The Vex in Destiny 2 use rune-like symbols that map to binary and hexadecimal patterns. Here is how Bungie's alien number systems connect to real computational logic.
Destiny 2, released by Bungie in 2017, features an alien race called the Vex: cybernetic entities that operate on computational logic and communicate through rune-like symbols. The Vex are not just a visual design choice. Their number systems, their architecture, and the puzzles built around them in raids like the Vault of Glass are grounded in real positional notation, binary encoding, and hexadecimal patterns.
The Edge of Fate expansion, launched July 15, 2025, brought the Vex back to the center of Destiny 2's narrative. It began the "Year of Prophecy" and the "Fate Saga," introduced a new destination called Kepler, and added a new raid called "The Desert Perpetual" on July 19, 2025. The expansion features the Vex and the Nine, tying the alien race to the game's ongoing cosmological storyline.
If you want to experiment with the encoding systems the Vex resemble, our Binary to Text tool](/tools/binary-to-text) and Hex to Text tool let you convert between number bases. The [Wikipedia article on Destiny 2 covers the game's development and content history.
The Vex are a race of cybernetic time-traveling entities in Destiny and Destiny 2. They are not biological in the conventional sense. Each individual Vex unit is a node in a larger computational network, and the network itself is the organism. The Vex operate on logic that resembles machine computation: they simulate futures, calculate optimal outcomes, and execute actions based on those calculations.
Bungie designed the Vex to feel alien by making their behavior algorithmic rather than emotional. Where other alien races in Destiny (the Cabal, the Hive, the Fallen) have hierarchies, leaders, and motivations that map onto human political structures, the Vex do not. They have no leader to negotiate with and no cause to argue against. They compute. The Wikipedia article on the Vex) covers their lore and role in the franchise.
This design choice extends to their visual language. Vex architecture is geometric, modular, and covered in symbols that resemble circuit traces and positional notation. The runes that appear on Vex surfaces and in Vex-themed puzzles are not decorative. They are the visual representation of a number system that Bungie built to be internally consistent.
The runes associated with the Vex in Destiny 2 use a small set of recurring symbols. When analyzed, these symbols map cleanly to binary patterns: each rune can be decomposed into a set of on/off states arranged in a grid. This is structurally identical to binary encoding, where each bit represents a power of 2 and the combination of bits represents a number.
The Wikipedia article on binary numbers covers the history and mechanics of base-2 notation. Binary was formalized by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in his 1703 paper "Explication de l'Arithmetique Binaire," though earlier systems of binary-like notation existed in ancient China (the I Ching) and India. Leibniz's system is the direct ancestor of the binary representation used in all modern computers.
The Vex runes go beyond simple binary. Some symbols incorporate positional variation that maps to hexadecimal (base-16) values, where a single symbol represents a value from 0 to 15. This is the same principle used in HTML color codes, MAC addresses, and assembly language programming. You can test hexadecimal conversion with our Hex to Text tool. The use of multiple bases in the Vex visual language is one reason the race feels computationally sophisticated: they are not just using binary, they are using the same multi-base encoding that real software systems use.
The Vault of Glass is a raid in Destiny (2014) that was reprised in Destiny 2 in 2021. It is set inside a Vex simulation and contains puzzles that require players to engage with Vex logic directly. The most notable is the "oracles" encounter, where players must destroy a sequence of oracles in the correct order.
The oracle sequence is a memory and pattern recognition challenge. Seven oracles appear in fixed positions, and each encounter presents a subset of them in a specific order. Players must identify which oracles have appeared and destroy them in sequence before the next set spawns. The puzzle is a form of ordered list reconstruction: you are given partial information (which oracles appeared) and must reconstruct the full sequence before time expires.
The Templar encounter in the same raid uses a different Vex logic puzzle. Players must locate and hold specific positions in the arena to prevent the Templar from teleporting. The teleport destinations are determined by a Vex algorithm that players can counteract by reading the visual cues in the environment. This is a real-time constraint satisfaction problem, similar in structure to the deduction puzzles in Return of the Obra Dinn, though operating at a much faster pace. Our Standard Galactic Alphabet tool covers another game's symbolic substitution system that shares properties with Vex runes.
The number systems that the Vex runes resemble are real, and they are worth understanding if you want to appreciate what Bungie built. Binary (base-2) uses two symbols, 0 and 1, and each position represents a power of 2. Hexadecimal (base-16) uses 16 symbols (0-9 and A-F) and each position represents a power of 16. Octal (base-8) uses 8 symbols (0-7) and each position represents a power of 8.
