History Main / RedShirt

** ''Film/StarTrekTheMotionPicture'': Two crew members die in a transporter accident, although they aren't seen to be wearing red shirts (in fact, no-one is). One of them is Commander Sonak, the successor to the then-retired Cdr. Spock as science officer, who had just been introduced moments earlier at Starfleet Command. His death cleared the way for Spock's return in the second act. The other transporter victim wasn't identified in the film, but the {{novelization}} identifies her as Vice Admiral Lori Ciana, who'd come to see Kirk off.
*** Commander Branch and the crew of station Epsilon IX fell victim to V'Ger, after having earlier observed the Klingon encounter with the cloud. Branch was played by David Gautreaux, who was originally signed on to play the Vulcan Lt. Xon in the aborted ''Star Trek: Phase II'' series. Sonak was created to die in Xon's place as the concept of Xon (an emotionless alien looking to understand human feelings) seemed too good to waste (the concept was eventually evolved into [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Data]]).
** ''Film/StarTrekFirstContact''
*** Ensign Lynch, an ''Enterprise'' officer who gets assimilated and ends up being one of the drones Picard guns down on the holodeck. Apparently, Picard attended his wedding. Something of a subversion, in that Captain Picard actually [[WhatTheHellHero gets called out]] for how callously he dismisses Ensign Lynch's murder.
*** There's also another guy named Hawke. Hawke gets more play in the ExpandedUniverse. In fact, there's a novel dedicated mostly to him and an attempt by a Section 31 operative to recruit him. The novel also reveals that he's gay, not that it makes a difference to any other character. Hawke's partner calls Picard out on letting Hawke die. When Picard points out that Hawke was already assimilated, the guy points out that so was Picard. Assimilated people can be restored. Hawke didn't even get a chance to do that.
** Starting in ''Film/StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan'', [[ExaggeratedTrope every Starfleet officer wears completely or predominantly red uniforms]] (with trainees and cadets wearing red turtlenecks), so maybe it wasn't surprising that [[ItWasHisSled Spock would die in the end]].

* Lampshaded endlessly in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers'', where MauveShirt Henchmen #21 and #24 repeatedly taunt the previously unseen Henchman #1 for his red shirt status. By the end of the episode, #1 is seemingly beaten to death by Brock Samson, as the GenreSavvy #21 and #24 miraculously escape harm. He's shown to have survived, and tries to make it as a villain on his own under the name Zero, [[spoiler:but fails to escape his red shirt status as his neck is snapped by Brock on Gargantua-2 three seasons after their previous encounter]].

** Surprisingly enough, this is one aspect of the franchise that does ''not'' get played ''straight'' and is barely parodied by ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekLowerDecks''. The only member of ''Cerritos'' crew who is killed during the first season is [[spoiler: Lieutenant Shaxs, ''Cerritos'' security chief and a fairly significant character]].[[note]]Excluding everyone killed during Mariner's holodeck fantasy.[[/note]] And this despite the show not wasting time in having a transporter or holodeck malfunction episode. [[spoiler:And he comes BackFromTheDead in season 2, although we're never told how -- [[YouDoNotWantToKnow with]] [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow good]] [[GoMadFromTheRevelation reason]], [[TakeOurWordForIt apparently]].]]

** ''Film/StarTrekBeyond'' goes above and [[JustForPun beyond]] in its crew killing, due to only around forty crew members of the Enterprise survive the movie. The rest are either shot, electrocuted, blown up, drained of their life energy, disintegrated or simply jettisoned into space. Special mention goes to Ensign Syl, who gets maybe three lines of dialogue before handing over the MacGuffin to Krall to save Sulu, then is killed in her very next scene to establish what it does (disintegrate people).

They are used [[MonsterMunch to show how the monster works]], and demonstrate that it is indeed a deadly menace, without having to lose anyone ''[[PlotArmor important]]''. Expect someone to say "HesDeadJim", lament this "valued crew member's [[WhatASenselessWasteOfHumanLife senseless death]]", and then [[ForgottenFallenFriend 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".

* ''Intragalactic'' has its Enstant Ensigns, who are apparently mass-produced disposable {{clon|ingBlues}}es in stylish [[color:red:red]] outfits. They work hard and die with great efficiency, some even climbing into their disposal Ensacks before the ship crashes, to save time. Then, when the ship docks, they are taken off to the Ensignerator.

* There is an obscure German rpg based on this trope ''Die unglaubliche Robert Redshirt RPG Show'' (translated: The Incredible Robert Redshirt RPG Show). In it, the players play the production crew of a TV station producing a show (pure fiction or sripted realiy) featuring an actor called Robert Redshirt. The crew tries to create dangerous situations for RR and then save hin from mortal danger, all in order to increase their viewer ratings.

!!Examples:

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
!!!'''In General:'''
* CrimeAndPunishmentSeries: The newly deceased Redshirt often only has [[{{Retirony}} one week left to go before retirement]]. At the opposite end of a career-span, the first ''Series/{{CSI}}'' episode had a Redshirt who had only been on the job for a week (also done in ''Series/TheBill'').

