It’s amazing at how well Celestia out-maneuvered Nightmare’s attacks as they flew around the castle.
 
She may have been trying to create a gap so as to attempt reasoning with Nightmare again, trying to reach her little sister somewhere in Nightmare’s body, but when Nightmare finally nailed a direct hit on Celestia and momentarily winded her and knocked her out…when Celestia came to…all bets were off.
 
Any hope to reach her sister was lost, and Celestia had to do her duty to ensure Equestria was safe, and still had a sovereign to rule over it with compassion and friendship.

There’s a lot of great background scenery of the Everfree castle and forest during this aerial battle.

@fixman88  
I don’t think its clear whether Celestia was trying to stop to parlay in the next clip, but I’m sure she’d want to try it again.

NMM was powerful but inexperienced. She fired multiple times and missed. She only hit Celly because she tried to stop and reason with her (and she was sucker-punched for her trouble). Luckily she took the hit and survived. I’m willing to bet that the reason Celly used the Elements was because without them it would have been a ‘Battle Waged with Equal Powers’ scenario where they would have stalemated each other indefinitely (which much collateral damage ensuing).

@ClownDicks  
@Amber
 
So far we didn’t have enough adult dragons to say that dragons don’t have a kingdom.
 
The green adult dragon was living alone in the Everfree Forest and the red adult dragon wanted to take a nap. The teenagers don’t count, since they are too young but the migration shows, that they aren’t antisocial.
 
Right now we don’t have enough information about dragons to say that they have/haven’t an own kingdom but I think, that it might be possible that there is a Dragon Kingdom.

anyone else notice they used the dalek death ray sound effects?

@Background Pony #F621
 
>Implying dragons have a Kingdom here

i’m hearing the star wars theme

@ZORDON  
There’s also the Sisterhooves Social focusing on tension between Rarity and Sweetie Belle.
 
What I meant about this sequence though is, some people may rethink whether they’d really want to do what Nightmare Moon is doing.

@Amethyst_Crystal
 
This is just an action sequence, really. The whole flashback is nothing more than showing exactly the poing when Luna became NMM and turned on her sister. I do believe a full fledged episode is neccessary to adress sibling rivalry. I think it has never been the central theme of any episode, except maybe the first part of the season 2 finale, and, even there, you had to look for it.
 
A full “flashback episode” or “time travel episode” would do wonders for the lore, and, as it has been mentioned, teach the kids a lesson about family.
 
This is all my opinion, of course.

This scene was pretty fucking rad.

@ZORDON  
I like to think this sequence of events would encourage some kids to re-examine any negative feelings they may be building up towards their siblings.

I would love a full episode of this, explaining why NMM did what she did. A great pony war in the past, if you will.
 
For the young audience, wich this show is still aimed towards, this could show that bitterness towards one’s sibling isn’t healthy nor good. For the rest of us, it would be a loregasm. Or, at least, for me.

And on this 23rd day of November, in the year 2013, Michael Bay became a Brony.

@Background Pony #F621  
>Dragon Kingdom  
>implying dragons aren’t too antisocial to form anything that can be called a civilization

ANCIENT EQUESTRIAN LASER BEAMS!

I get an Ace Combat vibe from this. Especially the duel between Cipher and Pixy.

 
Oh yeah! Oh yeah! It’s a goddamn alicorn laser fight!

I wonder if there are any relationships between Equestria and the Dragon Kingdom.
 
Maybe the dragon on the casle means that we get more dragons (except Spike) this season

Admit it, you wanted something like this to happen in the show. I know I did.

So awesome…