends crazy, bro?
The answer is: It's fake. All of it. The feats, the preconceptions... it's all fake.
I can't fucking stand Legends wank, mostly because it kills all discussion of Star Wars on versus sites. I like Star Wars quite a bit, and I'd like to see some intelligent discussion of it in my dumb, pointless hobby. But every attempt at a Star Wars thread is drowned out by the incessant drum of LEGENDS IS CRAZY BRO! LEGENDS IS CRAZY BRO! LEGENDS IS CRAZY BRO! It fucking haunts me, I close my eyes and instead of black it's just the Obi-Wan VS Kakashi Death Battle on loop.
At the suggestion of my therapist, I'm fighting back. This is the beginning of a series of posts where I'm going to be debunking Legends wank I find on sites like VSBW. I decided to start with Palpatine because he's personally the character I see getting the most of it. And besides, this is gonna be my own personal Order 66 on Legends wank. So who else could be more appropriate?

The Claim: Palpatine can make planet-destroying Force Storms on a whim.

When someone mentions planet-busting Palpatine on WhoWouldWin, nine times out of ten this is what they're talking about. You usually don't get links for Legends claims, but for the power of the Force Storm ability, I usually see this one posted when its brought up. It's from a book called The Jedi Path, which is supposed to be an in-universe Jedi manual complete with notations from the characters who owned it. So the quote from Luke - "it has the power to kill worlds" - is an in-universe statement of power.
So, what's Force Storm? Basically its an ability where a hyperspace wormhole is opened using the Force. It can be used to transport people across the galaxy and destroy things, which yes, includes planets according to The Jedi Path. It's a not very commonly seen Force power, first appearing in the Dark Empire comics. Palpatine creates one and uses it to do some major damage to Coruscant and the New Republic fleet. However, he ends up killing himself with the storm accidentally after Luke and Leia interrupt his connection to it.
Palpatine can create Force Storms, Force Storms can destroy planets. So Palpatine's planetary. Seems pretty clean cut, right?
Except, he can't create Force Storms. At least according to Tom Veitch, author of Dark Empire (which had the first appearance of the power). Third line. If you want to read the full 2016 interview, here it is. It's translated from Spanish, but the translation is very direct, at least for the relevant section.
Yep, apparently Force Storms are "in fact a phenomenon that occurs rarely, when the minds of two great Force users meet and struggle with each other at a distance." Straight from the mouth of God, Palpatine can't make them of his own will.
There's probably arguments you could make that he could, like Palpatine claiming he can create them of his own will in-story, but that same scan mentions him lying about how much control he has over the power, so I don't really buy his word. You can say "it's a book, why would he lie," but it's basically his autobiography. Considering he's shouted "unlimited power" at the top of his lungs before, it's clear he's kind of an insane egomaniac. I wouldn't put it beyond him. Some roleplaying guidebooks give him the power in his list of abilities (like if you want to play as him in the game or use him as an enemy) but I feel that's too tertiary to count. And really, it kinda makes sense he can't really pull them out all the time when you think about it. There's two sequels to Dark Empire where he's reborn again in clone bodies, and in none of the sequels does he try to use a Force Storm. Even though it would come in handy, like, a lot.
In any case, if you're arguing Palpatine can make Force Storms, you're arguing against the guy that created Force Storms to begin with. I think he'd know how they work.
For more evidence, here's another interview with Tom Veitch that backs up this other interview.
Basically, Tom reiterates what's said in the other interview, going into a bit more detail. He says that the intended mechanism behind the Force Storm in Dark Empire is the "meeting of two great minds" thing from before, with one being Luke and one being Palpy, with Palpy just being the one who can actually use the storm to his advantage. While he does say that there are other possible explanations, like Luke finding a Sith holocron or saying that the interviewer's suggestion of Palpatine maybe only stumbling across the power recently could work, the intended explanation when the comic was being published was the "meeting of Luke and Palpatine's power" interpretation.
I'd also like to mention the Force Storm's entry from the updated version of the Star Wars Encyclopedia: "A tornado of energy created by great disturbances in the Force. Dark Side Adepts demonstrated limited control over the creation of these storms. Emperor Palpatine claimed the ability to create and control Force storms at will. Light-side practitioners could also band together and create powerful Force storms."
This backs up the "meeting of Luke and Palpatine's power" interpretation in a few ways.
First, going back to the interview, Tom implied that things were kept kind of vague about how the Force Storm works when details had to be hashed out to other publications. So that's probably why both this and the Dark Empire endnotes only say that Palpatine claimed he had the ability to create and control the storms at will.