!!!'''Series:'''
* ''Series/The100'': There are a lot of extras dying in this series. If there are any new characters in a scene, do not expect them to last, especially if they have no or little dialogue.
* ''Series/TwentyFour'': Any CTU field agent who isn't Jack Bauer or the season's HeroOfAnotherStory is a red shirt. In season 4 and part of season 5, CTU HQ's security officers actually wore red shirts -- that is, until they were ''all'' killed at once in a nerve gas attack.
* ''Series/TheAdventuresOfSinbad'' : It's pretty usual to see a poor unnamed crewman falling off the ship during a storm scene.
* ''Series/AgentsOfSHIELD'': From Season 2 onward, any SHIELD agent not part of the main or recurring cast (and even some who were) doesn't have a very long life expectancy. Even a MauveShirt whose survivability is a RunningGag finally bites it in Season 6!
* ''Series/BabylonFive'': Played straight with the homeless bums in Downbelow, the outer space equivalent of TheCityNarrows where it's easy to wind up dead. Security personnel and, less often, Starfury fighter pilots, were also prone to being killed off to establish a threat in an episode.
** Incidentally, the station chief of security, Michael Garibaldi, was named in reference to Giuseppe Garibaldi, who, if you read the description at the top of this page, you may recall was the leader of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirts_(Italy) Redshirts]], making his name a bit of a pun.
* ''Series/TheBarrier'': This gets defied. A baby for which some of the protagonists briefly had to care for becomes a case of ImprobableInfantSurvival. When one of the temporary caretakers gets the news that the baby survived the event, she's less enthusiastic about it than the giver of the news expects her to be. She points out that while the baby survived, there are still ten people who died.
* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'':
** Played straight and averted in one notable example: Helo was originally supposed to die during the miniseries; after he abandons his seat to save someone important, he would never be seen again, with the implication being that he was KilledOffscreen. But the fans took a liking to him, so the writers brought him back. Thereafter he survived straight through to the series finale, became central to the show's MythArc via his relationship with Athena and their daughter [[HalfHumanHybrid Hera]], and became one of the most respected members of the Colonial survivors due to his strong moral code.
** Thanks to the show having such a large cast, [[MauveShirt a lot of characters who have been around for a long time]] can and ''do'' die.
* ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'': Referenced. Sheldon is telling Leonard how he needs to keep dating Dr. Stephanie Barnett because she'll round out their "landing party". Leonard is [[TheCaptain Captain Kirk]], Sheldon is [[TheSmartGuy Mr. Spock]], Wolowitz is [[MrFixIt Scotty]], Raj is the nameless Ensign who always gets killed, and Dr. Barnett is [[TheMedic Bones]].
** In "The Bon Voyage Reaction", Sheldon again references this trope when Leonard is offered the possibility to go on an expedition, suggesting to Leonard: ''You know Star Trek. Should a guy with no name in a red shirt go on an expedition?''
* ''Series/BlakesSeven'': Having been designed in response to ''Franchise/StarTrek'', it features a character announcing, "I am not expendable, I am not stupid, and I am not going."
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'':
** This show is merciless in bumping off Sunnydale High's student body. It became a RunningGag (the school paper had an obituary section).
** Potential slayers in season 7 repeatedly serve this role. In many cases, [[MauveShirt having more than two lines marked you for death]].
** And parodied in "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS6E14OlderAndFarAway Older and Far Away]]", where the one character who got hurt in the fight against the demon was a one-episode character wearing a red polo shirt. Given the amount of Trek references made in the series, this can't be a coincidence.
* ''[[Series/Combat1962 Combat!]]'' (1962): They aren't so much red shirts as RedemptionEqualsDeath shirts. In fact, a good way to tell if someone will die is if they are given a name.
* ''Series/CriminalMinds'': {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d in "The Uncanny Valley" by Garcia about an unsub's medical records:
-->'''Garcia:''' Oh, my god, she was doomed. Like, Emily Brontë doomed. Like, Shakespeare doomed. Like, red-shirted ensign in ''Star Trek'' doomed.
** The season four episode, "Brothers In Arms", dealt with a serial killer who targeted cops. The BAU is called in to assist the beleaguered police department, leading to a killer who is actually targetting those trying to catch him.
** Though, typically, episode-specific characters who help the BAU, like detectives and medical examiners, survive the episode, there are times such as in "Zoe's Reprise" and "A Rite of Passage" where these characters are used to spark the BAU into action.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'':
** Random military types often are used as cannon fodder. UNIT personnel are frequent victims and in the New Series, red berets are part of the uniform. This has been a SubvertedTrope a few times too. At least twice the RedshirtArmy has beaten aliens the Doctor claimed they couldn't.
** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS21E4ResurrectionOfTheDaleks "Resurrection of the Daleks"]], the two who die in the Daleks' first assault have red hats.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E8TheImpossiblePlanet "The Impossible Planet"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E9TheSatanPit "The Satan Pit"]]: We are introduced to Jefferson, a 'Head of Security' who jokes that there is not much to keep secure due to the remote nature of their mission. This makes it all the more blatant that his staff of two armed security guards are there for no reason other than to die horribly. They have no names, no lines, are never directly acknowledged by any characters other than Jefferson, and are not even named in the list of the dead that the episode ends with, again especially blatant due to the inclusion of the SlaveRace Ood, normally not even considered people, in the roll call.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E10Blink "Blink"]]: Kathy Nightingale wears a red shirt when she accompanies Sally Sparrow to go knocking around an abandoned house. She doesn't get killed directly, though, but displaced backwards in time.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E15PlanetOfTheDead "Planet of the Dead"]]: The bus driver. The Doctor simply telling the others that they can't go back through the wormhole unprotected wouldn't have the same impact without someone dying to demonstrate it.
* ''Series/GameOfThrones'':
** Soldiers, guardsmen, and warriors on all sides are all either this or {{Mooks}} depending on SympatheticPOV. When Tyrion blows up Davos' crew, are they redshirts or mooks?
** Torrhen Karstark gets no characterization before being killed.
** The poor wildling warriors who head out with Jon Snow, Tormund Giantsbane, Lord Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr, Jorah Mormont, and Sandor 'The Hound' Clegane. One of them is killed by a wight Bear, the others torn to shreds by undead soldiers.
* ''Series/GetSmart'': Boy howdy but CONTROL has terrible turnover rates. So many episodes get started with an agent or two getting offed by whatever the current evil scheme's about.
* ''Series/HumanTarget'': The season 1 episode "Rewind" has Laura, an antagonist assassin posing as a flight attendant, take the time to put on a stylish red jacket before getting into a fight with Chris Chance in the fuselage that leads to her falling out of an open hatch somewhere above Portland.
* ''Franchise/KamenRider'':
** ''Series/KamenRiderKabuto'': The [=ZECTroopers=] are the cannon fodder of the Worm-fighting organization ZECT, which also developed the powers of the various Riders and is at least nominally on their side. Given adult Worms have SuperSpeed, the most a team of [=ZECTroopers=] is good for is holding them off for an extra minute or two so an actual Rider can show up on the scene and have the real fight.
** ''Series/KamenRiderExAid'': The Ride Players, introduced in the back half of the series, are Goomba-themed mooks made from regular people who've been conned into playing a deadly video game. In a twist, ''only'' a Ride Player can actually progress the game to shut it down, so one of the supporting protagonists willingly becomes a MauveShirt so that the Riders can spend the rest of the series performing an EscortMission.
** ''Series/KamenRiderRevice'': The Kamen Rider Demons Troopers introduced late in the series are a mass-production version of the original Demons. Embarrassingly, they're regularly shown up in battle by said original despite him having lost his powers ''and'' having suffered crippling internal injuries as a result that left him with the body functions of an 80-year-old man. He still racks up a higher kill count than any redshirt using nothing but an ordinary bow and arrow.
** ''Series/KamenRiderGeats'': In the final act, the Desire Grand Prix's management decides to fully shift gears into making it a SadistShow, and as a result, the new players forcibly recruited into the final game are given totally blank belts and costumes with no identifying features. They exist only to slaughter the remaining named Riders and then each other, on penalty of exploding if they refuse, making the last act a rush by the named Riders to shut down the game and save as many of the redshirts as possible.
* ''Series/{{Lost}}'':
** It should perhaps be considered that along with the copious amounts of very predictable redshirt deaths, a lot of main characters bite it.
** During a conversation with Locke, Boone was tying red shirts to trees while LampshadeHanging the trope. Eight episodes later, [[ForeShadowing he died]] (and was the first main character to do so.) This scene is even more ironic because the actor who played Locke had been in an episode of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', 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 LampshadeHanging 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 Creator/JJAbrams (the show's co-creator) went on to direct and produce ''Film/StarTrek2009'' (see above).
** It's taken to pretty much the ultimate level in a Season 4 episode where one Red Shirt after another comes running out of a house during a huge gun battle, and each one is immediately mowed down. What makes it gold is that Sawyer screams at each one to go back in the house, and none of them listen.
** So in conclusion, hopefully any background castaways have learned to duck and cover if one of their fellows starts to do anything more but help out quietly.
** They haven't learned: in the second episode of season 5, Neil "Frogurt" gets hit by a flaming arrow while ''wearing'' a red shirt. Sure enough, several more redshirts get killed while the main characters successfully escape into the jungle.
* ''Series/LostTapes'': From Creator/AnimalPlanet has [[OccultDetective Noel Connor and Elise Mooney]] of the Enigma Corporation. Or specifically, anyone who is unfortunate enough to help them. [[spoiler:Three appearances, five allies, no survivors]].
* ''Series/MrRobot'': On their trip to China, Dom and Santiago are accompanied by two other FBI agents, played by Creator/JordanGelber and Olivia Washington. They're unnamed but have appeared before and have some characterization. Both are gunned down in a surprise Dark Army attack meant to throw Dom off the scent.
* ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'': ''There was a guy named Joel...Just another face in a ''red'' jumpsuit...They shot him into space!'' Something of a SubvertedTrope, of course, since he's the main character.
* ''Series/TheOrville'': As it's a SpiritualAdaptation of ''Franchise/StarTrek'' (if not a ''Trek'' show with SerialNumbersFiledOff), this trope shows up. The Security and Engineering departments wear red, and the first on-screen crewman fatality is one of the engineers. However, the show plays with the trope by actually showing the crewman's funeral, having a scene where TheCaptain is trying to figure out what to say in the letter to the man's next of kin, and the Security Chief [[spoiler:is so shaken by her failure to save him that she purposefully puts herself through a NightmareFuel scenario so that she will be better able to save others later]]; this after making several references to the fact the character had family who were grieving him.
