The reason for the Moon-Time-Out

Hello, everypony watching my blogs. That's about 20 by now (and it still astounds me to have gotten that number) and I recently thought to myself 'I should write another blog entry. But about what?'

Cue this video:

And my mind exploded with ideas. In particular, as to why Nightmare Moon might need to reside on the moon while Discord himself can be turned to stone.

Let's start simple: What do we know about Luna's (and most likely NMM's) powers? Sure, she's got powerful horn lasers, can fly and appearantly has the power to seal away Celestia on a planet herself. But here comes the troublesome power - she is capable of dreamwalking.

Why would dreamwalking, arguably the most esoteric power of her skillset, be the most difficult to deal with? Well, as everyone knows, subconciously you pick up lots more than just with your concious mind and Luna and subsequently Nightmare Moon definitely did this for hundreds of years. And doing something for a long time tends to make you damn good at it usually.

So there's the situation: Celestia, totally kept busy with all her work and the admiration suddenly notices her sister rebelling. Not just speaking up, but openly attacking her. Her sister, who easily can reach every of her beloved subjects when they are sleeping. Her sister, most skillful at manipulating dreams and who has as much knowledge (if not practise) as her in leading ponies.

Suddenly, Lunas transformation to Nightmare Moon seems way more dangerous than it did at first, doesn't it? In fact, in the middle of battle and still rattled from the betrayal of her beloved sister of all ponies, Celestia made a snap decision. Luna was able to manipulate ponies way easier than her, every night. She didn't even have to actually do too much, Tia's own fears might push her to perform actions which might shy ponies off. Remember, we are in a relatively shaky alliance between the tribes (Discords rule JUST ended and ponies simply don't believe in Harmony with everypony else that much anymore), so it IS a valied concern.

Here we come to the cornerstone of my theory, the only part that's headcannon really - a stone prison might actually keep you from actively interacting with everything around you but it doesn't completely cut your powers off. I see Discords Chaos as something of a much needed balance against the Elements of Harmony. You kind of need both sides of the coin to make it whole, as one without the other simply becomes meaningless. Why else would Discord mainly use his magic on the hometown of the Element bearers? We certainly don't see him doing too much to any other city.

And what of Luna you may ask? Why can't she be put into a stone prison like Discord? Oh, because of this dangerous ability to dreamwalk, of course! Luna, as Nightmare Moon (different entity or not), STILL presents an incredible threat on Equestria, even when imprisoned! So she needs to be somewhere else. Seeing as the Tartarus wouldn't likely hold an enraged Alicorn (if even a Cerberus could escape which sounds like a weak puppy compared to NMM), it needed to be a place that still was somewhat in Celestias control but too far away for anything subtle like dreamwalking. So, she gets this trip to the Moon-Camp she never asked to take and can't get back for a 1000 years due to the power a Celestia thrust into that position had to use to overcome the overpowered Alicorn.

That's all for this time. Oh yeah, if there are enough people wanting my ideas on other MLP-related topics I'm glad to share them too. You but simply need to ask.