Universes
The universes of cryptography
A thousand years of secret writing does not fit on a single shelf. Eleven universes to wander through the ciphers in a different way: by video-game licence, by century of invention, by brotherhood that used them, by science-fiction film that recycled them. Each universe gathers methods that share a narrative or historical kinship.
11 universes · 164 methods
Eleven cryptographic universes
The great classics
Caesar, Vigenère, Atbash, Enigma: the ciphers that shaped cryptography from Antiquity to the Second World War.
Transposition ciphers
No substitution — the letters move. Scytale, turning grille, rail fence, double transposition: geometry in the service of secrecy.
Ancient scripts & real-world signals
Hieroglyphs, ogham, Tifinagh, runes, Morse, semaphore, braille: writing systems that actually existed.
Esoterica & Renaissance occult
Theban, Malachim, Enochian, the celestial alphabet, Pigpen: the magical alphabets passed down through medieval and Renaissance grimoires.
Cryptograms in literature
Sherlock Holmes, the Beale code, the Dorabella affair, the Kryptos sculpture: cryptograms that fuelled short stories, biographies and real-world riddles.
Symbols in stories
Alphabets invented for novels: Conan Doyle’s "Dancing Men", Tolkien’s tengwar, Dinotopia’s dinosaur code.
Science fiction on screen
Klingon, Vulcan, Aurebesh, Kryptonian, Tenctonese, Stargate: the alien scripts that have sprinkled sci-fi blockbusters for fifty years.
Video games
Zelda, Skyrim, Final Fantasy, Genshin Impact, Halo, Fez, Stray: half a century of invented alphabets used to inhabit video-game worlds.
Gravity Falls
Seven different alphabets scattered across the episodes and the Journals: alchemy, runes, colour codes, brother Bill — the full cryptographic arsenal of Alex Hirsch.
Animated Disney cartoons
Amphibia, Atlantis, Dinotopia, Magi: the secret languages slipped into contemporary animated series.
Symbols through history
Enigma, Mary Queen of Scots, agent Bazeries, the Zodiac killer, Kryptos: ciphers that played a real historical role — war, diplomacy, crime.