* The Canaries in ''Series/RedDwarf'' are meant to fulfill this role, though they wear yellow in homage to their name (a reference to canaries carried down into mines who died if the air grew too foul). They are prisoners sent onto abandoned spaceships so if any of them get killed, the captain will know it's too dangerous to send anyone else. Fortunately the protagonists GotVolunteered for the Canaries, passing on their PlotArmor by default.
* ''Series/{{Revolution}}'': A number of unnamed Rebels in the show get killed off in the episodes "[[Recap/RevolutionS1E9Kashmir Kashmir]]", "[[Recap/RevolutionS1E11TheStand The Stand]]", and "[[Recap/RevolutionS1E13TheSongRemainsTheSame The Song Remains The Same]]". The sad thing is that a number of Rebels in those same episodes actually did have names, but it didn't prevent them from being killed off anyway.
* The Prospects in ''Series/SonsOfAnarchy''. Prospects are the bottom of the food chain in RealLife in the hierarchy of Motor Clubs as they are not really members and just a little bit over non-members, but in the show they fulfill more or less the Redshirt function (in an already violent show) as very few of them survive a season. [[spoiler:None of them survive the show.]]
* ''Series/{{Space 1999}}'' has expendable crew characters in the stories, but the FridgeHorror of the fact that there will be no replacements gives each loss a terrible impact.
* ''Franchise/{{Stargate|Verse}}'':
** ''Series/StargateSG1'':
*** Several other SG teams were this, particularly SG-11 who were wiped out at least ''twice''.
*** This was lampshaded in an episode where a couple of {{Mauve Shirt}}s are trying to rescue SG-1, and one of them says they might as well be wearing red shirts.
*** Lt/Capt Laurence Conner is a mixture of this and a DoomMagnet. Whilst serving in SG-9, his commanding officer went insane, proclaimed himself [[AGodAmI a God]] and executed the rest of his team for "heresy". After becoming the leader of SG-11, he was captured along with the rest of his team by the shape-shifting aliens protecting the Salish tribe, while his second mission ended with his entire team being executed by Apophis.
** ''Series/StargateAtlantis'': Any character who makes their first appearance just as something is discovered is destined to meet a quick demise. The Red shirt du jour is introduced that episode, often by name. As the series' regulars investigate new technology or a recent discovery the newly introduced Red shirts keeping watch get toasted/Wraith-ed/introduced to the MonsterOfTheWeek.
*** Averted in "Duet", where Cadman at first ''looks'' like she's going to be set up for this when she gets beamed up by a Wraith along with Rodney. Luckily for her, they manage to shoot the Dart down before it escape through the Stargate. Unluckily for her, their attempt to rematerialise her from the damaged Dart leaves her consciousness ends up trapped [[SplitPersonalityTakeover inside of Rodney]] for most of the episode, before they manage to separate them.
*** Done for shock value when recurring gate-technician [[spoiler:Peter Grodin]] unexpectedly dies at the end of season one, performing a HeroicSacrifice by remaining behind on the Ancient satellite weapon and taking down a Wraith Hive Ship as [[DyingMomentOfAwesome his final act]].
* ''Franchise/StarTrek'': Despite it being the {{Trope Namer|s}}, quite a few of the characters that die in ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' are blue shirts or gold shirts. 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. 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?". In addition, [[AvertedTrope this trope is completely averted]] in "A Taste of Armageddon": Kirk, Spock, and three redshirts beam down to Eminiar VII where, upon landing, they are sent to be killed. ''All'' of them survive.
** Scotty wears a red shirt in the original series, (other than the [[Recap/StarTrekS1E3WhereNoManHasGoneBefore second pilot]]). He survives into ''The Next Generation''. He ''does'' get killed once, but [[OnlyMostlyDead he gets better]].
** As Creator/NichelleNichols points out in one of her Creator/MeTV promos, she wore red all the way through the series -- "guess I just wore it better!"
** According to [[http://youtu.be/GRp92HXDlgY?t=1m50s this set of statistics about Star Trek deaths]], red shirt deaths actually ''only'' make up 58% of the deaths. However, since there are so many red shirts, their ''mortality rate'' is actually lower than the yellow shirts' (25 of 239 (about 10.5%) compared to 10 of 55 (about 18%)). In fact, even if you go by 43 being the number of red shirt deaths, the yellow shirts ''still'' have a slightly higher mortality rate.
** All in all, Star Trek being the {{Trope Namer|s}} makes this an UnbuiltTrope: Despite some showings of HollywoodTactics, the Federation's [[SpaceMarine land-based military forces are repeatedly shown to be highly competent,]] and rarely are deaths of any magnitude simply {{forgotten|FallenFriend}}, or simply considered unimportant to the plot. As [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-_lrf44Gw0 these]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIZ3EuvTXFc scenes]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqGy866GY5M demonstrate]], later shows had the nameless background characters averting HollywoodTactics and demonstrating great combat skill and effectiveness, even when very poorly supplied and heavily understaffed.[[note]]The Starfleet marines in that last scene are [[ArtificialIntelligence sapient]] [[HardLight physical holograms]] programmed to be as lethal as the real thing.[[/note]]
** One of the reasons a sense of red shirts constantly dying began to accumulate came from certain faces reappearing as extras in the landing parties and seemingly dying over and over again, the most famous for this being [[https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Eddie_Paskey Eddie Paskey]] (Lt. Leslie).
** The trope gets Deconstructed in a ''Next Generation'' "The Bonding." It begins standardly for a ''Trek'' episode, with an away team exploring mysterious alien ruins, when a booby-trap goes and kills an officer who had just been introduced that episode....then spends most of the remainder of the episode exploring the reactions of the people who knew her, particularly her now orphaned son, and Worf, who led the mission and thus feels responsible. We even get a fascinating bit of philosophy from Data, who questions why people grieve more strongly for those they were close to than those they weren't, pointing out how nobody is grieving ''as'' strongly as when Tasha died. It borders on fourth-wall breaking.
** Subverted in the episode "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad" in ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' when Harry Mudd [[spoiler:once again takes control of the Discovery]], and shows off some experimental weaponized dark matter while he lists his demands. He warns no one to attempt to become a hero, as an unnamed officer attempts to tackle him. Harry sees it coming however and talks him down, calling him "random communications officer man". While Mudd was about to demonstrate the dark matter on this officer, he instead demonstrates it on Lieutenant Tyler.
* ''[[Series/TheSuiteLifeOfZackAndCody The Suite Life on Deck]]'': Parodies this in the episode "[[RecycledInSpace Starship Tipton]]". Marcus says something along the lines of "Why do we have to wear these outfits? And the guys in red always get killed." Then a guy in a red shirt opens a hatch and gets sucked into space. Marcus replies "See?"
* ''Series/Supergirl2015'':
** In "Supergirl Lives", one of the main characters, Winn, is on the Moon, and he beats an alien with a rock and exclaims "I'm not the red shirt! I'm not the red shirt! You're the red shirt!" This references Winn's love for Sci-Fi.
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'':
** The Season 5 episode "Good God, Y'All" has a whole ''town'' full of them [[spoiler:divided into thinking that the other side are demons so that Sam and Dean can figure it out and meet War, the Apocalyptic Horseman]].
** In season 6, [[spoiler:Sam]] is called out for using [[spoiler:the sheriff]] who fitted the monsters M.O. as bait to lure out the monster, and lead it back to its nest. In fact the trope was called by name.
** Most episodes start with an until-then-unseen character being killed by the MonsterOfTheWeek.
* ''Series/ToddAndTheBookOfPureEvil'': The student body of Crowley High frequently serves as victims of the user of the Book of Pure Evil (often another Crowley student). {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d when [[spoiler:the bodies of three students flayed alive]] are identified using the school's own set of dental records (created for such an occasion).
* ''Series/{{Tremors}}'': In the TV adaptation, nearly every episode starts off with some random construction worker/tourist/passer by getting brutally killed by some monster.
* In ''Series/UltramanLeo'', defense team MAC is this. Whereas most Ultra Series maintain the members of defense teams introduced in the first episode for the entirety of the series, the MAC crew is pretty much nameless and mostly serves to get killed by the MonsterOfTheWeek. Instead, the series focus is placed almost entirely on [[TheHero Gen]], [[TheMentor Dan]], and [[TagalongKid Tohru]].
* ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'': Introduces many characters only for them to be killed off by vampires. Often overlaps with BlackDudeDiesFirst, especially in the case of the black boy introduced to Bonnie as a crush, who is promptly killed off.
* ''Series/WalkingWithDinosaurs'' often has large, uninteresting herbivores who get eaten by the main predator of the episode in order to establish how dangerous it is.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
!!''Franchise/StarTrek''
* In ''VideoGame/StarTrek25thAnniversary'', you lead a landing party consist of Captain Kirk, Commander Spock, Dr. [=McCoy=], and a lunkhead security officer in ''every'' mission. Guess which one can be easily killed (in some missions, more than one way)? In fact, getting a 100% mission rating requires you to keep him alive, which in later missions is [[EscortMission a puzzle in itself]]. Sadly this feature is removed in its sequel, ''VideoGame/JudgmentRites''.
* The ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration 16''-bit 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.
* ''VideoGame/StarTrekEliteForce'': The game lampshades this by giving the "Redshirt Award" to whoever died the most in a holomatch.
** Dying in single player may prompt the post-mission report to say "What color shirt were you wearing?"
* ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'':
** Your ship's crew used to be made up almost entirely of these. The crew was represented as a bar shaped like a line of people, and it got colored and went dark as you take damage in space. Large ships in particular would have hundreds if not thousands of dead crew in every battle. This mechanic has since been removed and your crew is now unkillable. On the ground, any party member spot not filled with a bridge officer has a generic security officer to fill the spot, who is not customizable or upgradable. The only exceptions are the Captain (the player's character) and his/her NPC senior officers.
** This trope was inverted in the old Federation tutorial when your Captain sent you over alone to a ship infested with Borg, a total red shirt mission. Instead of the Borg killing you, they boarded your ship and killed off every officer aboard. This left you, an ensign, as the senior surviving officer and thus in command of the ship.
** Your character can be a "tactical". This means you're the combat expert and are at least supposed to wear a red uniform. And [[SubvertedTrope if everything blows up, you tend to have a better chance of survival than the yellow and blue shirts]].
** A captain-tier Tactical ability, "Security Escort," allows you to beam in a couple redshirts from your ship to back you up in ground combat. Unlike your regular party of bridge officers or generic security guys who will be OnlyMostlyDead at worst, these can and probably will actually die. And nobody cares because you can [[WeHaveReserves beam in more every few minutes]].
*** Taken [[ExaggeratedTrope Up to Eleven]] with the [[DistressCall distress call ability]], which summons another entire ship full of these solely for taking fire when your own ship is at critical health. However, Sometimes the ability turns into SummonBiggerFish instead as the entirely random ship that shows up can be several tiers higher than is available for playable characters.

