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'''[[Genre Savvy|Ensign Ricky]]:''' [[Oh Crap|Aw, crap.]]|''[[Family Guy]]''}}
 
The color of shirt worn by the nameless security personnel on the original ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek the Original Series]]'' series. Their only job was to get eaten, shot, stabbed, disrupted, temporally-shifted, frozen, desalinated, or crushed into a cube. Their death would give [[William Shatner]] and [[DeForest Kelley]] a corpse to emote over, and [[Leonard Nimoy]] a corpse to, well, [[The Stoic|not emote over]]. ([[Gene Roddenberry]] [[Inverted Trope|inverted this trope]] in ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' when he had all officers of command rank wear red shirts while the security and engineering departments wear gold.) In a series where [[The Main Characters Do Everything]], if you suddenly see someone else involved, they are probably a '''Red Shirt'''.
 
A '''Red Shirt''' is the [[Evil Counterpart|Good Counterpart]] of [[Evil Minions]] and [[Mooks]]—set filler for our heroes' side. Their purpose is almost exclusively to give the writers someone to kill [[Sorting Algorithm of Mortality|who isn't a main character]], although they can also serve as a [[Spear Carrier]]. They are used to show how the monster works, and demonstrate that it is indeed a deadly menace, without having to lose anyone ''[[Anyone Can Die|important]]''. Expect someone to say "[[He's Dead, Jim]]", lament this "valued crew member's [[What a Senseless Waste of Human Life|senseless death]]", and then [[Forgotten Fallen Friend|promptly forget him]]. Security personnel in general fall victim to the worst shade of this [[Trope]], as most of the time their deaths aren't even acknowledged at all; according to Hollywood, you could walk into a bank and shoot a security guard right in the face without anyone making a fuss. If you shot anyone else afterward, the headline would just read "Bank Customers Killed".
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== Films -- Live-Action ==
* If you're a 00-agent early in a ''[[James Bond]]'' film, kiss your ass goodbye. Subverted in ''[[Golden EyeGoldenEye]]'', when {{spoiler|the [[Big Bad]] turns out to be the "[[Faking the Dead|dead]]" 00-agent.}}
* In the ''[[Hellboy (film)|Hellboy]]'' movies the random B.P.R.D. agents who accompany the big red guy on his missions all but define redshirt.
* Hilariously lampshaded in the [[Austin Powers]] movie ''Goldmember''.
{{quote|'''Nigel Powers:''' Have you got any idea how many anonymous henchmen I've killed over the years? I mean, look at you. You don't even have a name tag. You've got no chance. Why don't you just fall down?}}
* This trope was parodied very effectively in ''[[Galaxy Quest]]'' in the character of Guy Fleegman, "Crewman Number Six"—who is the only cast member NOT shot or killed during the climactic final battle! (Although [[Reset Button|a bit of time travel makes everyone else better]]). [[Lampshade Hanging]] at its finest (also see [[Plucky Comic Relief]]). In the end, he gets a major role in the new ''Galaxy Quest'' series, in a reference to the fact that ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' featured a Security officer as a main character throughout its entire run and in general saw far fewer redshirt deaths.
* A film that seriously plays with the concept is ''[[Alien (franchise)|Aliens]]''. Who can forget Hudson's "[[Retirony|Four more weeks and out]]" tirade? The movie does kinda play it straight with Crowe and Wierzbowski; one line from Crowe (said when he's offscreen), and no lines from poor Ski except a scream.
* A discreet spoof in the movie ''[[The Running Man (film)|The Running Man]]'': Two contestants wore yellow jumpsuits while two wore red. Guess who died?
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This was completely intentional, according to the commentary—Abrams and the writers called this their "red shirt moment".
* ''[[Star Trek: The Motion Picture|Star Trek the Motion Picture]]'': Two crew members die in a teleporter accident, although they aren't seen to be wearing red shirts (in fact, no-one is).
** This is an odd case, in that one of the victims of the transporter was Lt. Sonak, who would have been a main character in the aborted ''Star Trek: Phase II''. [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute|Mr. Sonak]] was to replace Cdr. Spock, as [[Leonard Nimoy]] would not reprise his role for the series. When Nimoy agreed to return for the feature, which was based on elements of ''Phase II'', Xon was killed so that there would be a vacancy for Spock to fill.
