In 'N Out.
A device that allows travel between dimensions/alternate universes/planes of existence/etc. This device could be anything, from a machine in science fiction to a magical item or spell in fantasy, as long as it allows travel between these dimensions or realities. It could even be a human (or, at the very least, a sentient being), if they have the power to go to these other "places".
There may be lots of Fridge Logic involved, depending on the nature of the device in question. For example, in the version shown in the image, where you open up a portal that doesn't need to be attached to the surface of a flat object, how do you ensure that the other end is always exactly at the surface of the desired planet (as opposed to high in the air or deep underground), and perpendicular to the ground? And if you decide to go exploring universes you've never been to prior (and thus have no data on what things are in it and where), how do you avoid, say, destroying your home planet by accidentally opening the other end in the interior of a sun? And even if you decide to be cautious about it, how do you gather data on said universe without actually opening a portal and sending a drone or probe in first?
Compare Time Machine and Inn Between the Worlds. If the device is bladed, it's a Dimensional Cutter. If it's stationary, it might be a Cool Gate (and possibly part of a larger Portal Network).
See also Dimensional Traveler for someone who tends to use these.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- Bleach: There are three methods to travel between worlds. Shinigami use Senkaimon, a highly regulated gate which provides direct travel between the Human World and Soul Society. To use it, one must follow a special butterfly called Jigokucho, or else they will be thrown to Dangai, the Void Between the Worlds. Traveling through Dangai can eventually lead someone into either world, but they have to be extremely careful not to stick themselves to a current is inescapable or face a being that is unbeatable. The third method is to use Garganta, which cracks open the dimensional fabric and is associated with Hollows. Garganta is the only way to access Hueco Mundo.
- The Lyrical Nanoha franchise has Casual Inter-Dimensional Travel, with various Magitek starships allowing those who can't perform sufficient magic to go travel to different dimensions. Supplementary material set after Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's Portable: The Gears of Destiny also had the Eltria group discovering a piece of Lost Technology that allowed them to move people from one Alternate Multiverse to another, a function they learned after some irresponsible handling of the newly discovered artifact caused it to pull in The Movie continuity version of Nanoha and Fate.
- Naruto: This is Obito Uchiha's main Mangekyo Sharingan ability, Kamui. Both of his eyes can send something to a Pocket Dimension. His right eye is a defense mechanism, being used so Obito can travel to the dimension at will. He can even send parts of his body when in danger so he could dodge at the last second, giving the illusion that he is intangible. His left eye, which was given to Kakashi Hatake, is the offensive version of the same ability. Namely, it can teleport someone or something to the pocket dimension.
- Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Chao Lingshen eventually will has developed one of these, allowing characters to hop from one time-travel-created timeline to the next.
- Phantasy Star Online 2: The Animation has the titular Phantasy Star Online 2, which serves as a link between Earth and the dimension that the video game that the anime is based off of takes place in.
- SD Gundam Force has the Zakurello Gate, which is primarily used by the Dark Axis to invade Neotopia's dimension. The SDG spends most of the series trying to build their own device, but ultimately just use the Zakurello Gate after the main invasion.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, having an interdimensional war as a main plot, has several of these, from the duel disks of the Fusion and Xyz dimensions inhabitants, and after Reiji got ahold of Yuto's duel disk he was able to implement the same feature on the Lancers (Standard) disks using cards to set up coordinates also during the first season it was already known that Yuzu's braceletnote could warp people away, but during the Battle Royale it warped her and Yugo to the Synchro Dimension and in the same vein the Yugo's Clear Wing Synchro Dragon has been doing that to him for a while now, its implied that the four Dimensional Dragons have the same power as well, because they are drawn to each other.
Comic Books
- Atari Force: The ship Scanner One is equipped with a Multiverse warp drive that allows its passengers to travel through both normal space and multiple alternate dimensions.
- The Flash has the Cosmic Treadmill, which was first constructed when Barry Allen was trapped in the "real world" analogue called Earth-Prime and needed to return to Earth-1. It also appeared in Crisis on Infinite Earths a few times when the superheroes needed to bridge dimensional barriers between worlds.
- Judge Dredd:
- The Dark Judges possess orbs that allow travel between dimensions, which they stole from a group of aliens who made the mistake of visiting their world. Justice Department later reverse engineers the technology to create their own dimensional teleporters. In the "Helter Skelter" story they're forced to destroy their own D-jump technology after a nearly successful invasion by Dredd's enemies from other dimensions.
- Even earlier the Sov Mega-Cities developed Apocalypse Warp technology, which during the early stages of the Apocalypse War enabled them to redirect Mega-City One's nuclear counter-attack to another dimension, which was promptly destroyed. However, unlike the orbs brought over by the Dark Judges, it seems that the Apocalypse Warp could not be focused and only worked at random.