!! Non-''Star Trek''
* The amateur PC AdventureGame ''VideoGame/AdventuresInTheGalaxyOfFantabulousWonderment'', which is pretty much what it sounds like, takes the trope to its logical extreme by making redshirts into a commodity cloned and sold in 5-packs. They die in a great number of interesting ways. In fact it's actually impossible for an away mission to end any way ''but'' the death of the redshirt.
* ''VIdeoGame/AnnieLastHope'' has the New Mexico police who serves as backup in the opening stages, when the ZombieApocalypse begins in proper. The entire squad gets overwhelmed quickly by the undead while putting a small dent in the zombie population, though you do obtain a machine-gun from one of the officers in the process.
* In ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty: VideoGame/ModernWarfare 2'''s Takedown mission, one of your squadmates is [[MeaningfulName aptly codenamed]] [[NewMeat "Meat"]], and is picked off shortly after the shooting starts. Royce, the next in line, is gunned down a little while later.
** Hell, the idea of NPC redshirts is even a thematic element of the ''Videogame/CallOfDuty'' franchise as the massive amounts of friendly [=NPCs=] are meant to reinforce that the player is simply one among many thousands of soldiers engaged in real battles, as a contrast to the OneManArmy that the player character inhabits in other war [=FPSes=]. Gradually, this element diminished as the series went on, with the nameless cannon-fodder [=NPCs=] being there to make you feel comparatively more awesome.
* In ''VideoGame/CryingSuns'', your commandos are interchangeable goons with two hit points apiece and no sprites. They exist to act as meat shields for your officers during expeditions, and to be deployed during certain anomalies.
* ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar II'': The first two games use a squad system, where your heroes will always be the last of the three or four Space Marines in the squad to die, losses being replenished at a teleporter. The third goes back to individual heroes, though these can be exchanged for EliteMooks that cost nothing to replace at a teleporter.
* The repair team in ''VideoGame/DeadSpace'' consist of three named characters and some additional guards. None of the latter survive the first act.
* In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOriginsAwakening'' you start the game with Mhairi. She is a serviceable tank during the first mission but her main purpose is to die during the subsequent Grey Warden joining ritual. The ritual has already been established as dangerous so it would have seemed like a [[ContrivedCoincidence contrived coincidence]] for all of the participants to survive.
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'':
** In ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]''[='s=] ''Siege at Firemoth'' DLC, you team up with three NPC companions who fit the FighterMageThief trio. All three will almost certainly die in the first stage of the assault on the eponymous Fort Firemoth, leaving you to finish alone.
** When you go to [[spoiler:trap the dragon Odahviing]] in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'', the people on the Dragonsreach balcony are you, the Jarl of Whiterun, his adjutant, and some nameless guard. No points for guessing which one gets snapped up and flung into the distance on [[spoiler:Odahviing]]'s first pass.
* In ''VideoGame/EVEOnline'', there's a mission where the objective is to find a man named Red. When he's found [[spoiler:he's dead and]] described as wearing a red shirt.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'', the power armored soldier in Operation Anchorage who runs into the pulse field and dies is labeled a Red Shirt in the GECK.
** In the main game, the first named Brotherhood of Steel soldier to die during gameplay is appropriately named Reddin.
* ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'':
** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'', this is played within Cloud's flashback and the ultimate resolution thereof. Sephiroth goes into the mountains near Nibelheim with Cloud, Tifa (as a guide), and two unnamed grunts. One of the grunts gets thrown off a bridge. He dies. The other is attacked later when Sephiroth goes nuts. [[spoiler:Not only does he survive, ''he's Cloud''. The "Cloud" that we saw in Cloud's flashback was actually Zack.]] The ProductionNickname for the character was 'Zako', a pun on 'Zack' and a Japanese word for fictional cannon fodder.
** In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX'' Generic Al Bheds tend to die en masse at points in the game. Starting with Operation Mi'hen.
** [[ThoseTwoGuys Biggs and Wedge]] are a rare ''recurring'' example, thanks to having multiple instances throughout the series. Which tend to not survive showing up onscreen, most notably in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIVTheAfterYears'' (died protecting Ceodore), ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'' (died trying to capture an Esper), and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' (died when Shinra dropped the Midgar plate).
* In ''Franchise/FireEmblem'', since the games are known for having large casts, you would think that there would not be many red shirts. However, on numerous occasions green colored "Other" units will be found either as generic guards or NPC reinforcements. They are usually of the class "Soldier", which no characters that you recruit will ever have (though they are also sometimes seen as enemy units). Worse still, they have some of the lowest stats in the game. Soldiers are given better stats and made into a playable class in ''Path of Radiance'' and ''Radiant Dawn'', but they still seem to be the go-to class for neutral units.
* In ''VideoGame/FTLFasterThanLight'', there is an achievement called "No Redshirts Here", which is unlocked if the player reaches the final sector without losing a crew member.
* In ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar'':
** Anthony Carmine (whose name is a shade of red) is a rookie squadmember who is the only main character to wear a helmet which covers his face. He's also the first squad member to die in the game (and actually one of the only two characters who die), shot in the head by a sniper after the first couple of levels. His Redshirt status was {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in ''Gears of War 2'' by a conversation between Ben Carmine and Dom.
** In ''Gears of War 2'', Benjamin Carmine (Anthony Carmine's youngest brother) joins the squad, but survives almost to the end of the game, making him a MauveShirt.
** Averted in ''Gears of War 3'' with Clayton Carmine, the eldest Carmine brother. Several times he dodges death, but makes it to the end of the game alive. His helmet even deflects a sniper's bullet, a CallBack to how Anthony Carmine died.
*** Surprisingly he was the least armored of the three brothers, wearing sleeveless armor rather than full body armor.
** Also in the first ''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.
* The oarsmen on the ship to Tolbi in ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' exist only to be slain by sea monsters, thus giving the player a chance to veer the ship off its course -- and they're all wearing red bandanas.
* During a surprise attack on a supply depot in ''Growlanser 2'', the enemy commander has the following exchange with a guard:
-->'''Byron:''' You... token guard that's gonna die anyway... try and slow them down!\\
'''Burnstein Soldier 6:''' [[TooDumbToLive Uh... okay...]]
* Almost every friendly NPC in the first-person shooter ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'' 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.)
** In the FanRemake ''VideoGame/BlackMesa'', however, [[VideoGameCaringPotential most of them can be saved]]. In any case, though, ''Opposing Force'' reveals that [[spoiler:anyone who didn't get out by the next day died anyway, thanks to the Black Ops nuking the facility]].
* In ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'', your regular human allies have a high mortality rate:
** The first two redshirts pop up ''right after the tutorial'' of ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'' (one of them only shows up on Easy or Normal). One of the crewmen who was guiding your tutorial is gunned down by Elites, and the other is killed by an explosion as soon as he leaves the room.
** Sergeant Johnson was likely intended as a redshirt until Bungie realized how much the fans liked him.
** In fact, when Halo is blown up at the end of ''Combat Evolved'', all non-Spartan humans bar the aforementioned Sgt. Johnson and three others are dead. [[ShootTheShaggyDog The other three die getting home anyway.]]
** In the whole ''Halo'' series, allied [=NPCs=] will shoot you if you murder or accidently kill a few of them. For some reason, they are much more competent when fighting you than the actual enemy; they shoot more accurately, more in general, and, somehow, their shooting does more damage. That's right, your allies are better at killing you than the enemy.
* Fairly frequent in ''VideoGame/LANoire''[='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.
* ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' (made by ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' creators Creator/{{Bungie}}) was among the very first FPS games to have friendly AI controlled allies [[note]]Operation Bodycount earlier that year also had them[[/note]], which in this case were defense drones with machine pistols. It also introduced people who ran around in random directions screaming "They're everywhere!" during an alien attack. Guess which one you'll be seeing more of. There are even some of these people, known as [=BoBs=], dressed in red, and they are the [[ColourCodedForYourConvenience weakest color aside from yellow]]. In the sequel, however, all [=BoBs=] carry handguns, and the red ones are [[MauveShirt security guards, and are stronger than the other [=BoBs=]]].
** [=BoBs=] also have the similarity of marines in shooting you when you start to murder them, with even unique dialogue for that situation (pretty good for 1995). Bungie actually encourages you to kill them, with quotes like "[=BoB-jam?=] Apply grenades liberally!" However, when you do fight them, they are some of the hardest enemies in the game because their pistols are very accurate and, unlike alien projectiles, you can't dodge a bullet. In some levels of Marathon Infinity, you have to fight both regular [=BoBs=] and armored vacuum suit wearing [=BoBs=], but the armored ones have slow-firing fusion pistols, making them easier to kill than the normal guys with pistols.
* Subverted in a trailer for ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom3'': When Chun Li's helicopter is brought down by Super Skrull, both she and Captain America actually take care to save and protect the nameless pilot.
* ''Franchise/MassEffect'':
** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'', the introductory mission on Eden Prime begins with a squadmate named Richard [[LeeroyJenkins L. Jenkins]]. Guess what happens the first time you encounter any enemies. Go on, guess. In a later mission, several Normandy marines are assigned to defend a device from the Geth. Your squadmate [[spoiler:may or may not be the only survivor]].
** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', Pressly and at least twenty other crewmen are also killed during the destruction of the ''Normandy'' at the beginning of the game. One of the DLC allows Shepard to venture to the crash-site, where they are tasked with recovering the dogtags of the fallen crewmembers, as well as erecting a memorial. Another [[TheDeadHaveNames memorial plaque]] listing these names adorns the second ''Normandy'' in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', after being appropriated and refitted by the Alliance.
** ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'' has Alec Ryder's Pathfinder team. His kid, the player character, can chat with them before the mission to [[DeathWorld Habitat-7]], where one of them gets killed in first contact with the kett, to show they're bastards. Another may or may not also be killed by the kett, if you don't bother going to save him in time.
* Parodied and lampshaded in the fourth movie based off of ''VideoGame/MastermindWorldConqueror''.
-->'''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, [[SoundEffectBleep *** ]] me, none of us are safe! He could kill one of us at any time...!\\
'''Mastermind:''' While I appreciate, and thank you for, the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' reference, you got me. I was going to test this [[DeathRay portable Doom Laser]] out on [[YouHaveFailedMe one of you]].
* Any non-plot-critical {{N|onPlayerCharacter}}PCs in the ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonor'' series. Sometimes, your allies are scripted to automatically drop dead if they aren't killed prior to a certain point. Plot-essential [=NPCs=] will generally become these after they've served their purpose.
* The tutorial level of ''VideoGame/MetalArmsGlitchInTheSystem'' features a pair of droids named [[MeaningfulName Hosed and Screwed]]. No points for guessing what happens to them.
* Subverted in ''VideoGame/{{Metro 2033}}''. Since he appears, the character Danila seems set up as a throw-away {{Gas Mask Mook|s}} like the many other faceless mooks you encounter. Several times it appears that he is going to be killed off by Demons only for him to escape just in time. In the end a Demon crashes through a window of the building you're in, grabs Danila and tries to fly away, only to drop him when Miller(and possibly the player) opens fire. He falls a good distance to the ground but still manages to survive, though with serious injuries. Miller sends you on ahead as he gets Danila back to the station for medical attention.
* ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'' mod ''Dreamcatcher 4'' has a red-shirted elven soldier named Issachar standing on the battlements of the Lakeside Keep. If you ask him why the red shirt, he says that it was given to him to wear along with something vague about being on security detail.
* ''VideoGame/QuestForGloryV'' has "Kokeeno Pookameeso" as one of your competitors for the throne. This translates into "Red Shirt". Guess which of your competitors is first to die? (If you do the side quests, Kokeeno acts a bit more like a MauveShirt, getting a good amount of dialog that shows him to be a good and honorable man with admirable reasons for entering the Rites of Rulership. Sadly, it doesn't do him a lot of good.)
* ''VideoGame/RainbowSix'' is a particularly interesting example in that your squadmates can ''unintentionally'' become red shirts as a result of either poor map planning on your end or the game's [[ArtificialStupidity famously spotty team AI.]] Of course, if you wanted to, you could just place your squadmates in locations where they're bound to be immediately killed and then go about the whole map by yourself. But that would naturally put you at a ''major'' disadvantage after the first level.
* ''VideoGame/RedShirt'', unsurprisingly, is entirely focused upon the existence of redshirt characters, most specifically their social lives and the relatively mundane role they play in a much-mentioned but never seen intergalactic war.
* ''Secret Files 2: Puritas Cordis'' lampshaded this. All the named characters who died appear in the ending... in pictures, wearing red shirts.
* ''SpaceCommand'' has tactical crewmembers (TheBridge crew, weapons operators, armory crew) wear red uniforms. In a subversion, they are the only ones capable of fighting off enemy {{board|ingParty}}ers. In this case, it seems like anyone wearing a blue or a yellow shirt is the Red Shirt, although they have alternative means of surviving (engineers/yellow can deploy sentry drones to defend them if the appropriate room is built, and scientists/blue can heal and revive one another).
* ''VideoGame/SpaceQuest'':
** Parodied in ''VideoGame/SpaceQuestVTheNextMutation'', in which 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?
--->'''Droole:''' This may be dangerous, lets split up so we can cover more territory.\\
'''Roger:''' Don't you think we should stick together?\\
'''Droole:''' Only if you do a quick wardrobe change, sir.\\
'''Roger:''' This is hardly a time to play fashion critic.\\
'''Droole:''' It's not that, it's your shirt... it's... well... so '''red'''... It's bad luck.\\
''[they separate, only for Roger to be attacked later]''
** Also, Droole is issued a weapon, while Roger isn't. That's right, the ship's captain can't get himself a weapon. To be fair, though, the crew is so tiny that there may only be one weapon aboard, and it must go to the tactical officer. Plus, nobody would trust Roger with a gun.
** It's not entirely clear who gets what color uniform. In ''Space Quest V'', only Roger has that color. Captain [[{{Jerkass}} Raemes T. Quirk]] has a purple uniform, possibly because he captains [[TheFederation StarCon]]'s flagship. In ''VideoGame/SpaceQuestVIRogerWilcoInTheSpinalFrontier'', Captain [[CatFolk Kielbasa]] has a red uniform. The ''[=DeepShip=] 86'' certainly looks like it could be the new flagship after the ''Goliath''[='=]s destruction.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}'', there is an achievement called "Red Shirt" to obtain it you must lose 100 crew members while playing adventures.
* In ''Franchise/StarWars: VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed'', your allies, though few and far between, are still noticeable in their ineptitude. The few 501st troopers on Kashyyk are almost impossible to keep alive, being able to be one-shot by the Wookies, and doing minimal damage to them. The rebel troops on Felucia do not fare much better, despite their increased numbers, and the Wookies that you can free upon your return to Kashyyk, while being good at tanking the enemy fire, will eventually fall to the sheer numbers of the enemy. The only allies notable for not being offed quickly are the Bespin Guards, which can hold their own in their short appearance, but do not have a lot of screen time.
* The ship's crew of ''VideoGame/SunlessSea'' is these as the victims of hostile cannon fire, zee-beast attacks, sunstroke, cannibalism, and sacrifice to dark gods. Your captain will always be targeted last and your officers are completely immune to these threats.
* DoubleSubversion in ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss''. Because clones (here called "replicas") aren't bound to [[PropheciesAreAlwaysRight a prophecy that affects the entire planet's population]], the BigBad wants to replicate the world and everyone in it. Since cloning people in this setting tends to kill the original, the originals that the BigBad used for his clone army become Redshirts to their replicas, since the BigBad wants them to live in the place of the originals. ''However'', that same clone army ends up becoming Redshirts themselves when our heroes [[StormingTheCastle storm his fortress]] and wipe them out.
* In the ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' "Meet The Videos" this trope is inverted with the RED team mercenaries regularly defeating BLU mercenaries.
* ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' has both the fairy maids of the Scarlet Devil Mansion and the rabbits of Eientei, alternating between Red Shirts and Mooks depending on perspective, whose sole purpose is to get slaughtered by vastly more powerful characters, with ''Silent Sinner in Blue'' in particular not being kind to them. Fortunately for them, in Gensoukyou {{Non Lethal KO}}s are the law.
** Faries also play with this a bit in that they can't actually die permanently, making sending them into otherwise suicidal situations feasible. Otherwise, they're at the bottom of the [[FoodChainOfEvil cosmic food chain]], below even humans, of which both are targets of [[ToServeMan being eaten]] by youkai.
* Introversion Software, creators of ''VideoGame/{{Uplink}}'', included a bunch of bonus materials with the game. The catch? They (weakly) encrypted them via a encryption called "Red Shirt". Guess how long they expected it to take the fans to break the encryption? They also encrypted some game data (most notably, saved games) with the method, and replaced it with an update, called Red Shirt 2, in later versions. Their next game, ''Darwinia'', also use a modified version of Red Shirt 2 for its saved games.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Uplink}}'' itself, the LAN admins give their co-workers surprisingly obvious passwords, as if they want their friends' machines to get hacked into.
** Not quite. Passwords ''start out'' weak, and are crackable with a dictionary attack (which is faster than brute force). However, as security breaches become bigger news, passwords get stronger and the dictionary attack becomes useless.
* The Gallian army in ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles''. If the raw deal a Redshirt normally gets is a sushi platter, the one these guys get is still flopping on the deck with its eyes bugging out. For starters, their only representative is an asshole and none of them have faces, defining traits, or redeeming value (when their enemy counterparts get two cutscenes to show how human they are). Then the vast majority gets burnt alive in an explosion, which is par for the Redshirt course, except the explosion was a ''[[TheWoobie woobiefying]]'' moment for the person who blew them up, and [[AMillionIsAStatistic no one cares that they're all dead afterward.]] And as if that wasn't enough, if the player somehow manages to kill off all the distinct personalities of Squad 7, they'll start filling slots in the militia, and still have no faces or final words, fully prepared to die in thankless, anonymous droves (and if the player didn't care about Squad 7, they probably won't mind killing off what amounts to ordinary, faceless PlayerMooks). Apparently the difference between the militia and the army is that the army can train soldiers to be more disposable than toilet paper.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Valorant}}'', Phoenix has the ability Run It Back, which allows players to invoke this trope.
* In the Cataclysm expansion of ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', there's a quest named "Madness" in which you are to accompany a Horde Negotiator to speak with the leader of the Dragonmaw clan of Orcs. You're informed that two have already been sent and not returned, but the quest giver feels assured that if you accompany the negotiator, the clan leader will respect your strength. Along the way, the developers attempt a trope overload, as the Negotiator lampshades {{Retirony}}, informs you that "After these negotiations, I am looking forward to a long and prosperous life." If talked to, he questions you "Hey, does this red shirt make me look expendable?" Once you begin negotiations, as one might predict from the quest name, the following conversation eventually takes place: [[Film/ThreeHundred "This is madness!" "This is... DRAGONMAW!]]" with an accompanying sparta kick into the fire for the poor ''Red Shirt''.
** [[LeeroyJenkins One particular player]] we all know about happens to have been in a party all wearing red shirts when his name became immortalized. Maybe that's why Leeroy...[[LeeroyJenkins Leeroyed.]]
[[/folder]]

