Planet Nine
Beyond Neptune · A hidden-world account
Some of the Fraal who reached Earth speak of a remote world hidden in the Solar System’s far dark. Its name appears in their accounts as Planet Nine, although surviving navigational records are incomplete and no human observatory can point to it with certainty.
Earth’s learned astronomers can trace the wanderings of the visible planets. Even the finest charts provide little guidance beyond the distant icy bodies. The surviving Fraal have reason to withhold what they know: their scattered people possess fragments of a route home, but not the secure means to follow it.
The lost route of the Fraal
The Fraal are accomplished telepaths and travellers. Around a century before 1454 a damaged vessel stranded a small community on Earth; the survivors and their Earthborn descendants now disagree about the missing route. Some identify their home with Planet Nine, others remember a far more distant stellar system, and still others believe the name refers only to a waypoint. The damaged ship’s records cannot yet resolve those competing accounts. An expedition following the wrong map could disappear beyond rescue.
An intact navigation device, a sequence of stellar bearings or a working portal would be worth more than a chest of ordinary treasure to a stranded Fraal settlement. Their contacts on Earth are cautious: revealing the route might also reveal their refuge to those they fled.
The Fraal’s Lost Passage in 1454
An envoy from Prague offers to repair a fragment of the damaged Fraal navigation system. The surviving Fraal refuse to hand over the core, fearing that a repaired device could reveal the location of refugees hiding on Earth. A second visitor claims to represent the Ming fleet and promises a protected vessel if the Fraal share their bearings. Neither can guarantee that the route ends at Planet Nine rather than beyond the Solar System.
Fraal survivors remember a civilisation capable of reaching distant worlds without the long improvisation required by Earth’s young programmes. Their maps cannot be treated as common property, and their disagreement about the name of their home is genuine. The party may recover a missing instrument, escort a delegation to neutral ground or expose a forged route before a desperate crew departs for the outer dark. A physical search begins with the Solar System; a negotiation begins with the Fraal themselves.
The astronomical question
In real astronomy, Planet Nine is an unconfirmed hypothesis proposed to explain some unusual orbits beyond Neptune. Its existence, size and orbit have not been established through direct observation. The Fraal’s world is part of this fantasy setting, not evidence for the scientific hypothesis.
Reference: NASA — Planet Nine / Planet X. Return to the Space atlas.
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