- The Marvel Universe features plenty of casual multiversal travel - such technology is common in a technologically advanced universes, and from there it gets spread throughout the rest. Entire series such as Exiles and Web Warriors are built on the use of this trope, as are many other storylines such as The Avengers (Jonathan Hickman), Spider-Verse and Contest of Champions (2015).
- Monica's Gang: Marina's pencil allows her to travel to other worlds. Other characters stealing the pencil for themselves is what instigates various crossovers, a prominent example being Glu accidentally drawing a portal to Garfield's universe in Turma da Mônica e Garfield: O Lápis Mágico.
- RASL: Dr. Robert Joseph Johnson jumps between parallel worlds using an immersion suit, a device that looks like 4 airplane turbines strapped to his shoulders and legs with an African mask covering his face.
Fan Works
- In the Empath: The Luckiest Smurf story "Smurfed Behind: The Other Side Of The Mirror", a Magic Mirror known as the Janus Mirror transports Empath and his friend Polaris Psyche into a Mirror Universe version of their world, where they find an identical mirror which requires a magic spell to open so they could return to their own world.
- Housemates: Dr. Strange devises one for Coulson's and Mitchell's universe hopping in the form of a smart phone app.
- The Loud House: Revamped: "Chapter 41: The Light VS Magic (Simulator Test)" of the first fic in the duology introduces the Simulator, a recurring quasi-virtual reality computer stored in a special room that was created by Lisa Loud with the purpose of allowing the main characters to practice their powers, weaponry and fighting skills in any potential dimension, setting and time, including traveling into the worlds or universes of any other media. As well as being used for casual training, the Simulator is the means with which the main characters access to many missions and fights throughout the fanfic duology.
- Metal Gear: Green: The HPSC gives Night Owl the green light for interdimensional exploration as they see it as a massive profit binge. Nine years later, and the only reason it isn't discontinued isn't because Night Owl's interdimensional explorations did bear some fruit (he did teleport the MSF into the MHA world), but because if it came out that they had Izuku as a battery, the HPSC would not only be dissolved on the spot, but most of the top brass would be executed as well.
- The Mountain and the Wolf: The Seafang (the Wolf's longship) is able to sail the Warp by opening a hole into it, going from universe to universe (or different areas of the same universe) with relative ease (relative applying to its crew, who are only protected from the daemons of the Warp by the efforts of the warriors fending them off) and can even tow ships behind it. It can also fly, negating the need to land in water. All in all, it behaves more like a Warhammer 40,000 starship than the original version, which was only implied to fly rather than shown and spews fog until it's surrounded by mists and daemons, then the fog (eventually) lifts and finds itself back in the real world.
- Princess Maniacs: At the end of the story, Brain reveals he and Pinky modified their Time Machine into a device that can also travel between worlds in order to get Jermaine and the princesses back home, which works.
- Vocaloid Concerto: The Sandscraper, which is a Cool Train, serves as the vehicle for Miku and co. to safely cross between worlds. They only start to actually use it after meeting with Kiyoteru's group, though.
- Welcome to Night City, Mr. House!: Project Second Chance, a Pre-War project completed by the Think Tank, was about research into Dimensional Portal technology meant to open up portals to different dimensions.
Films — Animation
- In Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension the Other Dimension-inator is used by Heinz Doofenshmirtz to go to the second dimension, as the title suggests.
- Red Ash: Gearworld has the parallel machine, which is a huge device propped up on three legs that fires a beam sending hunters to parallel worlds. Said hunters must be under the machine when it fires, since it fires downward.
- Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has the Dimensional Travel Watch, which were invented by Miguel O'Hara and are used by countless Spider-Mans to travel to different dimensions. It also prevents them from glitching while they're visiting a dimension that they're not from. Miles spends the first half of the movie trying to get one for himself, but Miguel refuses to give him one since Miles himself is a dimensional anomaly. The spider that he was bitten by was accidentally leaked into his dimension, thus Miles was never supposed to become a Spider-Man.
Films — Live-Action
- Babylon 5: Thirdspace introduces an ancient Vorlon artifact that turns out to be a jumpgate to a dimension unimaginatively described as "Thirdspace". It turns out that this is not a good place to open doors to, and the artifact is destroyed in order to close the door again.
- Cool World: The Spike of Power, created by Dr. Vincent Whiskers, can breach the boundary between the real world and the cartoon Cool World. It is, however, a potential Artifact of Doom in that it can actually tear down the walls between worlds completely, leading to the Roger Rabbit Effect on a massive scale — and not in a fun way.
- Crossworlds has a staff which can get the main characters from the odd world from which the staff comes and back to what appears to be our Earth.