Second off, I'd like to point out the main description - "A tornado of energy created by great disturbances in the Force." Sounds a bit less like a standard Force power and more like something a bit more exceptional. The destruction of Alderaan caused a great disturbance in the Force, and that was a pretty major event. Also going back to the interview, Tom all but says he made this part of the description up himself. The original description he mentions being in a behind the scenes glossary also calls them "unpredictable" and seems to suggest them being more of an external event.
Third, "Dark Side Adepts demonstrated limited control over the creation of these storms" seems like it could debunk the idea, unless you read it as "multiple Dark Side adepts working together could demonstrate limited control over the creation of a Force Storm," which I think is perfectly reasonable considering the next line about multiple Light-side practicioners having to band together to create one. This final line also gives canon support to the idea of multiple Force users being involved in the creation of a Force Storm.
Yes, there are some sources that say he can make Force Storms of his own will, but for each of those sources there's also one that says it's a claim, and the Dark Empire endnotes prove Palpy isn't 100% trustworthy. Not to mention the other sources are, let's face it, pretty much on the level of WoG too. Just an author saying things about a story outside the context of that story. Do you take diluted, inconsistent, but published WoG from some handbooks, or do you take straight fron the source, consistent for 20 years (going off the second interview) WoG from the author of Dark Empire and creator of Force Storms himself? Personally, I'll take the latter, thanks. You can scream "WoG is fake!" until your face turns blue, I usually do too, but I feel this is consistent and not-off-the-cuff enough to count, and doesn't step on that many toes other than some guides he didn't even write published years after his own work. If you read Dark Empire with this idea in mind, you'll find pretty much everything makes perfect sense.
I've also seen people bring up two things in trying to say that this couldn't possibly be true: one, that we've seen other people make Force Storms of their own power in Legends, and two, that Force Storms naturally occur on the planet Tython. The thing is, we haven't. The only other uses of Force Storm needed an incredibly powerful, magic, sentient staff that absorbs large amounts of Force to pull off, which actually supports the idea that Sith need an external force or push to be able to make a Force Storm, and the "Force storm" on the planet Tython is actually a different thing with the same name.
In any case, I really don't think Force Storms matter that much in the grand scheme of things. Once again, Palpatine doesn't whip these out all the time, and its already been established that it's dubious he's completely making them of his own power, taking into account consistent Word of God, multiple sources saying he only claims he can make them of his own power, and a canon basis for it taking multiple Force users to make one. He'd probably end up killing himself if he tried to make one in a fight, and there's no other evidence to suggest that he has planet-level power anyway other than this one power in this one series that the primary author has said he can't really even do.
Besides, it's not like the power for the Force Storm comes from Palpatine even if you believe (against the author of Dark Empire and creator of the power) that he can make them at a snap of his fingers. If you ignore Veitch's definition of the power, then we're left with stuff like Palpatine's descriptions to go off of, and he explicitly says in both the endnotes and audiobook that the Force Storm utilizes external energy. As I've said, I find his word iffy, but The Jedi Path also calls the Force Storm "pure natural energy," and the previously mentioned magical staff relies on absorbing external energy to create a Force Storm. Once again, even ignoring Veitch's words, it's consistent that it's external energy being used. I guess you could say "all Force is external" though, but even then it's not like Palpatine makes the vortex, he makes a disturbance which creates the vortex. Honestly, the idea you can scale one Force ability to others is weird to me anyways. Like if a guy lifts a rock with TK, what does that say about his mind control capabilities? Could he mind control a being that weighs as much as the rock?
So if you're trying to do a VSBW thing where "using the Force Storms means he has planetary power which he can harness in his other Force attacks," no.
Finally, I'd like to debunk the idea that Palpatine created multiple Force Storms at once in Dark Empire. Post's too big to fit it, so read it here.
To TL;DR it all, there's solid WoG backed up by canon evidence that says Palpy can't make Force Storms, and even if you throw that WoG out, Force Storms aren't applicable in most standard matchups since Palpy would almost certainly kill himself with one in a 1v1 fight because they're fucking massive and he hasn't shown full control over them. His other Force abilities don't scale to Force Storms either.

