Stegosed, the Artifact

At one point in the distant past, the Gatrelix attempted to boost any latent telepathic qualities they might have. This failed, since they have absolutely no tendencies toward telepathy and are in fact largely immune to it.
They did, however, succeed in creating something that interacted with telepaths in surprising ways. And also warp fields.
It is called the Stegosed. The artifact itself is a chunk of what looks like stone, approximately a foot in diameter. It's rounded, with four protrusions coming off the sides, carved with meticulous spirals. This is all set dressing for the interior mechanics, which can be accessed by rotating the protrusions in a specific order. When opened it glows red if active, and kind of a dull gray if not active. Broken is blue.
Has cultural significance to the Gatrelix even though it doesn't work for them. They have it as a central example of their ancestry and cultural advancements and so it's a prime museum piece. One of the few things that has survived the ravages of time and a society that has a bit of a toddler view of possessions.
Shutting it down could take understanding of archaeology and science and telepathy and the alien computer within the device. But it could probably not do all that well with drastic temperature changes, the same as the Gatrelix themselves.
Fun fact: transporters turn this thing on. When it was transported aboard the Gogarg, even though it was accidental, this activated the interactions which caused the Beaumont to go critical. When Captain T'Syr came in close contact with the device, it also affected her telepathy and right now she is kind of drunk (for a Vulcan).
She is inadvertently controlling it and her emotional state could cause the device to go critical if she continues.

What Happened

A clump of ships were there to help negotiate, since these guys are a little unstable and aggressive and no one wants to lose an ambassador. Some external factor attacks, some neighboring planet. T'Syr made the call to beam up the ambassador but Hroki accidentally beamed up the Stegosed instead, and chaos ensued from there. The battle goes down, the Beaumont is damaged, and in the aftermath the Gogarg slinks away with the artifact, because now we get to take a look at this cool gizmo. The ambassador makes Starfleet look foolish because he yells at them for not beaming him up, and the talks are in shambles.

Connections

It is connected to Vrixid culture.

Item type

Sensory / Aid