- The One (2001) has a quantum tunneling device which allows the interdimensional police to track criminals and, obviously, allows them to travel to different universes.
- Parallels has an entire derelict building that shunts people about randomly through The Multiverse. It was most likely built by some sort of awesomely advanced version of humanity that's either forgotten about it or doesn't much care about the havoc it's wreaking across hundreds of alternate Earths.
Literature
- Borgel: Borgel's car can travel though time-space-and-the-other, and they use it to travel through dimensions. An essential device for any time tourist.
- In The Carnelian Cube by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt, the titular carnelian cube sends one into a parallel world based on their desires at the time one sleeps with it beneath their pillow. In order to leave to another world, one must find its counterpart in that particular world.
- The Chronicles of Narnia:
- The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe has a wardrobe that allows travel between Earth and Narnia — sometimes.
- Susan's horn has the power to summon help to the user, which includes help that just happens to be in another dimension, as shown in Prince Caspian.
- The Magician's Nephew has the green and yellow rings, which allow one to enter the Wood between the Worlds and leave there for any number of worlds. The rings are mentioned again in The Last Battle.
- In Craig Shaw Gardner's Cineverse cycle, you can get to and travel between the worlds of the Cineverse by turning the dial of a Captain Crusader Decoder Ring and saying "See you in the funny papers!".
- The Dark Tower has doors that allow the characters to travel between different timelines and alternate universes, including one in which they meet the author, Stephen King.
- In Down The Bright Way by Robert Reed, Precursors left behind The Bright, a one-dimensional path of travel between different planes of reality. The Wanderers use it to travel to different Earths, which diverged millennia prior; exploring, teaching, stabilizing, or mourning the dead worlds. The Bright's travel mechanisms are powered by a planet that has been converted into a massive fusion reactor, and the Wanderers state that the Bright is so energy expensive to operate that comparatively, colonizing the Milky Way in any one plane would be a much easier task despite the lack of Faster-Than-Light Travel.
- The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England: The whole premise of the setting is that there are infinite alternative dimensions that can be reached through portals.
- Harold Shea: The Syllogismobile attunes the practitioners' minds to a selected alternate universe strongly enough to shift them into it.
- Her Spell That Binds Me: Special portals take people to other worlds.
- His Dark Materials: One side of the Subtle Knife is so sharp it can cut through anything, the other is so sharp it can cut through the universe and into a neighboring one. The limitations are that it can only do so in places with a Thin Dimensional Barrier, and that altitude is relative: if you're on top of a building and want to escape through another universe, you'll probably open a portal onto empty air. Also, every open portal causes an imbalance in the flow of Dust and lets soul-eating Specters into the world. There are other methods of traveling between dimensions, but the Subtle Knife is the simplest.
- InCryptid:
- Alice mainly uses Power Tattoos to travel between dimensions, but Naga also gives her some beads that do the same thing without some of the unpleasant side-effects.
- Johrlac Hive Minds use cosmic equations to open holes in reality, though this usually destroys the world they're leaving.
- Johannes Cabal and the Fear Institute: The Silver Key from the Cthulhu Mythos creates a gateway for physical travel to the Dreamlands. However, it requires the mind of someone who has seen Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, transforming them bodily into the Gate and hopefully killing them in the process.
- The Kadingir series has the titular Kadingir technology, which opens portals to connect Earth with a parallel dimension. Ishtar activates one such devices by accident, thinking it's a Game Boy, and gets lost in planet Ki as a result.
- "Living Space": This Earth developed dimensional travel technology instead of Casual Interstellar Travel, because the technology was too difficult. Homes are built on alternate Earths that never developed life as we know it. Devices are keyed to work with the front door and what is effectively the garage. A unique 'probability pattern' is used to describe each Earth.
- The Long Earth: Interdimensional travel is performed by the use of a Stepper, the designs for which appeared online one day. Its components are common enough to be bought from the local shops, and it's apparently powered by a potato-battery. Also unique is the fact that, unlike most other examples where parallel universes may diverge in recent history but are still recognisably similar to our own Earth, the parallel universes of the Long Earth are wildernesses devoid of human life (although not necessarily of intelligent life). Only our own Earth evolved humans.
- The Lord of the Rings: The One Ring can actually be reckoned as one. Gandalf states as much when he says the Ring (making the bearer invisible) serves as this, because the bearer then is carried into the realm of the unseen, although without taking the bearer anywhere physically. The "unseen" realm is juxtaposed right on top of the regular world. Frodo, while wounded by the Morgul knife, is able to see both worlds.
- Myth Adventures has the D-Hopper, which is used throughout the series to get to different universes.
- In The Neanderthal Parallax, decoherence created by a quantum computer sends the neanderthal Ponter to a universe very similar to our own.