Verdict: No, he still probably can't on his own, and if he can, they're still not particularly combat applicable and you can't scale his other Force powers to them.

The Claim: Palpatine is a SOLAR SYSTEM BUSTER!

This next thing I'm talking about comes from a novel called Darth Plagueis. This is the book your Legends fan friend won't shut up about.
Basically, the prologue has a highly poetically worded scene describing Palpatine's feelings after killing his master. Some of it has been misinterpreted as actually happening in the context of the story. Here's the scene.
I don't really know what else to say here, it's not actually happening. It's just a flowery description of how Palpatine feels, it's not literally going on. This was spread on VSBW as proof of Palpatine being planet/stasolar system level, I'm assuming because of these specific parts.
Yeah, this is just... again, it's not actually happening. I could go on and say what each line represents about what Palpatine's currently feeling and how its clearly just a reflection of his emotions, but I don't have to. All I have to do is flip over to the last chapter of the book, which describes the same exact scene with a whole lot less flair. For anyone who wants to make the argument that at least the quake happened because the text I linked mentions overturned furniture, it was overturned in the fight between Palpatine and Plagueis. Not by any Force earthquake.
So, yeah. It's just in Palpy's head after he kills his master. Not literal.

Verdict: Learn reading comprehension.

The Claim: Palpatine is 34 thousand times faster than the speed of light.

Of all the Star Wars stats, speed is the fuckiest of all. That's because the main projectile of the series, blaster bolts, are incredibly vague in terms of speed. The movies usually show them as like, Nerf dart to baseball speed, while the novels go as high as calling them lightspeed (they're obviously not, but that's for another post). Since pretty much all speed feats that would involve gunfire in other series instead involve blaster fire, it makes things really annoying to pin down, as well as open to dipshit amounts of wank.
If you open up Palpatine's VSBW page, he's given a speed ranking of "MFTL+," thanks to incestuous scaling, taking blaster bolts as lightspeed due to like 7 dubious statements across 381 books, and a calc of the time his Sith spirit moved across the galaxy to inhabit a new clone body. The calc specifically puts him at 34,292c, or over 34 thousand times faster than the speed of light.
Star Wars characters are fast, guise!
Alright, let me try to explain why this is dumb. First off, why would the speed of Palpatine's spirit be equal to his speed in a mortal body? It's not like he can like, fucking fly through space like his spirit presumably can. I'm also going to guess his spirit weighs less, but, that's straying into dumb territory. To summarize this point: I don't see why Palpatine would be as fast as his disembodied consciousness, and I think it's kinda weird and dumb to assume so.
Second off, here's a few lines of text I want to take a closer look at.

He had spent over a year disembodied, formless, drifting through the maddening void of the Dark Side. He had never foreseen having to transport his spirit so far across space. He had nearly dispersed forever, but he had survived, and now need never fear death again.

According to the Dark Empire Sourcebook, Palpatine traveled "through the maddening void of the Dark Side." Sounds a little different than traveling through actual space.

But in that moment, when flashing blue energy rushed from exploded flesh, the Emperor entered a bodiless transitional state. As conscious Dark Force he was translated across the Galaxy...

According to the Dark Empire Endnotes, he was "translated across the galaxy" as "conscious Dark Force," which again, sounds a little different from traveling the distance in real space as a ghost.
There's other stuff like this too, in fact a guide kinda retcons the entire thing into him possessing an aide who travels to the planet for him. Personally, I think there is far too much weirdness around this "feat" to count it as some sort of actual indication of Palpatine's speed. Force users generally don't seem this fast in the majority of Star Wars media anyway.

Verdict: No.

The Claim: Palpatine scales to other Sith Lords who have CRAZY feats, bro!!1!!!

