Temporal Micro-Wormhole
by Kathy McCracken (majorrakal@decipher.com)

In 2371, U.S.S. Voyager discovered a most unusual wormhole -- a very small one that led through both space and time, to the Alpha Quadrant 20 years in the past. That wormhole appears in the Voyager expansion as our doorway to other times and places.

At first glance the Temporal Micro-Wormhole looks much more limited than an Alternate Universe Door or Space-Time Portal; it doesn't allow you to seed [AU] dilemmas or play [AU] events or interrupts, but only lets [AU] personnel and equipment report for duty. But if you're playing a predominantly "present-day" deck, with only a few key [AU] personnel such as Dr. McCoy, Major Rakal, or Grand Nagus Gint, that may be all you need. Especially in the Voyager environment, it's more than adequate, especially when you consider the doorway's other functions.

To start with, you get a once per game download of Space-Time Portal, saving you a seed slot to get that doorway's important functions -- or you may find it more important to stop your opponent's Space-Time Portal "drop" of an [AU] ship reporting with crew. By the time you respond to his report with crew action by nullifying it, he's already paid the costs of that action, both discarding his doorway and using up his once per game allowance for that action, and you don't get back costs paid when an action is nullified.

But the final function of the card is the one that will make you seed this instead of one of the other doorways: twice per game, you can use a Temporal Micro-Wormhole to report a personnel directly to your ship (no quadrant restrictions!), regardless of affiliation. For that, you have to discard the doorway -- so you'll need two to take full advantage of the function -- but they can then mix with your other affiliations for the rest of the game. That one personnel with a special skill that you'd love to have, but who's incompatible with your affiliation of choice, is now accessible. (Sorry, Borg fans -- the one thing it won't let you do is stock non-Borg-affiliation personnel in a Borg deck (or vice versa). If you could legally get them into your deck, it would allow them to report and mix, but it doesn't get around this basic Borg deck-building rule.)

Combos:

Temporal Micro-Wormhole + Seven of Nine: Seven's Delta Quadrant icon won't keep you from having your very own Non-Aligned (or Federation) Borg in the Alpha Quadrant for carrying out Nanoprobe Resuscitations.

Temporal Micro-Wormhole + Brunt: And you thought only the treaty-less Ferengi could conveniently use the Writ of Accountability.

Temporal Micro-Wormhole + Space-Time Portal: Get the best of both space-time continuums, seeding just the Temporal Micro-Wormhole. Download the Space-Time Portal for continued (and expanded) ability to play [AU] cards before reporting your off-affiliation personnel and discarding the Micro-Wormhole.

Temporal Micro-Wormhole + Dr. Telek R'Mor: For the die-hard Romulan fan, what could be more important than downloading our old friend? That Space-Time Portal can wait until you draw it!