- In The Number of the Beast, Professor Jacob Burroughs creates a device that allows travel between dimensions. It's installed in a vehicle and allows the protagonists to go on a series of adventures.
- In the Paratime series, the means of traveling through timelines is a conveyor using the Ghaldron-Hesthor field-generator. Conveyors are fixed in place, which means that as they travel through timelines, they may end up inside nuclear reactors or other hazards or be caught in warfare (a common activity on at least one timeline in nearly every trip, Paratimers note). Weakening of the transposition field is a concern of Paratimers.
- The Aleph from Spectral Stalkers can send the user from one random dimension to another. It's the only way to escape from the dreaded Spectral Stalkers.
- In The Starlore Legacy, the Malakians translate themselves from the Ruah to the physical realm and back using little phase-shifter devices on their belts.
- The Titus Crow book The Transition of Titus Crow has a clock that allows Crow to travel to different dimensions.
- The Wheel of Time has Portal Stones which, among other things, will let people travel between parallel realities.
- World of Tiers: People can travel between the artificial universes of the setting by using gates. Gates can be activated by various means, including tokens and playing music on a special horn.
- Worlds of Shadow: Some wizards on the world of Faerie know a spell that can open portals to other worlds. Scientists from the Galactic Empire in another universe also created a device which makes "space warps" that do the same thing.
Live-Action TV
- Angel: One is used to travel to Skip's holding dimension where Billy is being kept. Angel uses another to travel to Jasmine's old home. The Buffyverse's portal books probably count as well.
- Arrowverse:
- A number of metahumans are capable of opening breaches between parallel worlds. These include people with "vibe" powers (Cisco, his Earth-2 double, Gypsy) and speedsters. Eventually, Cisco manages to create a small device that can open a breach between Earth-38 and Earth-1, just in case Kara wants to visit Barry. In a crossover episode, Music Meister uses the device to get to Barry, although it's implied he doesn't actually need it and merely wants Mon-El to follow him there.
- In the Crisis Crossover event Crisis on Earth-X, the resistance on Earth-X creates a portal machine which will enable them to recruit help from other realities to overthrow the Nazi regime. Unfortunately, the Nazis discover the project and seize control of it, planning on using it to conquer other Earths as they did their own.
- Babylon 5: The Jumpgates, based on technology developed by long-forgotten Precursors, allow spacefarers to travel to and from a more condensed dimension known as Hyperspace, facilitating Faster-Than-Light Travel via Extra-Dimensional Shortcut. More powerful starships can produce Jumppoints, of similar function but not requiring the large mostly immobile gates.
- Doctor Who:
- The Time Lords did this on a regular basis before the Time War.
- In "Inferno", the TARDIS console transports the Doctor to a parallel universe where Britain is governed by Fascists.
- In "Rise of the Cybermen", the entire TARDIS travels to another parallel universe (usually referred to as "Pete's World") where Britain is a republic and zeppelins are in common use. In "Army of Ghosts", the inhabitants of Pete's World develop transporter medallions that can travel between the dimensions; later, they create a "dimension cannon" for the same purpose. However, it can only be used in emergencies, as crossing the barrier between worlds weakens it.
- The Dalek-built Void Ship (which created the tear between realities) was designed to traverse the void, or the extradimensional space between universes. When it's in void transit mode, it's visible, but otherwise doesn't exist (scans report it as having no mass or dimension), and is described as creepy to look at. When the void transit functionality is switched off (just prior to the Daleks emerging), it "becomes" a normal vehicle with normal mass/et cetera.
- There are several "techniques" of universe-crossing in Fringe: Walter's portal, which causes both universes to begin collapsing; William Bell's technique by which he pulled Olivia into the AU (usually only works on hybrid Super Soldiers who are designed to survive the crossing; it worked on Olivia because of her Cortexiphan-enhanced physiology); and the natural way, which is achieved by groups of Cortexiphan Kids being guided by Walter (clearly the least dangerous to dimensions and dimension-crossers of the three, but not without its kinks). Besides crossing, Peter is able to use the device created to only work with his genetics to bridge the universes, creating an Inn Between the Worlds. This, unlike the other devices such as Walter's portal device, has no known negative side effects. Another, less used method is the harmonic rods, which create an equilateral triangle enveloping the subject on both sides and vibrate at the same frequency, causing two objects of approximately equal mass to exchange places in space-time. There are many ways to mess this up, though, such as only placing the rods in one universe.
- The Man in the High Castle: Throughout the series, various characters are able to visit parallel universe through some form of meditation, causing the film reels showing these worlds to spread. In season 3, the Nazis build an interdimensional travel device through technological means in an abandoned mine, the Nebenwelt project, in order to conquer other worlds.
