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Daystrom Institute
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Episode Guides
The /r/DaystromInstitute wiki held a number of popular Star Trek watch guides. We have rehosted them here:
- Kraetos’ guide to Star Trek (the original series)
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- Darth_Rasputin32898’s guide to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
- OpticalData’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
- petrus4’s guide to Star Trek: Voyager
I think the easiest explanation is that it was extremely rare, the sol system just happened to have a useable deposit somewhere (probably an asteroid or two), and it was used up in the construction of the NX class ships (and perhaps their immediate successors).
Note that nobody is worried that the NX-01 component on the Enterprise might have been mysteriously de-horoniumed. They just knew they weren't going to find a fresh source anywhere.
My thought was that turning it into an alloy somehow stabilized it.