* ''[[Star Trek: First Contact|Star Trek First Contact]]'':
** Ensign Lynch. Apparently, Picard attended his wedding. Something of a subversion, in that Captain Picard actually [[What the Hell, Hero?|gets called out]] for how callously he dismisses Ensign Lynch's murder.
** There's also another guy named Hawke.
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* Lampshaded by one ''[[Ciaphas Cain]]'' short story, where Adeptus Mechanus soldiers wear red uniforms. Ciaphas's narration even refers to them specifically as "redshirts" at one point, {{spoiler|and predictably they're all slaughtered when the Necrons wake up}}.
* A [[Terry Pratchett]] post in his fan newsgroup:
{{quote|''[[Discworld|DW]] is based on a slew of old myths, which reach their most "refined" form in Hindu mythology, which in turn of course derived from the original ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek the Original Series]]'' episode "Planet of Wobbly Rocks where the Security Guard Got Shot".''}}
* ''[[All Quiet on the Western Front]]'' spends some time justifying this. The training received by German soldiers at the time didn't even remotely prepare them for combat, and a hefty percentage of the [[New Meat]] died horribly through not knowing something a veteran would know. A few survived by blind luck, learned what would kill them through seeing what killed everyone else, and became the [[Fire-Forged Friends]] the story centers around. They're not very effective at communicating their newfound survival strategies, so the waves of [[New Meat]] that supplement their ranks continue to get mowed down (and [[We Have Reserves|continue to get replaced]].)
* [[Played for Laughs]] in ''[[The Red Tape War]]'': "Under no circumstances are you to jeopardize your life or your ship. The life of your companion, however, is absolutely and thoroughly expendable."
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* ''[[Star Trek]]'':
** The first broadcast episode of the original series ("The Man Trap") has a body count of four minor crewmen, most of whom of course become monster chow shortly after beaming down to the planet. Ironically, the casualties are two blues, a gold and one unknown wearing a hazmat suit.
** Despite it being the [[Trope Namer]], quite a few of the characters that die in ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek the Original Series]]'' are blue shirts or gold shirts. In fact, no red shirt deaths occur until the seventh episode. The dubious honor goes to Crewman Mathews, who is pushed into a bottomless pit in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"
** This is either averted or subverted in "A Taste of Armageddon". Kirk, Spock, and three redshirts beam down to Eminiar VII whereupon landing, are sent to be killed. ''All'' of them survive.
** An interesting case also occurs in "By Any Other Name". Two redshirts are [[And I Must Scream|turned into crystals]], one of whom is a [[Good-Looking Privates|hot female yeoman]], who would usually survive. The other is a more typical [[Men Are the Expendable Gender|male]] security officer and is also [[The Black Dude Dies First|black]]. It's the former that gets crushed into powder, however.
** There is in fact an even more unfortunate color to be wearing, but it's more obscure: The [http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Hansen_(Commander) two] [http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Harold characters] who wore the same beigey-yellow shirt both died in attacks on outposts, along with everyone with them.
** Even the engineers (non-security redshirts during ''TOS'') aren't safe, as shown in "The Ultimate Computer".
* Later incarnations of Trek (''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'', ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Star Trek Deep Space Nine]]'', ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]]'') invert the term by switching uniform colors. Command staff in ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek the Original Series]]'' wore yellowish uniforms and operations staff (such as security) red; from ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' on this was swapped, making gold shirts the new target of preference while red shirts were usually safe and secure on bridge duty if not for the [[Explosive Instrumentation|usual exploding console]].
** Not always, though, as the helm officer on the ''Enterprise''-D was generally a redshirted ensign whose main function was to underscore how great the danger to the ship was by being the person on the bridge to die because of exploding consoles/suddenly materialising aliens/subspace phenomenon of the week/sentient voids in space/etc.
** In the ''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine|Star Trek Deep Space Nine]]'' episode "Valiant", the title ship is crewed by cadet group called "Red Squad". [[Everybody's Dead, Dave|Guess what happens...]]