- The Monkees: In the 1997 ABC special Hey, Hey, It's the Monkees, we learn that Mike had turned the Monkeemobile into a dimension machine (AND lowrider, of all things). It's even capable of transporting them back to The '60s.
- The Cyber Museum from MythQuest lets Alex and Cleo select a historical artifact and enter a myth associated with the culture it came from.
- Jefferson's hat in Once Upon a Time (2011) can be used to travel between the different worlds. However, it can only travel to a world with magic, which makes it largely useless to his employer Rumplestiltskin, who wants to travel to a land without magic.
- Power Rangers:
- In Power Rangers Mystic Force, the frequent hopping between the mystic world, the human world, the Underworld, and any of the other gazillion one-off ones featured in the show is easily accomplished with the teleportation spells the villains use. The heroes? Well, it helps to have a Sixth Ranger with a train that easily crosses dimensions as well as turning into a Humongous Mecha.
- Come Power Rangers Ninja Steel and the series' 25th Anniversary episode, it seems other Rangers have been developing a dimension-hopper of their own, called a Transportal Device, capable of traversing between variant timelines. Such a device, as pointed out in History of Power Rangers, makes future team-ups all the more simple from a meta-perspective, since the writers won't have any reason not to have the Rangers use it.
- Red Dwarf has had several methods for dimension travel:
- In "Parallel Universe", the Holly Hop Drive brings the ship to the titular universe after a calculation error.
- In "Backwards", a time hole brings the ship to a universe where time runs backwards.
- "Dimension Jump" introduces Ace Rimmer and his ship that can travel through dimensions.
- "Only the Good..." has a prisim laser that leads to a mirror universe.
- "Back to Earth" has a dimension cutter that employs the use of the ink from a dimension-traveling monster that leads to a Real-World Episode (only not, as much of the three-parter is an illusion and they never left the ship).
- In "Skipper", Kryten invents the Quantum Skipper, a dimensional travel device based on information salvaged from a science lab they previously visited, which Rimmer then uses to find a universe where he thinks he'll be happier.
- Sliders:
- There's the "Timer", several of which were actually used by the main characters (the original until about the midpoint of the series, the one from Egyptian World that they'd use until the end, and Colonel Rickman's Timer, important for season three's endgame). The Timer's job was to open wormholes between universes, and also to malfunction or get stolen, providing half the series' plots.
- The Kromaggs have a more advanced version, which they use to conquer human worlds. In their first episode, they use a device taken by one of the Sliders to track them down on another world. However, it turns out that they didn't invent sliding technology. It was given to them by Quinn's double (the one from the pilot) to escape from their Earth, where they were fighting with humans. Later on, they try to use human brains to build instantaneous portals that work on a different principle than sliding tech in order to bypass the Slidecage.
- The sequel series to Spellbinder has the Trans-Dimensional Bamboo Boat, made from some kind of woody material. It looks like a boat, and travels across dimensions.
- Stargate-verse:
- Stargate SG-1:
- There's the "quantum mirror", which makes a few appearances in early episodes before being destroyed offscreen, on O'Neill's orders. In one episode, Daniel accidentally uses it to travel to another universe; in a later episode, alternate-universe versions of Carter and Kowalski come back through it, looking for refuge from the Go'a'uld invasion fleet that just arrived on Earth in their universe.
- A later episode has a strange phenomenon that causes hundreds of SG-1 teams from alternate realities to start popping up in the "main" SGC. It turns out that the phenomenon was caused by the first alternate SG-1 team to arrive, who wanted to steal the "main" reality's ZPM.
- Stargate Atlantis:
- An alternate McKay builds an "alternate reality drive" which has this function. The only problem is, it doesn't have an off switch or any way to control which reality it jumps into. This leads to one universe's worth of main characters being stranded in the wrong reality and another universe's worth dying of starvation before they can figure it out, before the actual main characters bootstrap on their research and discover a way to make it backtrack through the realities it came from (so they can at least get home, if not actually exploit the drive).
- Another episode has McKay try to use a device to generate unlimited energy by getting it from an alternate reality. Unfortunately, this ends up nearly destroying an inhabited universe, so the alternate McKay uses the "bridge" to cross over into the "main" reality. At the end of the episode, they send him back.
- Stargate SG-1:
- Star Trek: Under the right circumstances, transporters can be used to travel between dimensions. One way is to add a device to the transporter that reconfigures it for this use.
- The Witcher: Blood Origin: The monoliths, if activated properly with magic, can open gateways into other worlds.
Tabletop Games
- In the Champions adventure The Great Supervillain Contest, the Crimson Claw's base has the power of interdimensional teleportation. It was originally a dimensional exploration ship: when it entered his home dimension, the Claw drained the Life Energy of the crew and stole it.
