Oh yeah... and to clarify terms.. · 5:45am Jul 21st, 2016
Just got through one PM asking me about Stellar's swearing-in ceremony with Luna. Everypony's heard the terms for the Royal Guard thrown around willy-nilly sometimes, but in an official oath-taking, formality is everything, so...
Royal Canterlot Guard = Royal Guard. Is the full name and covers all the platoons, including the Princess' guard platoons.
Royal Solar Guard = Solar Guard. Celestia's own guard platoons, which include Day Guard and Night Guard platoons. Her Night Guard has a few thestrals who swore loyalty to Celestia before Luna returned and decided to stay with their platoons when Luna's Lunar Guard was reformed.
Royal Lunar Guard = Lunar Guard. Luna's own Guard platoons. Like Celestia's but made up of both Ponies and Thestrals. The Night Guard are almost all thestrals, but the Day Guard has a few of them in it as well, some who prefer to follow a day-cycle instead of the normal night-cycle.
Also, I can't see all the thestrals as being just bat-ponies. There'd be some cross-breeding, so I am using such as reason to use the terms for the three types of thestrals in my story. YMMV, of course.
Okay, the three sub-types of thestrals are:
Nightwing: Bat-ponies, the equivalent of Pegasi. I wanted a better name for them than the slightly-insulting term 'Bat-pony', plus they'd never use it for themselves if it sounds insulting.
Sabrehorn: Equivalent of Unicorns. I liked the term and it sounds very military.
Nightwalker: Equivalent of Earth Ponies. The term is pretty self-explanatory.
So there you have it. I hope this clears up any problems with the terms in the future.
