Star Trek's Redshirts Aren't As Endangered As The Fandom Believes

When "Star Trek" premiered in 1966, the world was introduced to new science fiction technology and terms that have since permeated the zeitgeist. For example, the show made teleportation a common notion, thanks to the catchphrase "Beam me up, Scotty," despite that sentence never being uttered in the series. Another "Star Trek" trope that found its way into the lexicon is "Redshirt," which describes an extra from the show who you know is going to die because of the color of their shirt.

It's not a misconception either, and all you have to do is watch "Star Trek" to see that folks wearing red shirts die a lot. The first Redshirt death in "Star Trek" occurs in Season 1, Episode 3, "Where No Man Has Gone Before," so it began almost from the jump. But while it's true that a lot of extras on the series expire while wearing red shirts, that particular group of Starfleet personnel isn't the most likely to go. If you look at the math, the real threat is posed to anyone wearing a gold shirt.

This is because the number of red shirt-wearing personnel significantly outnumbers the number of folks in gold. While it's true that more Redshirts meet their ends on various planets throughout the galaxy, the ratio of deaths makes it far more dangerous to don a gold shirt. While this goes against everything Trekkies know about Redshirts in "Star Trek," the math doesn't lie, ensuring gold shirt-wearing people are far likelier to get their ticket punched.

The truth about Redshirt deaths, which became one of the best running gags on "Star Trek,", was laid out at the "Star Trek: The Math of Khan" event at the Museum of Mathematics in New York City on April 6, 2017. According to the guest speaker, mathematician James Grime, the total number of deaths in "Star Trek" based on shirt color is eight blue (sciences), 10 gold (command), and 25 red (security, engineering, and operations).

The trope appears to be correct: anyone foolish enough to put on a red shirt is almost certainly going to die. But that doesn't take into account the total number of personnel wearing those shirts aboard the USS Enterprise. The crew amounts to 239 in red, 25 of whom perish, and 55 in gold, of whom 10 died in various episodes. When you look at those numbers, it becomes immediately clear that the percentages are not in favor of anyone wearing gold.

Redshirts have a 10% chance of dying, while anyone in gold has an 18% chance of never returning to their quarters. The difference may only be 8%, but ask yourself this: 'Would I rather have a 1 in 10 chance of surviving this episode, or would I prefer to be closer to 1 in 5?' Those odds make donning a gold shirt a particularly calamitous fashion choice.