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- The Amulet of the Planes is a powerful Magical Accessory that lets the wearer transport themself and others to any other Plane of existence. There's no limit on its use, but it requires an Intelligence test each time to target the correct destination.
- The Cubic Gate is a rare magic item that is keyed to six Planes of existence and can manifest a portal to any one of them at a time.
- Various editions have no shortage of Portal Doors and like devices, such as disguised Magic Mirrors, that transport their users across Planes. Some are "always on" while others onlly activate when a certain combination of objects (a "portal key") are presented to them.
- In Module Q1, Queen of the Demonweb Pits, a temple in a Drow city has a mural of a starry sky. If the Player Characters pass through an image of Lolth and touch it, they will be transferred to the level of the Abyss where Lolth's Demonweb exists. Once there they can find doorways to alternate Prime Material Planes as well as the Abyssal level where Lolth's spider ship awaits them.
- In Module X2, Castle Amber, the Gate of the Silver Keys takes the Player Characters from Glantri in the Known World to the dimension where the country of Averoigne exists.
- The Player Characters in GURPS Alternate Earths and Infinite Worlds are interdimensional travelers, using a variety of devices ranging from handhelds to gates to vehicles.
- Magic: The Gathering: The ability to traverse The Multiverse is normally limited to planeswalkers who awakened to the innate ability to do so, but a few artificial methods have popped up over the years:
- The game's original villains, the Phyrexians, had devices called Ambulators which created portals to any plane.
- The Talon Gates were created in the aftermath of the first Planeswalker Duel on Dominaria, from the loser's corpse. It allowed planar travel to some extent, but there aren't many details on exactly how it functioned. It's beleived to at least have allowed consistent travel between Dominaria and Kamigawa.
- On the plane of Kaladesh, Rashimi develops what she thinks is a simple teleporter, but is actually a device to move between the planes. This is incredibly powerful, as while Planeswalkers can move themselves between planes no problem, there are restrictions on what they can bring with them that will arrive intact. Tezzeret gets a hold of it and eventually develops it in to the Planar Bridge
.
- After the Mending, all previous Planeshifting devices stopped working. The only new device developed since the Mending was Rashmi's Planar Bridge, and that can't transport living matter unless it's a planeswalker anyway. As it turns out, Nicol Bolas only needed it to transport an army of the dead from Amonkhet to Ravnica. After the War of the Spark ended, it currently remains in the hands of Tezzeret.
- Paranoia had the Transdimensional Collapsatron, which allowed travel between dimensions in several adventures.
- Pathfinder has magic items called planar keystones that allow the user to plane shift to a specific location on another plane. The book on planar adventures also outlines the material components of the plane shift spell as planar tuning forks and has alternative rules for them if the DM wishes to restrict travel between dimensions, or at least make it more difficult for the players.
- One plot hook in Rocket Age involves a man going missing from his private room, with the only object of interest being a large wardrobe. His name? C. S. Lewis!
- The "chronoscooters" in Timemaster were time machines that could also move between different timelines.
Toys
- In BIONICLE, the Kanohi Olmak is a Kanohi mask with the power to open portals to pretty much anywhere, including alternate universes; it can also be used to teleport around whichever universe you're in, too, however, which is very useful. Only two of them exist, however, and both start the story in the hands of villains.
- Jewelpet: This is one of the Jewel Pod's many functions.
Video Games
- In Chrono Cross, Serge uses Kid's astral amulet to travel between his world and the other world which was created 10 years ago due to a universal split where Serge is alive in one universe and dead in the other. See Schrödinger's Cat
- In Crash Twinsanity, the psychetron created by Dr. Neo Cortex can travel between Crash's world and the 10th dimension and most of the game is based around gathering the power crystals needed to power the device so Crash Bandicoot can get to the 10th dimension to save his world.
- Chapter 2, Season 5 of Fortnite: Battle Royale sees Agent Jones use a portal device to recruit hunters from different realities onto the Island, in order to prevent any of the locals from breaking out of the "Groundhog Day" Loop that they're trapped on.
- Parodied in the Henry Stickmin Series game Infiltrating the Airship. One of the options available in the game is the Transdimensionalizer. When Henry flips the switch, it transports him to the 1st Dimension (aka a single straight horizontal line in mathematics). And he can't return either since the switch flips up and down.
- Kingdom Hearts features various means to travel between worlds, some riskier than others. The safest option is to use a Gummi Ship, although this becomes harder after the Gummi blocks that constitute the walls protecting all worlds are restored after the first game, as people now have to rely on Keyblade wielders to open hidden pathways called Gates. Another safe option is to cross special pathways called Lanes Between, but this is exclusive to Keyblade wielders. A less cumbersome but more riskier option is to use the Corridors of Darkness. While only people with control of darkness can conjure them, anyone can use them after that. However, exposing oneself to darkness without wearing a black cloak will lead to unfortunate side effects.