So, Palpy can't summon planet-destroying Force Storms whenever he pleases, rearrange stars with his own power, or move faster than the speed of light. But, I hear the people scream, what about scaling!?! Palpatine is routinely called the strongest Dark Side user in history, so he should scale to all previous Sith Lords and such, right?
I can actually buy that, yes. There's tons of statements backing up Sheev as pretty much the ultimate Dark Side user, so I think it's reasonable enough to assume he can match his predecessors. So, lets look at all the high end Dark Side stuff I could dig up, and why it's all either fake or not really something you should scale Sidious to. Most of this stuff I found on VSBW. I might be missing one or two things, but honestly, they're probably just fake too..
If you're wondering about the absence of Vitiate and Nihilus, this is going to be a multi-post series, and I'm thinking KOTOR will just get its entire own post. That being said, most of Vitiate's stuff is rituals, which I think Palpatine could replicate but wouldn't really be able to in a standard matchup, and I think Nihilus's status as a wound in the Force explains his unique attributes, and as such I'm not really sure if Palpatine could replicate the things he does. I haven't really done much of the research in that department yet, though, so it's entirely possible I'm wrong.

Random Unnamed Sith Sorceress (and a Triceratops Jedi named Thon)

VSBW notoriously uses buttfuck-long scaling chains in their profiles which usually have several dozen incestuous loops stretching across pages for certain series. It's really, really hard to actually find the feats being scaled off of because of the layers and layers of scaling you need to peel away like onion skin. But, in my research, I've found that approximately 50% of "Planetary Legends" comes from this one feat. The other 50% is Yarael Poof. That'll be elaborated on later.
So, what's the feat? Well, it's about what Wookieepedia dubs "the Devastation of Ambria." Ambria was once a mineral rich planet eyed by mining companies, but was eventually deserted. A Random Unnamed Sith Sorceress (RUSS, from here on out) came across the planet and decided to set up shop, creating a massive obelisk that she performed an ancient Sith ritual with. The ritual devastated the planet's landscape, warping it and killing the native creatures by the thousand.
Alright. Ignoring that this is - at best, being completely generous - only surface wiping, and not planetary as VSBW calls it, there's a fuckton of caveats around the feat. The obelisk that was presumably necessary for RUSS's ritual took centuries to build. This isn't something a Sith can just do on a whim. They need to spend hundreds of years building a fucking obelisk to do it. Not to mention, it requires a "complex ritual" that involves calling on a ton of Dark Side energy, presumably not all from RUSS herself. Oh yeah, and, RUSS died from doing this too. Let's not forget that, she was literally destroyed from doing this.
Palpatine could probably replicate this, yes, but only after building an obelisk and doing a complex ritual. In most matchups he probably won't have the time and materials to do that. I really don't consider it something you can just blindly scale him to - or any Force user, for that matter.
However, VSBW knows this, and has a defense for it. A Triceratops-looking Jedi named Thon was able to lock up all the Dark Side evil left behind on the planet in a lake called Natth. So, according to them, that makes Thon planetary, and thus everyone can scale to it.
However, Thon's cleanup took an unknown amount of time to do. Not to mention he didn't just like, absorb all the lingering evil over the surface of the planet into himself and jizz it out into a lake. He did it by fighting off the evil spirits living on the planet for a bit, then tricking them into drawing close and ensnaring them in a lattice of lightside energy. He also didn't even fix the entire place. To quote Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil, "the damage was too widespread for the world to ever be completely healed."
I think at that point it's not really something you can power scale off of. Saying Palpatine can casually destroy planets because a random Triceratops Jedi corralled most but not all of the lingering evil on a planet into a lake over an unknown amount of time by tricking Sith spirits is just like, come on dude, that's fucking dumb.
Also, I'd like to point out this is a pretty massive antifeat for the Dark Side, actually. Centuries of work and only a vague surface wiping feat to show for it? When you think every Force user is planetary like VSBW does, this is a pretty bad showing.

Jerec with the Valley of the Jedi

Jerec is a Miraluka Dark Jedi most famous for his appearance in Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, a classic game starring the fan favorite Kyle Katarn. The Valley of the Jedi is a location of great power that plays an important part in the plot of the game. According to Qu Rahn, a Jedi Master, if Jerec gets his hands on the power in the Valley of the Jedi, he'll be strong enough to trigger supernovas and wipe out entire star systems.

