Adorable.

@Background Pony #1F73
You’ll be working the night shift.

@Moonatik
That’s too bad, I wouldn’t mind living in service of Nightmare Moon.

@Background Pony #1F73
While her lifespan may be thousands of years long, this doesn’t mean her Empire will last a thousand years. No single person can ever truly rule alone, and if ponies/other creatures get sick of her or if her officials make enough mistakes then her state can collapse. She isn’t even doing the real work of governing, either, so the fate of her Empire is not absolutely in her hooves.

For instance, why she wants to rule everywhere, the prevailing tendencies in her government understand that invading everywhere and enforcing her as monarch everywhere would be unsustainable and far too costly, so Nightmare will have to settle with what they can take.

@Moonatik
So this means she should have at least a few thousand more years to lead her empire. What is her thoughts on the Riverlands and the ponies who are refusing to accept their rightful leader?

@Moonatik
That’s more or less how I’ve always headcanoned it to work too. It boosts their power, but also boosts their emotions making self-control a lot more difficult. It’s in-line with how the Alicorn Amulet works too: more power, more corruption :D

@Background Pony #097A
Generally, The Nightmare enhances all her abilities and strengths, with the exception of the rate of aging which is unchaged. Nightmare Moon can take and dish out a lot more than Luna could.

I also think all alicorns have the potential for a nightmare form to develop, but for it to grow it needs to grow out of violently strong emotions.

@Moonatik
Would the additional magic from the nightmare form have additional effects beyond these, or is the nightmare form simply a physical and emotional layer on top of her normal body?

@Background Pony #097A
In my AU, alicorns age very, very slowly upon reaching maturity, around 100x slower than a normal pony. So if a regular pony lives to 70, an alicorn can be expected to live to 7000.

To the average creature, an alicorn can appear immortal, as they have extreme strength, stamina, endurance, magical abilities, and an enhanced healing factor. Bullets and regular magical blasts have practically no effect, and should an alicorn be grievously wounded in a way that would kill a regular pony, they can usually heal and survive. Alicorns also have resistance to most diseases and extremely high toxin tolerance. Nightmare Moon personally likes to drink pure poison instead of alcohol, as alcohol has zero effect on her. However, what would be a lethal dose of a poison like ricin or novichok to a normal pony could knock an alicorn unconscious.

That all said, alicorns are not invincible. Alicorn magic or enough other magic concentrated can hurt and kill an alicorn, a nuclear bomb to the face while unshielded would disfigure them beyond recognition. Petrification and other transformation spells render the alicorn’s physical invulnerability null and void, so one method an alicorn could be killed is by turning them to stone and shattering them. There’s also just waiting for them to age over thousands of years as their strengths deteriorate, but the true physical degradation doesn’t begin until the last few centuries of their life.

In the NLM, is Nightmare Moon 100% immortal and immune to injury and illness, or is she just immune to aging?

Nightmare Moon is so pretty

As long as I can enjoy my music, I’d be fine living in this alternate timeline

My queen, I will always fight for you! ! !