Mageti

The Mageti was an ancient alien artifact developed by the Altrusian race untold millennia ago. It was designed as a tool for traveling through space and time. It possessed the ability to not only locate dimensional doorways, but to effect repairs upon unstable doorways as well. Each doorway could be accessed by programming the Mageti with a complex key sequence of light-refracting crystals. A smaller crystal served as a companion piece to the Mageti and, with an external power source, could function as one as well. As the Altrusians were a naturally telepathic species, the Mageti also amplified psionic energy, making it easier for one traveler to commune with another. Built into the Mageti is a telepathic amplifier. Up to a point it would carry out the emotional impulses of anyone within it's proximity. Mental perceptions that extended beyond it's range however would overload it's circuits and the Mageti would cease to function. It was important to build a self-destruct capability into the Mageti should warring species bent on invading other worlds attempt to acquire it through force. Hostile and aggressive thoughts could cause it to self-destruct. The Altrusian traveler known as Enik used a Mageti to journey into what he believed was his world's ancient past. However, he soon discovered his error and determined that he had not journeyed into the past, but into the future. In the intervening years, the Altrusian race succumbed to their more primal emotions, resulting in a bitter war that nearly destroyed the entire race. Over the course of millennia, the Altrusians devolved into a primal, reptilian race known as Sleestaks.

While exploring the ruins of this "Land of the Lost", Enik encountered the Marshall family who, like him, were trapped in this savage, primitive world. The Marshalls wanted Enik to use the Mageti to send them home, but he told them that it would be impossible to accomplish such a task without knowing the proper coordinates of their home world. As the two sides struggled for control of the device, it's Fourth Dimensional node overloaded and went dark. The device was useless, but Enik possessed a pendant, which he hoped he could use as a secondary Mageti. Despite their misgivings, the Marshalls decided to help Enik, even if by doing so meant that they would give up their own chances of returning home. They brought him to the Lost City where he was able to acquire more light crystals that could power his pendant and open a dimensional doorway.

Notes & Trivia
For reasons unknown, the Sleestaks feared the Mageti and the Marshalls were able to use it to ward them off.