- The Longest Journey Saga: While not a device, there are two main methods shown that allow travel between the various worlds. Shifters are people who physically travel via portal they themselves open. Normally, they can only travel between Stark (the world of technology) and Arcadia (the world of magic). April actually has to fly into space in Stark in order to get to the Guardian's Realm via a wormhole of some sort. Dreamfall Chapters also introduces Dreamers, people who fall asleep in one world and project a physical double into another one. The reason why both types of people are able to cross between worlds is because all these worlds used to be one until they were split up by powerful wizards and scientists with the help from some space dragons in order to keep the world from being destroyed.
- In Phantasy Star Online 2, Phantasy Star Online 2 serves as this, linking the dimension that hosts Oracle and ARKS to that of Earth.
- Legendary Pokémon of Pokémon Sun and Moon, Solgaleo and Lunala can open up a wormhole in between an unknown number of dimensions. The first stage evolution, Cosmog, can also do this.
- The Realmwalkers of Rakenzarn Frontier Story possess a teleporter system in the record hall of their HQ which can send people to any world, provided they have the book that documents that world's history and can set the proper coordinates. Later, Makoto gains an app for his phone that allows him to teleport directly to the Chamber of Rakenzarn at any time.
- The titular book of Rakenzarn Tales, which can transport whoever reads the appropriate incantation contained within between their home world and the world of Rakenzarn.
- Ratchet & Clank: The Dimensionator, created by the Lombaxes to end the Great War against the Cragmites, allows its user to open portals to any dimension merely by telling the device what to find.
- The Yamato Perpetual Reactor in Shin Megami Tensei IV. With just the correct push, it can also serve as a handy multiverse-crushing black hole-creating machine.
- In Total Distortion, alien teleporters randomly show up on Earth, which turn out to allow travel between millions of different dimensional planes, many of them based on Earth pop culture. Unusually, the people of Earth first use these machines to teleport freight around the world, since teleporting a human puts them in a 6-week coma, along with the fact that larger objects cost more energy to be transmitted.
- The "ancient ruins" that are the goal of Touhou Yumejikuu ~ Phantasmagoria of Dim. Dream turn out to be a Hyperprobability Space Vessel used by Yumemi and Chiyuri to travel from their own world to Gensokyo in search of the secrets of magic.
Webcomics
- In Bob and George, the Author is sent back through one.
- In Dragon Ball Multiverse, some guys called the Vargas have one; it drives the plot, as they're able to cross between universes (timelines). They come from a different universe than the one the protagonists live in, and they offer them a chance to participate in a tournament among fighters from different universes. One of them is hijacked by King Vegeta and the Saiyans of Universe 10 in a coup d'état. But this part of the plot is in a galaxy far, far away... and only discussed in the novelization.
- In El Goonish Shive, Nioi possesses one of these which also seems to function as a Crystal Ball.
- In The KAMics, there are the Semi-Mystical Otherworldly Gates.
- MS Paint Adventures:
- Homestuck features fenestrated walls. Normally they're used to observe faraway places, but smashing through the wall allows one to travel to the location. Andrew Hussie breaks through one of these walls to get from his house in Real Life to Doc Scratch's house in the trolls' universe. Later, Jade and John use another of these walls to escape a universe that's being written out of existence.
- In Problem Sleuth, there two ways to travel between the real world and the world of imagination: either climbing through a window, or entering a fort and imagining really hard (booze helps with the latter).
- In PMD: Another Perspective, Team Rocket has invented a machine that creates a portal to a world where only Pokémon exist. They plan on using it to abduct rare Pokémon from the other world and sell them for profit.
- In Sluggy Freelance, Riff invents the Dimensional Flux Agitator (DFA), originally to blast Bun-bun into a random alternate universe. He and Torg end up standing on the wrong side and send themselves instead. He later builds a remote allowing people to come back... in theory.
- A one-shot character in Three Panel Soul tears his way into a parallel reality that is... a bit more parallel than most.
Web Originals
- In Blackbird's Aniverse setting, the hammerspace drive, which can fit in a character's pocket and allows travel into Hammerspace, which connects various zones in different dimensions. For example, in the "Kawaii" dimension, there's a Happy Bunny Forest zone, which is an entire universe filled with bunnies. In the "Boring" dimension, there's Tokyo Prime, a universe where Tokyo is the center of everything, but nothing ever happens there, and so on.
- In The Colmaton Universe, K9 Heat has his Gadgeteer Genius friend Mary Fenris modify an Apple Watch for him to open tears in the universe and travel through The Multiverse.