* The ''Website/CollegeHumor'' short ''Jurassic Park Character's Awful Realization'' is explicitly about this, wherein the main cast are arguing over who should distract the ''T. rex'' with a flare. Gennaro (played by the original actor) is elected for this, and accuses the others, "I'm only here to die, aren't I?" The other characters fail to reassure him ("[[BlatantLies You're a very important character!]]") and an argument ensues wherein GenreSavvy Gennaro insists it's unfair to ask the most obviously doomed character to go out there, saying Grant and Ellie are both needed experts, Malcolm is the tension-relieving comic relief, and Tim and Lex [[ImprobableInfantSurvival are kids]], and he's simply "[[AcceptableTargets the lawyer]]." The others try and convince him maybe he's a MauveShirt instead. [[spoiler:Malcolm ultimately [[KickTheDog tosses him out of the Explorer]] and after a failed attempt to persuade the ''T. rex'' he's plot relevant by saying [[BlatantLies he's Tim and Lex's real father]], he gets nommed.]]

* DoubleSubversion in ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss''. Because clones (here called "replicas") aren't bound to [[PropheciesAreAlwaysRight a prophecy that affects the entire planet's population]], the BigBad wants to [[CloningBlues replicate the world and everyone in it]]. Since cloning people in this setting tends to kill the original, the originals that the BigBad used for his clone army become Redshirts to their replicas, since the BigBad wants them to live in the place of the originals. ''However'', that same clone army ends up becoming Redshirts themselves when our heroes [[StormingTheCastle storm his fortress]] and wipe them out.

'''Ensign Ricky:''' [[ThisIsGonnaSuck Aw, crap.]]