* Notably deconstructed in the ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' episode "Lower Decks." The episode was told almost entirely from the point of view of four low-level ensigns on the ''Enterprise'', revealing how normally anonymous crewmembers deal with being kept in the dark about missions and being forced to constantly fight for the main characters’ respect. In the end, {{spoiler|after one of them doesn’t make it back from the mission of the week, it deals with Captain Picard’s guilt and remorse at sending a comrade to her death}}.
* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]]''. Averted in the early seasons by giving some screen time to crewmembers who were slated for death in later episodes (i.e. Hogan, Jonas, Carey). But eventually they reverted to bumping off anonymous ensigns by the shuttleload.
** A notable subversion occurs in "Latent Image" {{spoiler|where the Doctor is guilt-ridden over his choice to save Harry Kim as opposed to the expendable ensign.}}
** And Harry Kim seems to have been intended as a subversion, as an Ensign without much of a real job on the ship, yet he's a major character. Who never, ever makes it past Ensign (except in alternate futures). And to be fair, Harry Kim does die an awful lot (he gets better).
** The aversion is justified because of Voyager's premise. They are on the opposite side of the galaxy from Earth and 75,000 lightyears away from the closest starbase, so they don't have a practically infinite number of Starfleet recruits to replace them and they only have about 150 crew members, 100 being stated as the minimum to run the ship (though proven false on multple occasions). Thus they can't afford to have crew members [[Dying Like Animals]] all the time. However, they shaved about 1/7th of their time off every season, and got a few more crew in later, so the writers could start being more lenient and allow more deaths a few seasons in.
* ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise|Star Trek Enterprise]]''. The crew never suffered any fatal casualties in the first two seasons (despite incidents like a Romulan stealth mine blowing away a section of the hull), no doubt so as to avoid the "phaser fodder" cliché. All this changed in the third season Xindi war arc, with eighteen killed in "Azati Prime" alone. The trope is lampshaded in "The Forgotten", when Trip has to write a letter to the parents of a dead crewmember but [[What Measure Is a Mook?|can't remember much about her]], so he keeps getting her mixed up with his [[Dead Little Sister]]. There's also two classic redshirt incidents: in "The Council" an away team takes along a MACO when entering one of the mysterious Spheres, and in Season 4 "Daedalus" Reed goes searching through a dark room for a [[Negative Space Wedgie]] with an unnamed crewmember—no guessing who gets killed on both occasions. Deliberately parodied in [[Mirror Universe|"In a Mirror, Darkly"]] where Mirror Reed puts on an [[Star Trek: The Original Series|Original Series]] redshirt with fatal consequences.
** Starfleet Security's motto, according to one forum, was "''Taking one for the team since 2151''"
* Played straight in the re-imagined ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' series and averted in one notable example: Helo was originally supposed to die during the miniseries, but the fans took a liking to him so the writers brought him back. Helo has since gotten his own season-long subplot, his own episode and has started a family with one of the core characters, as well as displaying morality that is more admirable and consistent than almost any other character on the show.
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* In [[Crime and Punishment Series]], the newly deceased Red Shirt often only has [[Retirony|one week left to go before retirement]]. At the opposite end of a career-span, the first ''[[CSI]]'' episode had a Red Shirt who had only been on the job for a week (also done in ''[[The Bill]]'').
* ''[[Lost]]'':
** During a conversation with Lock, Boone was tying red shirts to trees. Eight episodes later, he died (and was the first main character to do so.) [[Lampshade Hanging]] and [[Foreshadowing]] at the same time. This scene is even more ironic because the actor who played Locke had been in an episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'', in which he wore, you guessed it, a red shirt. He didn't die in the episode. Being that his ''Star Trek'' character got court martialed and imprisoned for his poor decisions as Captain which resulted in the deaths of his almost his entire crew and loss of his ship, he definitely doesn't have the right to call Kirk "a piss-poor Captain". (Although Kirk had his fair share of court martials as well, he only got a few redshirts killed at a time, not an entire crew in one go).
