Regarding Nightmare Moon as a threat

[Black Sabbath 2,484]

4 minutes ago, HarmonySparkle said:

Regardless of fun factor, the way you're trying to discuss this, leaves no more room, open for discussion.

Whilst I fail to see why that's a bad thing, I don't think that's true. There's plenty of room open for discussion. One can, for example, discuss why I'm wrong and how sad episode is totally an accurate representation of Equestria under Nightmare Moons rule. 

[DonMaguz 1,023]

Nightmare Moon was a very powerful threat to Equestria's way of life and freedom, something we can see from servant Rarity's creative repression in NMM's alternate timeline.

Of course, her threat is now dormant and has been defused, maybe even permanently.

Luna is aware now about her role in Equestria and the ponies' appreciation of it, something that she can reinforce every night seeing how her efforts help ponies to overcome their insecurities and fears. She's not likely to fall into a spiral of jealousy and recognition thirst any time soon.

[Luna the Great of all the Russias 2,700]

Before showing the alternate timelines, it could have been speculated that Nightmare Moon so greatly resented her sister and Equestria that she was willing to risk the death of the entire planet if it meant even a forced appreciation of the night; that would have serious implications. But in that alternate timeline, it seems that life on the planet does not depend on sunlight or else they are perhaps using magic to maintain life which, though a more inefficient alternative to simply using the sun to maintain life, appeared doable. The implication may be that Nightmare Moon's reign is more authoritarian, but the extent of that is ambiguous as, as I remember, the worst we have seen is Rarity being somewhat unsatisfied with her occupation. Perhaps it could be argued that Nightmare Moon, upon dethroning her sister, may have caused a civil war with Nightmare Moon's own forces opposing the Celestia loyalists, but as far as anything that was actually shown in-show, it was the replacement of one ruler with another and the opening episodes of season 1 showed no hint of resistance from the Ponyville residents; even if a civil war occurred, that may have been distant memory by the time Twilight reached that timeline. 

So it seems that the overthrow of Celestia was a major event in Canterlot history, but the rest of the world may very well be indifferent to it except for the inconvenience of permanent night... unless Nightmare Moon was actually in a much more fragile situation than it appeared. If even Celestia had kept the planet in permanent day, would this have caused hostilities from foreign powers? Depending on how much they rely on the day/night cycle, they may have used several means to pressure Equestria's sovereign to restore the regular cycle from sanctions to even threats of war. 

Edited November 27, 2018 by Luna the Great of all the Russias

[heavens-champion 1,893]

On 11/24/2018 at 9:49 PM, CloudMistDragon said:

I don't think Nightmare Moon was supposed to be regarded as a threat after she was defeated. Both Luna Eclipsed and Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep? showed that Luna has overcome her inner conflict of mental insecurity regarding Nightmare Moon, so the odds of her returning, at least through Luna, are very unlikely. And of course, there's also the issue of how powerful the show's cast is now compared to back at the beginning of the series. I'm not even going to get into the whole thing with Daybreaker, there's plenty of ways to fight NM in the actual world of MLP now, like Discord. 

 

That still doesn't explain why Equestria wasn't frozen over in the Nightmare Moon Timeline in the Cutie Re-Mark.

Edited February 17, 2019 by heavens-champion