Vex: Time Traveling Robots. (Destiny)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Monday, August 25, 2014, 23:11 (3542 days ago)
edited by Ragashingo, Monday, August 25, 2014, 23:17

Recently, the question of why we all call the Vex "time traveling robots" came up and I didn't have a great answer. The only two data points I could find were a potentially vague quote from Chris Barrett from a Gameinformer interview last December where he said of the Vex:

They might time travel or come from another distant time. Where they came from or when they came from is inscrutable.

The second data point was much more recent. One of the pieces of exclusive PS4 content is the Manifold piece or pieces of armor that would help Warlocks "brave the pocket worlds buried in the nameless depths trapped beyond space and time."

Oddly, as I was writing up my Looking Back article I kept coming across DBOers referencing the Vex's supposed time travel capabilities. We had contest winning Haiku, we had very early April 2013 fan fiction, and there were just various comments where people had apparent knowledge of the Vex's time traveling status all throughout the forum. But where did it all come from? We are generally an outstanding and very detail oriented community. Did we all just make up "time traveling robots"?

No, no we didn't. It took a small amount of poking around but I've (re)discovered two additional very good sources:

1. The earlier of the two sources is a Feb, 2013 IGN Concept Art Analysis video in which Ryan McCaffery talks about each of the few early pieces of Destiny concept art. He speculates on each piece, but was also apparently in contact with Bungie around this time as he delivers direct quotes from them at least twice. At about 10:40 he gets to the Vex Postcard Image that was briefly talked about at GDC2013 and says:

They are described as quote, 'time traveling robots’ by Bungie.

2. About a month later kapowaz gave a quick summary of the Edge Magazine's April 2013 Destiny Feature. In one of his bullet points he said, summarizing from Edge:

The Vex are time-travelling robots from the future (I know some speculation has been that they're from the past, but I've never personally been sold on this).

We now have four sources spread from Feb, 2013 to Aug, 2014 all linking the Vex to time travel. Two of those sources were direct quotations from Bungie. One was from a gaming magazine that was provided with Destiny information by Bungie. And one was a description of armor that had the mythic scifi feel that is associated with Destiny.

I've always thought I'd be that much better of a lore person if I'd bother to write down my sources. Well, I now consider these sources suitably written down. :)