//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: Eyes unfurled 
// Story: The Unknown Daughter's Reunion:Part 1 
// by Disembodied_Pony 
//------------------------------//

Inside an office at the complex, his flank firmly planted in a well-worn chair in front of an information terminal; sat Magnifying Glass.  Sifting and compiling data like any other day from this particular automated survey vessel, he worked. 
However these past days, he was more invigorated than usual.
At last, it had begun relaying the detailed scans of the world they had remotely steered it towards.

This particular vessel, had taken a circuitous path towards the faint yet constant emissions of a field of magical energy amongst the stars.
Previously, once it had reached and passed through the field's perimeter, they were at a loss as to where to further send it.  There were a number of suns there, with planets and subsequent moons around them.  But which one should they check first?

Then one day, after a lazy walk down the main archway of the complex after lunch, they once again looked upon the old equestrian flag, noting; one sun - one moon.  Having no better clues to follow, the ponies went that route in their search.
So after waiting an agonizing couple of weeks for ultra long-range scans to track orbits to complete, one sun was found to have only a single world in its orbit, with a single moon orbiting it.

As the survey vessel was assigned its new destination, with bated breath; they all waited....
Now that it had achieved orbit, that wait was returning dividends.

"Atmosphere... Oxygen-Nitrogen-Carbon Dioxide-trace elements...."  Magnifying Glass murmured to himself absentmindedly as he read the atmospheric sampling results.

As he scrolled across the low resolution orbital scans;  "Organic life?... Plants-Lower lifeforms likely-Large fauna...." 

"...wait.."

"STRUCTURES!!!" Shouted Magnifying Glass.

With that outburst, he had set off the sounds of a stampede of hooves rushing toward his office.

"Glass!, What do you see?!" asked Autumn Wind.  
Living up to her name, she was the first one into his office.  Somehow beating the stampede, despite being half-way across the complex.

'Did I really shout that loudly?  Who cares, this is a landmark day!' he thought.

"S-Structures Buildings Construction Towns Cities, Look!"  Magnifying Glass babbled in a strangled voice, loosing his composure.

Expanding the image display to take up the entirety of the screen.  His eyes were getting misty, threatening to overflow into tears of joy.

Ponies pressed in closer, squinting at the massive screen, as if to try to make the displayed picture clearer.

"Oh, my stars!  Is, is that??"  asked Sure Trajectory, next to him pointing to one area in particular.  
Glass, enlarged that portion to fill the screen, and what they saw caused the rest of the ponies to gasp.  They couldn't be positive with this set of wide-area scans, but there was something, something blurry caught by the scan;

In the sky, gold in color, between a city and a massive cloud formation, over a grassland.
That 'something', looked to have proportions that of a pegasus...

"this, is huge" whispered Star Struck, his voice carrying a haunted lilt to it.

The air increasingly filled with murmurs, as the office space packed with ponies.  Meanwhile, Magnifying Glass merely slumped into his chair, all strength seaming to leave him.

'We did it...  everypony?  your highness?  Oh by the stars and moon, we found it!'




The next few weeks were a flurry of intense activity at the complex.
Restlessness, and ponies passed out at their terminals became the norm.
Meetings for prioritizing where to focus the surveys being conducted, happened twice every day.
The pouring over the orbital visual stills, thermal topographical mapping, and magic spectrograms, never seemed to stop.  Nopony inside there was out of the loop, but to those outside, they were never more tight-lipped.  Nopony was going to let slip Anything that would reach the empress's ears until they were sure it wouldn't crush her hopes.
As, to her, 'This' was nearly a millennia in the making, that 'Right-Now' was the culmination of centuries of waiting.

They needed a veritable 'Mountain of evidence' before they could be sure that this was it.

Finally, after the better part of a month had elapsed... they were sure.  They were ready to fashion their report, which would be not only for their cherished empress, but for all of the ponies everywhere to hear;
'The search was successful'
Now at last, most of them could get their rest again at night.  While the others; Another 5 days of reviewing drafts of their report, was their marathon, including choice reference data for every part of the report.





It was time.





"I've scheduled the audience with her highness.  Who's going with you to present the report, Field?"  asked Silver Glider.

"Aurora, Meadow, Machination, and Thunder"  The earth pony replied, putting the finishing touches in the report's reference links.

"Machination?, you're such a sweetheart!"  She teased.

"Yeah, well...  Over the past 3 weeks, I swear he only went home for normalcy's sake, and only slept two hours at most even then"  Open Field chuckled.

"Too true.  Every time I finished collating his data, I'd turn around to find another parcel waiting for me."

"It's no surprise that he slept for 2 days straight"  Open Field replied, shaking his head with a smile "Speaking of, how much of my recovery rest can I expect to get before her highness will see us?"

"Three days.  We're slotted in our usual afternoon time.  So..."  a devious smile making its way across her muzzle;
"She won't see this coming!  I just hope she eats a light lunch that day"  She finished.

"O-ho, you're incorrigible!"  Field exclaimed, breaking out into a laughing fit over Glider's antics.  "What did she ever do to deserve this!"

"Well, you know what they say; with great responsibility and power, comes great burden!"

The two devolved into laughter over their good natured conspiracy, decompressing after the many weeks of strain.