** The show itself performs many a [[Lampshade Hanging]] on its ''actual'' red shirts. The characters Scott and Steve, for instance, are always confused by important characters, even after one of them dies (Hurley's eulogy for him boils down to "Sorry I could never remember your name.") The character Dr. Arzt is introduced near the end of season 1 and complains about how everyone (i.e., the main characters) acts like a high school clique. What happens to Arzt? He gets blown up an episode later.
** A final point of irony in this quote comes from the fact that J.J. Abrams (the show's co-creator) went on to direct and produce the 2009 ''[[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]]'' movie (see above).
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* [http://www.llbbl.com/data/RPG-motivational/target68.html This] RPG motivational poster explains it all...
* ''[[Brikwars]]'' gives Hero units the explicit ability to make other units [[Heroic Sacrifice|Redshirt]].
* A minor setting in ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]'' is Kill Team, where a squad of highly trained specialists go up against countless enemies, and they can purchase upgrades. The most useful: Red Shirt, a minor character who, according to the other Kill Team members, is probably going to get killed in a variety of gory ways. Can be averted in that if the Red Shirt survives, [[Mauve Shirt|he becomes a member of the Team]], and upgraded accordingly.
** Acolytes in the 3rd edition Inquisition codexes were essentially extra Wounds for your Inquisitor.
* ''[[Munchkin (game)|Munchkin]]'':
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== Video Games ==
* The ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' licensed game (SNES/Genesis) has over a dozen Ensigns who can accompany you on away missions, despite there being no advantage in doing so; series regulars like Data and Worf have more health, while Dr. Crusher has healing packs. On the plus side, you can kill off as many Ensigns as you want, whereas losing two officers will abort the mission. Even the game doesn't care if they die.
* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Star Trek Voyager]] - Elite Force'': The game lampshades this by giving the "Redshirt Award" to the teammate who died the most during a Capture the Flag or Team Deathmatch game.
** The "[[Wide Open Sandbox|Virtual Voyager]]" Mode of the expansion plays with this in the death message, (Like drilling a hole through Neelix, or arming the ships self-destruct causing crew members to whip out phasers on you) saying "What color shirt are you wearing?".
* In ''[[Gears of War]]'':
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** Also in ''Gears of War'', the member of Alpha Squad who runs off and is instantly killed by the berserker is listed in the credits as Redshirt Gyules.
* Almost every friendly NPC in the first-person shooter ''[[Half-Life]]'' is a redshirt. The security guards tag along and give support, but their low hit points and wimpy pistols mean they never last long. And the scientists, oh those poor scientists. Almost all of them only exist to die in scripted set-pieces to remind you of how insanely dangerous everything is. (One of the guards, however, got his own spin-off. You don't mess with Barney.)
* Fairly frequent in ''[[LAL.A. Noire]]'''s street crime submissions. Valiant police officers are usually picked off in beginning cut-scene for the mission, and you'll never see or hear of him again. They're never even mentioned when you report back for a coroner at the end of the mission. No "officer down" or "notify this nameless cop's family he's been shot," just get a coroner for, most likely, the guys you shot.
* Parodied in ''[[Space Quest]] 5'', where miscellaneous crew members all wear blue shirts, and Roger Wilco, the protagonist (and ''ship's captain'') is the one who wears a red shirt. Guess who gets shot at all the time?
{{quote|'''Droole:''' This may be dangerous, lets split up so we can cover more territory.
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{{quote|'''Male Patsy:''' I'm not dying to prove the situation is ''critical''! I won't go down like a goddamned redshirt!
'''The Tudor:''' You know, we're all wearing red shirts...
'''Female Patsy:''' Oh, [[Sound Effect Bleep|****]] me, none of us are safe! He could kill one of us at any time...!
'''Mastermind:''' While I appreciate, and thank you for, the ''[[Star Trek]]'' reference, you got me. I was going to test this [[Death Ray|portable Doom Laser]] out on [[You Have Failed Me...|one of you]]. }}
* In ''[[Spore]]'', there is an achievement called "Red Shirt" to obtain it you must lose 100 crew members while playing adventures.
