Barzan wormhole
The Barzan wormhole is located immediately local to Barzan II, with the rights belonging to the Chrysalians.
- One end was set firmly until 2373, when the Alpha Quadrant end began to move.
- The other end of the wormhole does not stay in one location, and bounces randomly throughout the galaxy.
- It has been documented to let out at locations as far away as in the Delta and Gamma Quadrants.
This wormhole became visible due to radiation buildup in and around the accretion disk (a flattened band of spinning matter around the event horizon). Instability in the wormhole was observed though multiple fluctuations, as well as exponentially-increasing gravity fields. The wormhole became visible every 233 minutes, and a Barzan probe showed the other terminus point located somewhere in the Gamma Quadrant, a location that would take 100 years to reach at Warp 9.
Rights to owning the wormhole were opened up by the Barzans in 2366, with the Barzanian Planetary Republic acting as both host and fallback should the rights be rejected by all in attendance.
The auction was held aboard the USS Enterprise-D, where the bidders conducted scientific studies of the wormhole. Two parties sent shuttlecraft through, though they came out in the Delta Quadrant, not the Gamma Quadrant as was expected. It was at this point that it was realized the wormhole was not entirely stable, with both ends destabilizing within a few centuries. Only one party was able to make it back through the wormhole and return to the Alpha Quadrant, leaving the Ferengi shuttle stranded.
With the wormhole revealed to be of little use, the Barzan people and their resource-poor planet are left crushed, their only promising resource unable to bring the planet any prosperity. The representative for the Chrysalians, the winning bidder, holds up their end of the deal to assist the Barzans, even though the wormhole is virtually useless.
In 2373, the previously-stranded Ferengi were discovered by the crew of the USS Voyager.
Upon each trying to use the wormhole to return home, the Ferengi created a high-energy graviton pulse, which destabilized the wormhole.
The Ferengi shuttle was pulled in, but the wormhole disappeared before the Ferengi could escape, or Voyager could enter.
The location of those two Ferengi is still unknown.
