Redshirt Redshirt is a term used by fans and staff of " Star Trek " to refer partially to the characters who wear red Starfleet uniform s , and mainly to refer to those characters who are expendable , and quite often killed , sometimes in great numbers , often security guards . They are the unlucky victims of attacks and sicknesses . In the era regularly depicted in , red uniforms were worn by members of the operations division . The duties they normally performed were in security , engineer ing , or other Support Services ( such as communications officer s , administrators and yeomen ) aboard starship s and starbase s . Of these , the security personnel were quite expendable , because the Security And Tactical Division was an inherently high - risk assignment . and , in TOS Season 2 , both featured four security redshirts dying in each episode . " The Changeling " has the most anonymity involved ; all but one of the redshirts that die are unnamed , the other being Carlisle . ( The Nomad probe , after its merger with the Tan Ru probe , also " killed " Mr . Scott , but was kind enough to restore him at Kirk ' s request . ) In " The Apple , " , Marple , Hendorff , and Mallory were all on one security team , killed one - by - one by the dangers of Gamma Trianguli VI . In , the dikironium cloud creature kills three security guards that are shown , all in red shirts , including Ensign Rizzo . One redshirt , however , is lucky enough to be transported to the " Enterprise " in critical condition . ( The creature also kills one crewman aboard the ship , but the precise color of his shirt is never shown . ) One of the vampire cloud ' s victims does not quite count – Mr . Leslie would have been a fourth redshirt killed in the outing , but a mention of him surviving was cut from the episode ' s final edit . He clearly appears in later episodes , so it is probable that he either has an identical twin brother , perhaps even two identical triplet brothers or three identical quadruplet brothers , or that he did indeed survive the attack . In , the first female redshirt to die was Yeoman Leslie Thompson . ( The infamous " Get A Life " sketch from when William Shatner hosted " Saturday Night Live " makes her being reduced to a polyhedral shape , which then gets crushed , thereby killing her , one of its jokes . ) None of the officers were really killed in , but introduced a new twist to the " redshirt " lore , as the uniform colors switched and operations division wore the gold , or rather bronze , uniforms while the command division took on the red shirts . They also became likely to die ; a theme of crew deaths was dominated by the continuous loss of their flight controller . Lieutenant Torres probably survived , but the TNG era lost Haskell , Monroe , , Nell Chilton , , and Branson . Non - " Enterprise " crew redshirts hardly fared any better , demonstrating an alarming propensity for being killed , possessed and / or otherwise coming to bad ends . Notable examples included Captain Tryla Scott , Commander Dexter Remmick , and the entire Senior Admiralty at Starfleet Command , who were taken over by alien parasites in . Admiral Mark Jameson was killed by a de - aging medicine overdose he administered to himself in , Donald Varley was blown up in the in , Admiral Erik Pressman was arrested in disgrace for violating the Treaty of Algeron in , and Admiral Matthew Dougherty was murdered by his Son ' a co - conspirators in . The only TNG episodes to feature death in large numbers had to do with the Borg . , and noted eighteen off - screen deaths , although the latter probably totaled a few more in later scenes . The Security And Tactical Division remained a high - risk assignment in TNG , despite their change to the gold / bronze color . Natasha Yar , the first Chief of Security of the USS " Enterprise " - D , was killed by Armus very early in the series ( namely , in ) . The kept the crew losses low for the most part , but the TOS era installments were dominated by redshirt deaths , as the dominant uniform style featured " all " personnel wearing red . noted that crew losses from the destruction of the 1701 - D were low . However , , , and all featured scores of battle - related crew deaths . As noted , the " The Wrath of Khan " losses were all redshirts , but the TNG losses were more varied , while continuing their pattern of conn officer attrition . It should also be noted that Spock and Kirk died in " The Wrath of Khan " and " Generations " , respectively – and in each movie , the officers wore red uniform shirts . In , the crew members who initially died on screen were wearing red uniforms , such as Stadi ( who was another flight controller ) and Cavit . However , over the seasons of " Voyager " , it became clear gold was a dangerous color in the Delta Quadrant , with most officer victims who died in the series doing so while clad in gold uniforms . Because had no way to replace crew , the only massive number of deaths took place in alternate timeline s , with the two exceptions being the first episode , in which a large number of the senior staff were killed when the Caretaker ' s array displaced " Voyager " , and a situation in the second season episode wherein both the crew and the ship were duplicated , with one of the " Voyagers " being destroyed not long after , along with its entire crew . In , more engineers and MACO s were lost than officers from any other division . In the case of the MACOs , this was consistent with their evolution into the Starfleet security forces . Both branches wore red as a department color ( although MACOs seemed to wear splatter camouflage more than anything ) . In the rebooted continuity beginning with the film , all Starfleet Academy cadets wear red . However , " Enterprise " Chief Engineer Olson , prominently wearing a red space diving suit , became the first notable redshirt death in the alternate reality , as depicted in the aforementioned film . In , Kirk tells and another security officer to " lose the red shirts " for their mission to Qo ' noS to prevent them from being identified as Starfleet officers . Doing so apparently helps , as neither officer dies during the mission . At another point , Kirk tells to don a red shirt when he ' s replacing , which Chekov shows obvious reluctance to . In , multiple red shirts are killed in the Battle of Altamid . As swarm ship s lodged in the " Enterprise " hull , boarding parties , led by Manas , were sent aboard and killed numerous crew members . Several crew members were also left " drained " of their life signs in attacks from Krall . Appendices . Background information . David Gerrold has often joked that the character he played in must have been the luckiest redshirt ever , to have lived long enough for his hair to have turned gray . " RedShirt " is the default player ' s name in the multi - player portion of the game " " . Issue # 13 of IDW Publishing ' s " " comic series , " " , explores how redshirts perceive themselves . A recent talk at New York ' s Museum of Mathematics entitled " Star Trek : The Math of Khan " explored the probability that redshirts are more likely to die in TOS . By determining how many redshirts were aboard the ship at any one time , they were able to figure out though 58 % of the dead were redshirts , only 10 % of total redshirts died , as opposed to 18 % of gold shirts and 6 % of blue shirts . As for those in security positions , 20 % died . In his review of , " Star Trek " author Keith R . A . DeCandido describes Lieutenant Hawk ' s character as the the film ' s " redshirt " . Cultural references . The icon of the doomed redshirted crewman has to an extent nestled itself in the awareness of the general public and has been translated into a number of other pop culture and literary media and parodies . One of the comics features Jason Fox offering his sister Paige gingerbread men decorated with Star Trek uniforms , all in red .