Star Trek Wasn't Actually More Likely To Kill Off Red Shirts

When it comes to popular culture, you are never far from an apt Star Trek reference. The iconic sci-fi series has been around since the 1960s thanks to the genius of Gene Rodenberry, and a slew of memes have sprouted from its lengthy canon. Captain Kirk and Spock have been the origin of many a memes over the years, but none come close to the 'Red Shirt' meme.

In the original Star Trek series, fans became obsessed with characters who wore red-shirts and were often killed without a word. Security officers and engineers were the ones who donned the uniform most often, and a lot of them did die. Out of the 59 total crew members who died in the original Star Trek series, 73% of them were wearing red shirts.

Still, according to a recent report, it doesn't look like Star Trek was more likely to kill off red shirts.

Thanks to Space, fans of the series recently learned that red shirts did not have the highest likelihood of dying. Mathematician James Grime made the startling revelation at a recent talk at the Museum of Mathematics. It was there the lecturer dropped the hard math upon fans.

It is true that more red shirts died on-screen in the Star Trek show than any other. 10 officers wearing gold uniforms died while 8 blue-shirts died. 25 red-shirts were killed on-screen, but the mathematician stressed fans needed to consider the overall pool of officers being worked with. In the show, there were far more red-shirts on the U.S.S. Enterprise than any other.

According to the official Star Trek Technical Manual, there were 239 red-shirt officers on the starship. If only 25 died, then 10% of red-shirts passed away. That is lower than the percentage of gold-shirts who died; That total was at 18%. Only 6% of blue-shirts perished.

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So, the next time you rib someone for being a 'Red Shirt,' you may want to reconsider the meme's term. Pop culture may have made the phrase into a playful one, it is better to be one of them than a gold-shirt. Or, so science tells us.

[HT] Nerdist