* Parodied in ''VideoGame/SpaceQuest 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?
-->'''Droole:''' This may be dangerous, lets split up so we can cover more territory.\\

** It's not entirely clear who gets what color uniform. In ''Space Quest V'', only Roger has that color. Captain [[JerkAss Raemes T. Quirk]] has a purple uniform, possibly because he captains [[TheFederation StarCon]]'s flagship. In ''Space Quest 6'', Captain [[CatFolk Kielbasa]] has a red uniform. The ''[=DeepShip=] 86'' certainly looks like it could be the new flagship after the ''Goliath''[='=]s destruction.

Has nothing to do with the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirts_%28Italy%29 guerrilla army]] of Italian nationalist leader Giuseppe Garibaldi, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirt_(college_sports) US college athletes]] who take a year-long sabbatical from active play, or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshirting_(academic) kids who are preemptively held back from kindergarten for a year]].

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': The Princesses' Royal Guard has, to put it nicely, a disastrous track record in about anything. They never actually get ''killed'' (this is ''My Little Pony'' we're talking about, after all), but anything they can recover from is fair game. Arrest someone? They get zapped. Find a stolen bird? They get bluffed by the culprits. National Emergency? They're not even there. Guard the Archives? They unlock the doors for the intruders (though in this case, the intruder, being Celestia's personal student, had every right to be in there anyway). Monitor wedding preparations? They get infiltrated. Capital under attack? They get overrun without effort. Neighbouring state in peril? They play messenger. Seeing how they're BodyguardingABadass, one has to wonder what their purpose is beyond projecting authority.

* Perfectly parodied in the ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' 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 ''Franchise/StarTrek'' Redshirt 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.

* Parodied in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman'' when they're planning to break into a museum and after Bojack says one of them might die, the camera pans to Alan the cable guy (who happened to be wearing a red shirt), who they then forced to come along. After being told repeatedly that he's definitely going to die, he's then shot by the police when Creator/MargoMartindale uses him as a human shield but his phone blocked the bullet.

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': Parodied in the same episode that the quote at the top of this article comes from: when Peter is running in the road with Creator/WilliamShatner, the latter gets hit and killed by a car. The camera then pans to Ensign Ricky, who declares: "I did ''not'' see that coming."

* ''WesternAnimation/RobotChicken'':
** The Redshirt gets his revenge in a ''Franchise/StarTrek'' sketch. When the crew teleported down to a planet to survive the ''Enterprise'' exploding, the crew reasons that to survive [[NoPartyLikeADonnerParty one of them must be sacrificed as food]]. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4rXbu9sDCE Obviously they choose the Red Shirt first]], but the Redshirt 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 who brought a gun." He proceeds to kill and eat them all.
--->"Mmm... that's good [[LargeHam ham]]."
** Of course, they also [[https://web.archive.org/web/20170202084430if_/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWpFktVpiKs played it straight]] in another sketch.
* Pretty much any GL Corps member seen in ''WesternAnimation/GreenLanternTheAnimatedSeries'' that [[CanonForeigner doesn't come from the comics]]. For instance, the pilot introduces us to a GL named M'ten, just to have him violently killed off in order to establish the Red Lanterns as a threat.
* The Klokateers in ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}''
-->'''Facebones:''' And most important, remember -- [[NoOSHACompliance death is an everyday part of the workplace]]! So, when you see a dead body, don't freak out!\\
'''Toki:''' ''[is taking out the trash and comes across a rotting corpse]'' Wowee!\\
'''Facebones:''' Just... ring your Deth-bell!\\
'''Toki:''' ''[rings his Deth-bell]''
* Providence soldiers in ''WesternAnimation/GeneratorRex''. Not only are they merely cannon fodder, they're also completely useless when battling against actual [=EVO=]s, 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 [=EVO=]s 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 TrainingFromHell as it is a ridiculous joke.
** Naturally this rule doesn't apply to any Providence Soldier who's seen [[AvertedTrope Without A]] [[FacelessGoons Helmet]], they're all {{Mauve Shirt}}s and generally fair pretty well, though the rules of FamilyFriendlyFirearms seem to dictate that they can never accomplish anything meaningful with their rifle-err, "Blasters".
** "Basic" did provide some justification, however. The purpose of the grunts being more to distract the [=EVO=]s and keep them away from civilians while stalling them long enough for Rex or another main character to actually take said [=EVO=]s down. Granted they tend to take insane casualties, with a few exceptions, such as [[spoiler:"Leader of the Pack" (where the redshirts respond to an ineffective FiveRoundsRapid against a giant worm by calling in a gunship and ripping the EVO apart) and most notably "The Forgotten" in which a team of redshirts (and a MauveShirt) survive being trapped inside a city of hostile EVOS]].
* Lampshaded in the ''WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures'' episode "Duck Trek". Plucky (as Captain Quirk), Hamton (as Mr. Spork), Furrball (as Dr. Furr), and three Red Shirts (Shirley the Loon, Sweetie Pie, and Saul Sheepdog) are on a planet covered in hair.
-->'''Plucky:''' Spork, Doc, you come with me. ''(To the Red Shirts)'' You extras wander off that way and disappear. ''(And they do)''
* ''WesternAnimation/GIJoeARealAmericanHero'': The Joes had "Greenshirts" as they would come to be called. Their look was based on Grunt who was the most generic looking character of all the Joes, probably hence the name "Grunt". They weren't used as cannon fodder per se in the cartoon, for obvious reasons. But they did make animating large battle scenes easier because all the main characters had unique appearances and animating a large number of them onscreen at the same time often proved laborious. Typically, one or two main characters would be fully animated in the foreground while several Greenshirts served as background employing more limited animation. Also, the addition of generic soldiers solved the problem of Cobra troops outnumbering the Joes. They're all males throughout the series. But a few female Greenshirts are seen, especially in "Spell of the Siren".
* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse:'' Rubies are part of the HiveCasteSystem that [[TheEmpire the Gem Homeworld]] has for every type of Gem, and their role is common, disposable soldiers that can be shattered and replaced on a whim. They're even [[LiteralMetaphor literally red]] (as are their shirts).
* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': The titular character of "James," who wears a red radiation suit, is {{sacrific|ialLamb}}ed by Bubblegum to the zombies of the crater, and then {{subvert|edTrope}}s the trope because he's an ExpendableClone like most of the candy people. [[spoiler:And then further subverts the trope when his original body becomes undead and leads the zombies out of the crater]].
* The interns in ''WesternAnimation/TotalDrama'' and its SpinOff ''WesternAnimation/TotalDramaPresentsTheRidonculousRace'' are most definitely this as they're used to set up and test the extremely dangerous challenges before the contestants get to them. Many don't make it out alive or are horribly injured at the very least.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'': If you're one of the talking flowers, there's a ninety-nine percent chance you won't survive till the end of the episode.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Duckman}}'' did a full-blown parody of ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' ("Where No Duckman Has Gone Before"), with the various characters playing Kirk's crew. Fittingly, the red shirts were [[TheyKilledKennyAgain Fluffy and Uranus]].
-->'''Duckman:''' ''[doing the captain's log]'' As purely extraneous cast members, Fluffy and Uranus's sole purpose is to be killed upon arrival, thus allowing the rest of us to get on with the damn story. ''[beat]'' Aw, the hell with it. ''[shoots them himself]''
* ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2012'' mocked this in an episode of its first ShowWithinAShow, ''Space Heroes''. The captain specifically brings two crewman along when he beams down to a dangerous planet so they'll get shot instead of him.
* Parodied and averted with Red Five in ''WesternAnimation/TransformersCyberverse''. He has the same design as the generic Autobot soldier, but with a bright red paint job. He's introduced suddenly in "Escape From Earth" with no build up and his starfighter is destroyed shortly after the mission begins. As the mission continues, named character's fighters are destroyed and it's revealed that the starships were unmanned. The whole operation being a distraction and everyone is fine.

* Completely subverted in ''[[Webcomic/{{Starslip}} Starslip Crisis]]'' with the introduction of Quine, a "Protocol Officer" who's in charge of building relationships with new species. While he has a tendency to die on every "away mission", upon death, a clone is awakened on ship with all of his memories up to the time of death intact. The trope is outright inverted by the fact that he's the only member on the ship with this privilege (due to the rarity and importance of the protocol officer).
* ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary'':
** Subverted in that most characters who die are both well-established and wearing aquamarine uniforms rather than red ones. Officers wear red uniforms, but they seem to survive very well.
*** Lieutenant (later Lieutenant-Commander) Der Trihs (Red Shirt [[SdrawkcabName spelled backwards]]) is one of these officers. He is repeatedly injured in various grievous ways, including being reduced to a [[LosingYourHead head-in-a-jar]] several times, but never actually dies. Instead, he eventually retires from the mercenary business to live with a pretty girl on a paradisaical vacation-planet. [[spoiler:It is revealed at one point that his skull is quite nearly impervious to harm.]]

* Officers Gets killed and Oneshot in ''Webcomic/{{Girly}}''. Amusingly, neither of them die, and Getskilled goes on to become [[MauveShirt a minor part of the ensemble]] until at last he [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence meets his eventual fate]]. It's pretty cool. Oneshot, on the other hand, just never shows up again after not dying.
* ''Webcomic/SluggyFreelance'' has been around long enough to have hit this {{trope}} dozens of times. Without even bringing in the number of disposable elves who die in the formerly annual Christmas messes, there's:
** [[http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=060806 This]] and [[http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=060813 this]] strip from the ''"Stick Figures in Spaaaaace"'' series of stick-figure FillerStrips have characters with red shirts getting killed by random gunfire. Not an actual straight example but ParodiedTrope.
** During "Oceans Unmoving", Quartermaster Flipp complains about not getting any characterization... and is knocked overboard to certain death in the very next strip. Of course, it's subverted when, after the whole plot and the deaths of many major and minor characters, it's revealed that he didn't die, but instead is sent through time.
* ''ComicStrip/WhatsNewWithPhilAndDixie'' [[http://web.archive.org/web/20150428205728/http://www.airshipentertainment.com/growfcomic.php?date=20081228 strip]] on "[[TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering Weatherlight]]" Saga has "Snapper" [=McFipt=]:
-->Shipman. You know when a monster or ninja or something sneaks on board and attacks a crewman to show how evil it is? Well, the person it attacks is [=McFipt=], and he's getting pretty tired of it.

* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'': Sam invokes it with his deployment orders during a [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1800/fc01775.png pie fight]]: "Red shirt guy, intercept incoming pies".
* The clone troopers in ''Webcomic/DarthsAndDroids''. Amusingly, [[http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0520.html in some cases]] they're ''eager'' to die.
-->'''Cdr. Cody:''' Although, we could go in first to see if it's a trap.\\
'''Obi-wan:''' That's... very nice of you. But don't worry. I'm ''sure'' it's a trap.\\
'''Cody:''' We could go in first and trigger the trap.\\
'''Obi-wan:''' You guys need a union.
* Played deliberately straight by the crew of the ''Enterprise'' in the ''Star Trek'' Website/DeviantArt web comic, ''Webcomic/EnsignSueMustDie''. The crew quickly find out that Ensign Mary Sue is EXTREMELY annoying. Virtually all attempts to get rid of her fail. [[spoiler:Including shooting her!]] She's [[Film/ThePrincessBride spent the past few years building up an immunity]] to phaser blasts. So the crew turn to the one guaranteed way of killing off a crew member. They give her a promotion which changes her shirt colour from blue to red. They waste no time and go on an away mission, where she is killed almost immediately.
* Early on in ''{{Webcomic/Bearmageddon}}'', Ethan sold cameo appearances in the comic to interested readers, for crowd shots of people getting mauled by bears. More expensive cameos involved appearing in the foreground and saying one or two lines before they went out.
* ''WebComic/DragonBallMultiverse'': The poor vargas who woke up Broly. And things [[InferredHolocaust don't seem to be going any better]] for the ones who [[spoiler:tried to send Buu back to Universe 4]].
* In ''Webcomic/CaptainUfo'', Ufo sometimes treats low-rank crewmembers in the military division as this. They ''do'' wear a red uniform too.

* In WebVideo/RedLetterMedia's review of ''First Contract'', one of the goldshirts (an anonymous extra in the background) pipes up and protests the suicidal nature of his mission.
-->"Have [[VasquezAlwaysDies Sanchez]] do it! [[ShoutOut Or]] [[Series/ILoveLucy McGillicutty]]! …I-I'll be in the back, ''supervising!''"
* Website/{{SFDebris}} theorizes the goldshirts are so incompetent because they're all algae scientists or astronomers, unwittingly enlisted into combat once Starfleet re-militarizes during TNG. They're trained to measure soil toxicity, not kick-box with Borg.
-->'''Worf:''' PREPARE FOR RAMMING SPEED!\\
'''Goldshirt:''' ''[sobs]'' I just wanted to be a botanist!!
* Finding creative ways to kill off redshirts was part of the fun for some of the writers of the ''Roleplay/LeagueOfIntergalacticCosmicChampions'' (other writers thought they were sick).
* [[https://web.archive.org/web/20081201071828/http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/unisex/popculture/9722/ This shirt.]]

* ''Website/SCPFoundation'':
** All D-class personnel of the Foundation are this. Class D is the designation given to those who handle the more dangerous SCP items, and they tend to be brutally killed en masse. And if they survive to the end of the month, they're supposedly executed anyway[[note]] Though since this is unusually wasteful for the Foundation, it's possible researchers are just told this so that they treat them as expendable[[/note]]. Some of the potential guilt over sacrificing so many people is mitigated by the fact that D-class personnel are either death-row convicts (meaning they are marked for death anyway and probably deserve it) or personnel who screwed up so badly that they got demoted to Class D (meaning a massive breach of ethics and/or causing a containment breach). Needless to say, it gets lampshaded ''a lot''. One of the things that Dr. Bright is no longer allowed to do at the Foundation is swap out D-Class uniforms with red leotards.
** One of the [=SCP=]s is a PortalPool that cycles through its destinations whenever someone goes through it. Unfortunately, several of those destinations are near-instantly fatal (several of them are in ''space''), so several D-Class personnel are deliberately sacrificed to send people where they need to go (although they do give the D-Class poison so they won't have to wait ''too'' long).
-->[[CrossesTheLineTwice "This destination is on a relatively flat section of the Sea of Rains on the lunar surface. Through vast expenditure of money and D-class personnel, a small outpost has been established there, and is considered one of the Foundation’s safest locations."]].
** The original ''Star Trek'' red shirts (and the main character's PlotArmor) was briefly parodied in [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-674 SCP-674]], a Nintendo Entertainment System Zapper that can shoot fictional characters on screen. It's all but stated that the tester tried shooting at the bridge crew of the Original Series, but only was able to hit the Red Shirts.

* On ''Stone Trek'' this is consistently {{lampshade|Hanging}}d: Every time a redshirt dies, a "Dead Redshirt Count" is shown.
** It's also played with in the episode ''Star Trekkin'' just about everyone but Kirkstone, Sprock, and [=RcKoy=] dies, though Sprock is transformed into one of the creepy jellyfish (his head on their tentacles).
* Lampshaded in ''VideoGame/{{Worms}} Trek Rhapsody''. One gets hit by a Klingon missile (Scotty's line "Hit by Klingon missiles, no!"), another gets fired out of a torpedo bay ("Photon torpedooooooos!").

* On ''WebVideo/{{Smosh}}'', in this [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NL9lQ-DiL80&feature=relmfu video]].
* AudioPlay/WereAlive had The Tower with about 30 unvoiced survivors. They all got killed off in the Second Season finale "The Harder They Fall"
* Phelous in ''WebVideo/ToBoldlyFlee'' is one of these. Strangely, this gives him [[TheyKilledKennyAgain functional immortality]], as on the one hand, there are always more redshirts just like the killed ones still on the ship, and on the other hands, he's the only one they have. So, whenever he's killed, another Phelous is suddenly alive on the ship.
** Or to explain it in another way, he's simultaneously running on the Original Series rules (this trope) and Next Generation rules (he's important to the plot). Which was also lampshaded.
** It gets lampshaded/parodied like crazy later on, with the methods of killing Phelous [[SerialEscalation getting more and more ridiculous]]. And then he just dodges everything trying to kill him.
* To celebrate Star Trek's 46th anniversary, Website/{{Google}} converted the letters in its logo into Star Trek characters, with the "e" wearing a red shirt and looking nervous. If you click on the turbo-lift, he and an "o" (Kirk) beam down to a planet to fight Gorn, but the "e" keeps getting caught in the cross-fire. He doesn't die, but he goes back to the bridge unhappy.

* ''Literature/TheCodelessCode'' has the abbots. If they mismanage a project, they probably won't survive to the end of the story. Lampshaded in Case 125, where the head abbot is looking for replacements. A footnote notes that "abbots of the Spider Clan have life expectancy of a dolphin in the Gobi desert."
* Most of the guards in ''WebAnimation/CopsSkyrim''. Especially when facing things like dragons, trolls, or giants.
* Foot soldiers in ''Fanfic/FarceOfTheThreeKingdoms'' are usually referred to as "redshirts." Their survival rate is... poor.

* ''TabletopGame/BrikWars'' gives Hero units the explicit ability to make other units [[HeroicSacrifice Redshirt]].