These are all positional number systems, meaning the value of a digit depends on its position. This concept was transmitted to Europe through the work of Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi in the 9th century, whose name gave us the word "algorithm." The Bungie press room contains press releases about Destiny 2's expansions and content updates.
The reason computers use binary is physical: electronic circuits have two stable states (on and off), so binary is the natural representation. Hexadecimal is used as a shorthand for binary because one hex digit represents exactly 4 binary digits, making it easy for humans to read and write binary values compactly. Octal is less common today but was widely used in early computing because some early computers used 12-bit or 36-bit word sizes, which divide evenly by 3 (the number of bits in one octal digit).
The Vex runes map onto this hierarchy. Simple runes correspond to binary values. Complex runes that combine multiple symbols correspond to hexadecimal values. This is not a coincidence. Bungie's art and design teams built the Vex visual language to reflect the computational nature of the race, and that means using the number systems that computation is built on. You can experiment with binary conversion using our Binary to Text tool.
The Edge of Fate expansion launched on July 15, 2025. It began the "Year of Prophecy," a new era of Destiny 2 content, and the "Fate Saga," a multi-expansion narrative arc. The expansion introduced a new destination called Kepler and a new raid, "The Desert Perpetual," which released on July 19, 2025.
The expansion centers on the Vex and the Nine, a mysterious faction in Destiny's lore associated with the planets of the solar system. The Vex content in Edge of Fate builds on the mechanical and visual language established in earlier Vex encounters. New rune patterns appear on Kepler, and the raid incorporates puzzle mechanics that require players to read and interpret Vex symbols under time pressure.
The Desert Perpetual raid has been praised by the Destiny 2 community for its difficulty and its integration of Vex logic into encounter mechanics. One encounter requires players to decode a sequence of Vex runes that map to hexadecimal values, then input the corresponding binary sequence at specific terminals. This is the most direct translation of real number system mechanics into a gameplay puzzle that Bungie has produced. It is also a puzzle that players with programming or computer science backgrounds solve faster, which is an unusual design choice for a mass-market game.
The Vex feel alien because they are built on principles that are familiar to programmers but unfamiliar to most players. A player who has never thought about binary encoding sees Vex runes as mysterious symbols. A player who works with binary and hexadecimal daily sees them as a number system wearing a costume.
This is a deliberate design strategy. Bungie could have made the Vex visually alien by giving them organic, asymmetrical shapes (as the Hive are designed). Instead, they made the Vex alien by making them computational. The alienness comes from the logic, not the appearance. The geometric regularity of Vex architecture, the positional notation of their runes, and the algorithmic nature of their behavior all signal that these entities operate on a different substrate than biological life.
The comparison to our Fallout terminal hacking tool is instructive. Fallout's terminal puzzles use word-based deduction, which is a human-friendly cipher. The Vex use number-based encoding, which is a machine-friendly cipher. Both are puzzles, but they appeal to different cognitive skills. The Vex puzzles reward the same thinking that programming and cryptanalysis reward: pattern recognition across positional systems, systematic elimination of possibilities, and the ability to hold multiple representations of the same value in your head simultaneously.
The Vex are a cybernetic alien race that operates on computational logic. Each Vex unit is a node in a larger network, and the network is the organism. They simulate futures, calculate outcomes, and execute actions algorithmically. They use rune-like symbols that map to binary and hexadecimal patterns.
Yes. Vex runes decompose into binary patterns, and more complex runes map to hexadecimal values. Bungie designed the Vex visual language to reflect the computational nature of the race, using the same positional number systems that real computers are built on.
The Vault of Glass is a raid set inside a Vex simulation. It was originally released in Destiny (2014) and reprised in Destiny 2 in 2021. It contains puzzles that require players to engage with Vex logic, including the oracles encounter (a pattern recognition challenge) and the Templar encounter (a real-time constraint satisfaction problem).
The Edge of Fate launched on July 15, 2025, beginning Destiny 2's Year of Prophecy and the Fate Saga. It introduced the destination Kepler and the raid The Desert Perpetual (July 19, 2025). The expansion features the Vex and the Nine and includes puzzle mechanics that require players to decode Vex runes mapping to hexadecimal and binary values.
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