* The repair team in ''[[Dead Space (video game)|Dead Space]]'' consist of three named characters and some additional guards. None of the latter survive the first act.
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* Perfectly parodied in the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "City on the Edge of Forever". The school bus is trapped teetering on the edge of a cliff and the bus driver leaves to find help, ordering the kids to remain on the bus or else a big black monster will eat them. After a long time of waiting, the children grow nervous and antsy. One of the kids—a child wearing an actual ''[[Star Trek]]'' Red Shirt outfit—can't take the waiting and leaves the bus to find help. No black monster appears and the kid even waves back to the other kids, causing remarks from the main characters about how the bus driver must have lied... only for the big black monster to immediately appear and eat the red-shirted kid.
* ''[[Futurama]]'':
** Parodied in "Where No Fan Has Gone Before", in which the entire ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek the Original Series]]'' cast is threatened by a jealous energy being, but only Welshy (a parody of a [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]] for Scotty), who's dressed in the classic Red Shirt, gets killed. [[Rule of Three|Three times over.]]
** In the same episode, a flashback of the so-called ''[[Star Trek]] Wars'' is shown where some officials are throwing redshirted ''[[Star Trek]]'' devotees into a volcano while chanting ''"He's dead Jim."''
** Additionally, Zapp Brannigan's entire brigade all wear {{color|red|red}} which accurately shows how he often sacrifices them freely and considers all missions suicide missions.
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* The Red Shirt gets his revenge in ''[[Robot Chicken]]'' with a ''[[Star Trek]]'' sketch. When the crew teleported down to a planet to survive the ''Enterprise'' exploding, the crew reasons that to survive one of them must be sacrificed as food. [http://video.adultswim.com/robot-chicken/no-power.html Obviously they choose the Red Shirt first], but the Red Shirt tells them off by saying "On behalf of all the redshirts that fell before me, it makes me very very proud to speak the following sentence... I'm the only one that brought a gun." He proceeds to kill and eat them all.
{{quote|"Mmm... that's good [[Large Ham|ham]]."}}
* Spoofed mercilessly in ''Sev Trek: Puss in Boots'' (the Australian CGI spoof of ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation|Star Trek the Next Generation]]''). An alien asks the ''Enterforaprize'' to supply [[Face Full of Alien Wingwong|hosts for its young]], as they're reputed to have "endless supplies of expendable ensigns". After the offer is curtly refused ("Each ensign is a valuable member of our crew!") the alien runs rampant on the ship causing the death of 47 ensigns, mainly due to [[Failsafe Failure]]s and the lousy aim of the main characters. The ensigns have names ranging from Ensign Anonymous to (naturally) Ensign Expendable. One dying ensign laments the fact that he would have been promoted to lieutenant in a few days, therefore becoming immune.
* The Klokateers in ''[[Metalocalypse]]''
{{quote|'''Facebones:''' And most important, remember -- death is an everyday part of the workplace! So, when you see a dead body, don't freak out!
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'''Facebones:''' Just... ring your Deth-bell!
'''Toki:''' ''(rings his Deth-bell)'' }}
* Providence soldiers in ''[[Generator Rex]]''. Not only are they merely cannon fodder, they're also completely useless when battling against actual EVOs, presumably so Rex can come and save the day. It gets horribly ironic in the episode "Basic", when Rex and Noah take up Providence's basic training - the trainees are expected to take down one of the strongest EVOs in the series (one that not even Rex was able to defeat, even with his powers). Each of them, alone. With just a gun. It's not so much [[Training Fromfrom Hell]] as it is a ridiculous joke.
** Naturally this rule doesn't apply to any Providence Soldier whose seen [[Averted Trope|Without A]] [[Faceless Goons|Helmet]], they're all [[Mauve Shirt]]s and generally fair pretty well, though the rules of [[Family-Friendly Firearms]] seem to dictate that they can never accomplish anything meaningful with their rifle-err, "Blasters".
* Lampshaded in the ''[[Tiny Toon Adventures]]'' episode "Duck Trek"
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[[Category:Combat Tropes]]
[[Category:This Index Is Expendable]]
[[Category:Red Shirt{{PAGENAME}}]]
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