"Jerec, the man who murdered your father, is a great evil. He searches for the location of a sacred place, the Valley of the Jedi. The Force of thousands of Jedi is trapped here. If Jerec captures this power, he will be a creature such as the universe has never seen. A supernova of stars in a fleeting thought—the eradication of life from a star system in a whisper—will be within his power."

So, what exactly is the Valley of the Jedi? Well, the backstory is that there was a war between Jedi and Sith there that culminated in the use of an ancient ritual which killed thousands of Jedi and Sith alike and trapped their souls in the valley. A temple was built there and the place became an incredibly powerful Force nexus.
With all that laid out - remind me why VSBW says Palpatine should scale to this? It's a guy drawing power from the spirits of literally thousands of Force users. There's a ton of statements saying Palpatine is above all other Sith, but I don't really think that includes when they're being amped by the souls of countless other Force users. I feel this is pretty easy to throw out for that reason.
I've seen some reasoning tossed around to try and support this scaling. Namely, that it took the power of Every Jedi Literally Ever to keep Palpatine from rising as a spirit again and just taking some new body in the last Dark Empire series. Except, it really didn't? It took fucking Chex Quest here to put him down.
Read the scene for yourself. The wording here isn't "ugh, he's so powerful I need all the other Jedis help to keep him from rising again, Palpatine is literally stronger than every Jedi ever combined put together," it's "me, and the Force, and the other Jedi will keep him from reviving." The New Essential Chronology doesn't even bother to mention the other Jedi spirits, most sources give the credit to Chex Quest, and I think it's really sketchy to try and justify scaling Palpatine to a guy being amped by thousands of Force user spirits because his own spirit was pulled down by a Chex Quest guy and kept down with the assistance of other Jedi spirits and the Force itself too. We're getting into the same territory as Triceratops Jedi putting Sith spirits created by centuries of work in a lake here, there's just too much nonsense going on to get anything out of it.
Anyways, TL;DR: Palpatine shouldn't scale to this. I can buy him scaling off of other Sith Lords, but not when they're being empowered by literally thousands of other Force users.

Aleema Kato with the Sith Corsair

The Sith Corsair is a massive superweapon ship that can pull the core out of a star and blow them up outright, though seemingly though some sort of chain reaction. A Sith sorceress named Aleema Kato uses it in one comic, as well as a guy named Naga Sadow in another. It requires the manipulation of these special crystal things that just brim with Dark Side energy.
I don't really think Palpatine scales to Sith-created superweapons. Like, I don't really see why he would? The statements are that he's the most powerful Sith Lord, not the most powerful Sith Lord including Sith using superweapons. The power's coming from the weapon, not the Sith using it. It's a serious reach to try and say that, because a Sith made ship with special crystals in it exists that Palpatine can equal it in power.

Naga Sadow with the Sith Meditation Sphere

Another "person with the thing." Once again, I don't think you should scale Palpatine to Sith Lords using some piece of fucking equipment. When Legends writers type out "Palpatine is the strongestest Sith Lord in history!" I don't think they mean "Palpatine is the strongestest Sith Lord in history (including certain Sith Lords at the time they were tapping into large reserves of power that isn't theirs to begin with)!" I'm just repeating myself at this point, all this shit is the same kind of fake.
To get this over with, the Sith Meditation Sphere is an eyeball-shaped spaceship piloted by Sith Lord Naga Sadow. It's equipped with advanced Sith technology that amplifies Naga Sadow's Force abilities to an unknown extent, but seemingly pretty high given how they describe the technology as being developed and perfected over centuries and millenia.
Personally, I think the Sith Meditation Sphere amps Sadow a lot. Like, a lot a lot. With the Sphere, it's claimed Sadow can destroy stars. I don't really think Sadow is anywhere close to that alone, considering he uses the Force to pelt a guy with rocks in a fight to the death instead of just immediately turning him to red mist with his star level destructive power. Not to mention he had to use the above mentioned Sith Corsair to blow up a star at the end of The Fall of the Sith Empire comic series instead of his own power or anything. I'd also like to point out the Meditation Sphere being star-busting only comes from one guide which incorrectly recaps the comic it's trying to recap. In the comic, he uses the Sith Corsair to blow up a star, not the Meditation Sphere. Even ignoring that or calling it some kind of retcon, it still has the same problems.
So, yeah. Same justification as the last two, doesn't scale cause the feats are amped by a superweapon thing, and I don't think the "strongest Sith Lord" statements take into account Sith using a superweapon or drawing power from some outside source. I mean, Palpatine's certainly stronger than the guys with the dumb helmets turning dials and throwing switches on the Death Star, which can blow up planets, but nobody seriously uses that to scale him to planetary.
Huh, wait a minute. Three Sith in a row can't reach star level without some kind of massive amp or incredibly powerful tool. There's almost a pattern here... almost like, maybe these Sith guys can't blow up stars with their mind or something...

