Talk:839: Explorers

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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How is that ship flying in the first place? Wouldn't the pieces fall off? Davidy²²[talk] 09:59, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Inertia The pieces are moving at the same speed as the board. You would need energy to slow it down. Search it up. It's everywhere on the web. 108.162.241.64 00:54, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Magnetic Chess :-) 121.99.55.58 03:23, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Is the mini board really floating? It looked to me like it was adrift in sea. I think I might make some edits.

I think the board is actually rolling on casters. If you look closely you can see a small round circle by each corner. I've edited it a bit. 199.27.128.63 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)
In the original transcript, it notes that it's mounted on rockets. WriterArtistCoder 02:06, 11 May 2020 (UTC)


This comic actually has a common error by non-chess players using chess positions: a1, and by extension a3 and c3, are dark squares. h1 is supposed to be the light-squared corner. 18.215.1.155 06:50, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Unless, of course, the positions are relative to their small board, where al corners are white and hence numbering has to start on a white square 108.162.212.218 17:41, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

It looks like there are wheels in the corners. 209.104.241.66 16:25, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

The loose 3x3 board is from a Classic Star Trek 3-D chess set. The little pegs on the corners are used to secure the board in different places around the game. 74.98.181.175 02:03, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

No, it's not. The Star Trek 3D chess consists of 3 stationary 4x4's and 4 mobile 2x2's. --108.162.254.183 02:25, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Make of it what you will, but I just realized that the robber in Catan looks a lot like a black bishop....173.245.54.45 14:27, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

There's a typo in the comic. It says "misson" instead of "mission". 108.162.219.18 04:55, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

and I just adjusted the transcript to reflect that Just some random derp 05:08, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

The black bishop and the "completing the mission alone" might be a reference to the robber from Catan, who looks very similar in the original edition. 172.69.55.136 09:14, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

On a 3x3 board, in at most 2 moves any pawn would be promoted, almost certainly to queen. The bishop and knight may have deliberately approached Battleship in order to avoid being outranked. Nitpicking (talk) 10:55, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

The bishop isn't any closer to capturing the knight than the knight is to capturing the bishop. Sure, the bishop can move away if the knight tries to capture it, but similarly the knight can move away if the bishop tries to capture it. So I think the explanation needs to be changed. 172.71.178.152 21:57, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Our intrepid explorers might be interested in this video: [1] Szeth Pancakes (talk) 04:34, 9 December 2023 (UTC)