- The various dimension-spanning organizations in The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids have different means of crossing the barriers between world, but the most common are small ships with traverse the Void on their way to their destination. This includes the Cupids' own vehicles, the Fog Ships, which are stated to be top-of-the-line when it comes to interdimensional vehicle, although that might just be the Cupids' own propaganda.
Western Animation
- Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake: Prismo's remote normally lets him view anything in the multiverse from the Time Room, however he modifies it into a dimension-hopping device and gives it to Fionna. Simon also puts a gem from a destroyed copy of the Ice King's crown in it so that it can take them to universes where the crown exists.
- Amphibia: What's only known as the Calamity Box transported the protagonist and her two girlfriends to the titular universe where sapient, anthropomorphic amphibians live in a rather dangerous swamp world of monstrous predators. In the second season, their king reveals that the device was created by his ancestors to traverse various alternate universes, and it needs to be taken to three temples they built to recharge it for another trip. This is a lie. The Calamity Stones are the actual source of power, and their powers were transferred to the three girls when they first used the box. The temples are actually intended to transfer the power back from the girls to the gems, which the king intends to use to become a Multiversal Conqueror.
- Dr. Dimensionpants: The eponymous dimension pants allow the wearer to travel between dimensions.
- Family Guy: In "Road to the Multiverse", Stewie invents a remote control that can travel to many universes, including one where Meg is hot, but still ugly compared to everyone else.
- Futurama: In "The Farnsworth Parabox", Professor Hubert Farnsworth accidentally creates a box that contains another universe where the outcome of every coin flip is reversed. The other universe's Farnsworth created a box containing the main universe. The two Farnsworths wind up creating a ton more of such boxes during the episode.
- The Owl House has Eda's Portal Door, which is the only reliable method of passing between Earth and the Demon Realm (the only other way being the reality bleeds that cause human junk to wash up on the shores of the Boiling Isles). She mostly uses it to steal human junk to sell at her store, though her possession of it, its history, and how it was made are incredibly important to the show's Myth Arc. The portal gets destroyed in the end, but the Collector has the ability to generate wormholes, and one such wormhole was made between the Boiling Isles and Earth that is stabilized by a new device.
- Rick Sanchez of Rick and Morty has a handheld portal gun that shoots out a portal to a dimension of his choosing. Later seasons show many other beings with similar technology, all distinguished by different colors and different portal shapes.
- The two-part Shaun the Sheep episode "Shirleyverse" sees Shaun use Shirley's fleece as this, starting with Shaun visiting a world where Bitzer isn't around, before he struggles to find his way home, visiting worlds including one where the pigs have a dictatorship control of the farm, where sheep have Bitzer's head (except Shirley, who has the Farmer's head), a world where Shaun is Bitzer, and finally a world where the farm is abandoned.
- Star Trek: Lower Decks: The final season gives us the Beagle, a ship built by Lily Sloane and Zephram Cochrane from another universe. Instead of a warp drive, the ship is equipped with a quantum reality drive that opened quantum fissures to travel between realities. Unbeknownst to the crew (although suspected by one Vulcan crewmember), opening one fissure created another. The Beagle is eventually destroyed by Lieutenant Harry Kim from the only reality where he was promoted when he attempted to enter an unstable fissure. The Beagle's crew survives, though, and joins William Boimler's crew on the Anaximander when she returns to the Prime universe.
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Many characters use dimensional scissors which cut open portals to other universes. They seem to be very common in most dimensions. Star isn't supposed to have any, but her friend Pony Head loans her a pair... which turn out to have been stolen from Hekapoo, the one who forges all dimensional scissors. Marco has to undergo a trial to earn his own pair; it takes him sixteen years to succeed. Even considering the hefty time difference (the trial only took eight minutes from the perspective of everyone else), it's unclear if everyone else who owns a pair of dimensional scissors went through a similar trial.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Turtles use the transdimensional portal, a technology that allows travel to alternate universes. It is most commonly used in the 1987 cartoon series. Another approach is used in Turtles Forever; the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles use a dimensional portal stick to go to the 1987 universe.
- W.I.T.C.H. (2004) has several magical items that allow travel through dimensions, with the Seal of Phobos (and later the Heart of Kandrakar after it absorbs the seal) being the first example shown, and the Mage's ring and the Tonga Tooth necklace in the second season. Elyon, the Heart of Meridian, can open Folds with her power and jokingly laments that she doesn't get any new jewelry like the others.
Other
- Some theories suggest that Black Holes, or rather wormholes within them, could act as this, sending whatever fell into them often to another universe. These ideas, however, have been put into doubt by later ones that state that either said wormhole would be unstable and close immediately, so no interdimensional travel of any kind, or that said behavior is just a failure of our current understanding.