Wutzek and the World Razer

These two are different, but I'm lumping them together because the reasoning is the same. Wutzek is a weird Force being that appears in a total of one comic book (and a canceled novella). The World Razer is a weird Force being that appears in a total of one mission in an MMO (and a canceled novella).
I'll talk about Wutzek first. Basically, he shows up in one weird UK story of the classic Star Wars comics. He's introduced as a bunch of glowing lights encased in a glass thingy. According to this weirdo that captured the crew of the Falcon, he's a "demon, a Force creature of unimaginable power." It's believed his kind owned the universe long ago.
In the comic, there's a statement of Wutzek's power that puts him at like, planet or solar system. Though the most we see him do is incinerate some people and blow up a ship, then grow big and fly off.
Next up, World Razer. Almost is nothing is known about this guy, even in universe. Here's his codex entry from the Old Republic game.

"Almost nothing is known of the ancient being known as the World Razer. No one has seen or spoken to the creature for thousands of years; the Rakata’s cryptic warnings suggest the World Razer is Belsavis’s oldest prisoner, and that the prison was first constructed to hold the terrible entity whose hunger consumed a thousand worlds. According to the Rakata inscriptions in the Tomb, it took the combined might of the Infinite Empire to subdue the World Razer, and an entire planet to contain its fury. If such a creature were ever released, its rage might very well shatter the galaxy."

Wow. "Shatter the galaxy?" Clearly this thing is galaxy level! Or... y'know, it's just fancy language describing how it could destroy the galaxy over a large span of time. That's at least the impression that I get from this one quote from the World Razer. Other in-game dialogue suggests the World Razer can destroy planets and stars as well.
Sidenote: There's an infamous speed calc made off this statement which assumes a literal timeframe of one day based on what this character says about it happening "tomorrow." The character uses the word "yesterday" in the same scene to talk about something that happened a while in the past, so it's probably not literally being used to refer to one day. Sometimes the word "tomorrow" is used to refer to just the future in general, y'know, like how sometimes Superman is called "the Man of Tomorrow." Or, "Tomorrowland." If you look on dictionary.com, it's literally the second definition of the word. God, I have to explain words now, fuck Star Wars wank dude this is what it does to you.
Moving on. Here's the thing about these guys: we know next to nothing about them. For fuck's sake, we don't even see the World Razer, even its in-game codex starts off with "almost nothing is known about this thing." In regards to the speed calc, we don't even know how it moves - for all we know it could warp itself places through hyperspace like the space whales from Rebels or some shit like that. Wutzek we know almost even less about, he's just apparently some Force demon from the beginning of the universe.
Why is Palpatine getting scaled to these things? They're incredibly vague, ancient powers that definitely seem to be above any Force user we've seen. Are we really getting to the point where we're saying the main villain of the franchise is equal in power to two incredibly vague characters with one appearance each, for the sole reason of "they exist in the same universe?" This is just so stupid, and in my opinion, not legitimate in the slightest.
About that canceled novella I mentioned: it confirms both of these guys as like, both being ancient Force gods. If the book was published, that'd be pretty solid evidence against Palpy scaling.

Darth Plagueis

Did you ever hear about the multi-continental feat of Darth Plagueis The Wise? I thought not. Because it's fake as shit.
This text comes from the Darth Plagueis novel I mentioned earlier:

Later it would be said by Naboo and Gungan alike that they couldn’t recall a colder winter than the one that followed Hego Damask’s autumnal visit to their world. The rivers and even the falls below Theed froze; the rolling plains and tall forests were blanketed three meters deep with snow; plasmic quakes rocked the Gallo Mountains and the Lake Country, the Holy Places and the undersea city of Otoh Gunga; and many of the egresses of the underwaterways that hollowed the planet were blocked by ice floes.

Basically, Plagueis goes to the planet Naboo, and afterwards they have a really bad winter. This has been calced by good ol' NarutoForums (the best site for VS debating) to say Plagueis can output 5.036 petatons of power!
The thing is, there's no evidence to suggest that Plagueis had any hand in this. Like, he's never given credit for the bad winter. It's just a thing that happens. Assuming he did it is like... really, really weird. He goes to other planets in the story and there's never a bad winter there after he comes. It's literally just some random bad weather, he didn't do shit, you people are desperate.

Darth Bane

This one isn't serious, I just wanted to share this cause I think it's really fucking funny.
One time when a VSBW person came on a server I was on, they were trying to argue planetary Star Wars with this. "Bane's world-crushing strategy!" Why are you so goddamn desperate? It's a fucking cropped book blurb or something, shut up. I don't know what this scan is particularly from, but its referring to something he's doing as a general, not Bane literally crushing a planet with the Force, Jesus Christ.
This is 90% of Legends wank, just nonsense taken out of context, then completely and almost willingly misinterpreted. I swear, there's a single shriveled-up little brain cell being passed around at VSBW like the Fates from Hercules.

Verdict: Either the feats are fake or he doesn't scale.

So, after all that, I bet you're wondering how strong Sidious actually is then. The answer is: fuck if I know. Do you know how many goddamn Legends books and comics there are that he's in? I didn't read that all for this thread, but I can tell you this: he sure as shit isn't planetary or fucking solar system level. If there was actually a single, solid planet busting feat for him, or any other Force user you can scale others to, you'd see it paraded around every versus forum until the heat death of the universe. But guess what? There isn't.
That's why you only ever see shit like Random Unnamed Sith Sorceress taking centuries to ruin a planet's surface or Yarael Poof and his non-feat being brought up. Speaking of that fucking long-necked bastard, I'm retconning this old post I made about him into the first episode of this series. Go read it if you're wondering about the infamous "Yarael Poof holding back a planetary explosion" feat, or re-read it if you want to see me address a defense I found, I added a new part to it.
Gotta say though, making this post kinda made me want to go through and make an actually comprehensive Legends Palpatine respect thread. The one on the Respect Threads subreddit is pretty laughable, since it's literally just a segment of the "Force powers" section of his Wookieepedia article with added commentary. All the other ones I can find are pretty dogshit too. So maybe I'll put that out sometime, I don't know.
Oh yeah, one last thing. If you're wondering about other characters you think Palpatine should scale to, like Legends Luke (everything you think you know about him is lies), Vitiate and Nihilus (explained above), and Abeloth (I haven't read any Abeloth stuff but it's probably all fake too, given Legends's track record), they're getting their own posts in the future. This post is specifically about Palpatine and C-list Sith stuff.

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Wrestling Observer Rewind ★ Jul. 22, 2002

Debunking some Legends Palpatine wank

The Claim: Palpatine can make planet-destroying Force Storms on a whim.

Verdict: No, he still probably can't on his own, and if he can, they're still not particularly combat applicable and you can't scale his other Force powers to them.

The Claim: Palpatine is a SOLAR SYSTEM BUSTER!

Verdict: Learn reading comprehension.

The Claim: Palpatine is 34 thousand times faster than the speed of light.

Verdict: No.

The Claim: Palpatine scales to other Sith Lords who have CRAZY feats, bro!!1!!!

Random Unnamed Sith Sorceress (and a Triceratops Jedi named Thon)

Jerec with the Valley of the Jedi

Aleema Kato with the Sith Corsair

Naga Sadow with the Sith Meditation Sphere

Wutzek and the World Razer

Darth Plagueis

Darth Bane

Verdict: Either the feats are fake or he doesn't scale.

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