* ''TabletopGame/{{Munchkin}}'':
** In ''Star Munchkin'', there is a hireling called a red shirt. Their only use is to die when you lose a battle, thus preventing the "Bad Stuff" from happening to you. However, they have, on a success, a one in six chance of getting overexcited and sacrificing themselves anyway.
** ''The Good, the Bad and the Munchkin'' has the greenhorn, whose only purpose is to be fed to a monster so you can steal its stuff and run away while it's busy chewing.
* The ''TabletopGame/GraveRobbersFromOuterSpace'' series of B-movie games has a character in at least two who is meant to represent some minor character who's killed early on in the movie to make the danger seem real. They're accordingly weak but their special ability is any attacks against your characters have to be directed at them before anyone else, acting as a kind of meat shield.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Scion}}'' hangs a big lampshade on this with the rules for extras. Extras are red shirts in all but name.
** Which it inherited in their entirety from its papa-game, ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}''. The Exalted community has long referenced Extras as 'Mooks', and the game encourages them to be considered little more than ambulatory scenery for the awesome epic melodrama that is the Player Characters' lives.
* The ''Star Wreck'' Roleplaying Game literally has Redshirts instead of hit points.
* ''TabletopGame/SpiritOfTheCentury'' has minions. In a bit of a switch these are mostly for the villains, but they go down right quick, and, if they are attached to a character, must quite literally die before the character can even be hurt.
* For a long time in the TabletopGame/BattleTech universe, anyone who was in the military but wasn't a Mechwarrior or Aerospace pilot was regarded as this trope, with the exception of a few factions that were noted for having high regard for ground armor or infantry. This has become less prevalent in later time settings as combined arms has become more and more popular (in universe) though there are still a few factions that are noted as considering infantry units as little more than cannon fodder.
* Given that there was inevitably a CollectibleCardGame based on ''Franchise/StarTrek'' (actually, more than one), and given CCGImportanceDissonance, there were inevitably actual Redshirt characters you could deploy. Having said that, once players hit on the idea of sending in a single character to [[SchmuckBait set off all the opponent's traps]], that tactic was inevitably called "Redshirting" as well.
** For the Star Trek CCG made by Decipher, one character was specifically designed for this: Lt. Grant, who had an ability to sacrifice himself in place of other personnel in certain situations (and yes, he wore a ''very'' prominent red shirt, and the strategy article on the official site [[LampshadeHanging hung a big lampshade]] on his role). Additionally, there was the card "Security Sacrifice," which allows you to make your gold-shirts pay the ultimate price. (Oddly enough, the picture on the card is of [[spoiler:Tasha Yar, who was a major character in the first season before succumbing to her fate]].)
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', ''Magazine/{{Dungeon}}'' magazine #49 adventure "The Dark Place". The adventure recommends that the Dungeon Master have the gacholoth fiend kill off one of the {{N|onPlayerCharacter}}PC crewmen to demonstrate to the {{P|layerCharacter}}Cs how dangerous it is.
* ''[[TabletopGame/{{Fluxx}} Star Fluxx]]'' includes an Expendable Crewman card, and its artwork features a crewman wearing a red uniform. When a player is required to discard another card, he or she can discard the Expendable Crewman instead.
* ''[[http://www.weaselpants.com/our-games/redshirts/ Redshirts]]'' is a game in which the very objective is for the player to get all of their titular crew members killed by attempting (and failing) away team missions.
* There is an obscure German rpg based on this trope ''Die unglaubliche Robert Redshirt RPG Show'' (translated: The Incredible Robert Redshirt RPG Show). In it, the players play the production crew of a TV station producing a show (pure fiction or sripted realiy) featuring an actor called Robert Redshirt. The crew tries to create dangerous situations for RR and then save hin from mortal danger, all in order to increase their viewer ratings.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Champions}}''. In the "Legions of Hell" adventure from one of the old Adventurers' Club newsletters, the heroes are tasked by a witch to journey to Hell itself and rescue her daughter, and are accompanied by some NPC villains to help out. In reality, the villains are there to be periodically picked off to remind the players they're in a '''very''' unfriendly place.

* The soldiers of Archbishop Olav Engelbrektsson in Theatre/OperaOlavEngelbrektsson are all dressed in red uniforms, and dead by the end of the play.

* In ''VideoGame/GearsOfWar'':
** Anthony Carmine (whose name is a shade of red) is a rookie squadmember who is the only main character to wear a helmet which covers his face. He's also the first squad member to die in the game (and actually one of the only two characters who die), shot in the head by a sniper after the first couple of levels. His Redshirt status was {{lampshade|Hanging}}d in ''Gears of War 2'' by a conversation between Ben Carmine and Dom.
** In ''Gears of War 2'', Benjamin Carmine (Anthony Carmine's youngest brother) joins the squad, but survives almost to the end of the game, making him a MauveShirt.
** Averted in ''Gears of War 3'' with Clayton Carmine, the eldest Carmine brother. Several times he dodges death, but makes it to the end of the game alive. His helmet even deflects a sniper's bullet, a CallBack to how Anthony Carmine died.
*** Surprisingly he was the least armored of the three brothers, wearing sleeveless armor rather than full body armor.
** Also in the first ''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 ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'' 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.)
** In the FanRemake ''VideoGame/BlackMesa'', however, [[VideoGameCaringPotential most of them can be saved]]. In any case, though, ''Opposing Force'' reveals that [[spoiler:anyone who didn't get out by the next day died anyway, thanks to the Black Ops nuking the facility]].
* Fairly frequent in ''VideoGame/LANoire''[='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 ''VideoGame/SpaceQuest 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?
-->'''Droole:''' This may be dangerous, lets split up so we can cover more territory.\\
'''Roger:''' Don't you think we should stick together?\\
'''Droole:''' Only if you do a quick wardrobe change, sir.\\
'''Roger:''' This is hardly a time to play fashion critic.\\
'''Droole:''' It's not that, it's your shirt... it's... well... so '''red'''... It's bad luck.\\
''[they separate, only for Roger to be attacked later]''
** Also, Droole is issued a weapon, while Roger isn't. That's right, the ship's captain can't get himself a weapon. To be fair, though, the crew is so tiny that there may only be one weapon aboard, and it must go to the tactical officer. Plus, nobody would trust Roger with a gun.
** It's not entirely clear who gets what color uniform. In ''Space Quest V'', only Roger has that color. Captain [[JerkAss Raemes T. Quirk]] has a purple uniform, possibly because he captains [[TheFederation StarCon]]'s flagship. In ''Space Quest 6'', Captain [[CatFolk Kielbasa]] has a red uniform. The ''[=DeepShip=] 86'' certainly looks like it could be the new flagship after the ''Goliath''[='=]s destruction.

* ''Franchise/MassEffect'':
** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'', the introductory mission on Eden Prime begins with a squadmate named Richard [[LeeroyJenkins L. Jenkins]]. Guess what happens the first time you encounter any enemies. Go on, guess. In a later mission, several Normandy marines are assigned to defend a device from the Geth. Your squadmate [[spoiler:may or may not be the only survivor]].
** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', Pressly and at least twenty other crewmen are also killed during the destruction of the ''Normandy'' at the beginning of the game. One of the DLC allows Shepard to venture to the crash-site, where they are tasked with recovering the dogtags of the fallen crewmembers, as well as erecting a memorial. Another [[TheDeadHaveNames memorial plaque]] listing these names adorns the second ''Normandy'' in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', after being appropriated and refitted by the Alliance.
** ''VideoGame/MassEffectAndromeda'' has Alec Ryder's Pathfinder team. His kid, the player character, can chat with them before the mission to [[DeathWorld Habitat-7]], where one of them gets killed in first contact with the kett, to show they're bastards. Another may or may not also be killed by the kett, if you don't bother going to save him in time.
* Introversion Software, creators of ''VideoGame/{{Uplink}}'', included a bunch of bonus materials with the game. The catch? They (weakly) encrypted them via a encryption called "Red Shirt". Guess how long they expected it to take the fans to break the encryption? They also encrypted some game data (most notably, saved games) with the method, and replaced it with an update, called Red Shirt 2, in later versions. Their next game, ''Darwinia'', also use a modified version of Red Shirt 2 for its saved games.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Uplink}}'' itself, the LAN admins give their co-workers surprisingly obvious passwords, as if they want their friends' machines to get hacked into.
** Not quite. Passwords ''start out'' weak, and are crackable with a dictionary attack (which is faster than brute force). However, as security breaches become bigger news, passwords get stronger and the dictionary attack becomes useless.
* ''Secret Files 2: Puritas Cordis'' lampshaded this. All the named characters who died appear in the ending... in pictures, wearing red shirts.
* The oarsmen on the ship to Tolbi in ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' exist only to be slain by sea monsters, thus giving the player a chance to veer the ship off its course -- and they're all wearing red bandanas.
* In ''Franchise/FireEmblem'', since the games are known for having large casts, you would think that there would not be many red shirts. However, on numerous occasions green colored "Other" units will be found either as generic guards or NPC reinforcements. They are usually of the class "Soldier", which no characters that you recruit will ever have (though they are also sometimes seen as enemy units). Worse still, they have some of the lowest stats in the game. Soldiers are given better stats and made into a playable class in ''Path of Radiance'' and ''Radiant Dawn'', but they still seem to be the go-to class for neutral units.
* ''VideoGame/QuestForGloryV'' has "Kokeeno Pookameeso" as one of your competitors for the throne. This translates into "Red Shirt". Guess which of your competitors is first to die? (If you do the side quests, Kokeeno acts a bit more like a MauveShirt, getting a good amount of dialog that shows him to be a good and honorable man with admirable reasons for entering the Rites of Rulership. Sadly, it doesn't do him a lot of good.)
* Parodied and lampshaded in the fourth movie based off of ''VideoGame/MastermindWorldConqueror''.
-->'''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, [[SoundEffectBleep *** ]] me, none of us are safe! He could kill one of us at any time...!\\
'''Mastermind:''' While I appreciate, and thank you for, the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' reference, you got me. I was going to test this [[DeathRay portable Doom Laser]] out on [[YouHaveFailedMe one of you]].
* In ''VideoGame/{{Spore}}'', there is an achievement called "Red Shirt" to obtain it you must lose 100 crew members while playing adventures.
* In ''VideoGame/FTLFasterThanLight'', there is an achievement called "No Redshirts Here", which is unlocked if the player reaches the final sector without losing a crew member.

* In ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'', your regular human allies have a high mortality rate:
** The first two redshirts pop up ''right after the tutorial'' of ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'' (one of them only shows up on Easy or Normal). One of the crewmen who was guiding your tutorial is gunned down by Elites, and the other is killed by an explosion as soon as he leaves the room.
** Sergeant Johnson was likely intended as a redshirt until Bungie realized how much the fans liked him.
** In fact, when Halo is blown up at the end of ''Combat Evolved'', all non-Spartan humans bar the aforementioned Sgt. Johnson and three others are dead. [[ShootTheShaggyDog The other three die getting home anyway.]]
** In the whole ''Halo'' series, allied [=NPCs=] will shoot you if you murder or accidently kill a few of them. For some reason, they are much more competent when fighting you than the actual enemy; they shoot more accurately, more in general, and, somehow, their shooting does more damage. That's right, your allies are better at killing you than the enemy.
* ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'' (made by ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' creators Creator/{{Bungie}}) was among the very first FPS games to have friendly AI controlled allies [[note]]Operation Bodycount earlier that year also had them[[/note]], which in this case were defense drones with machine pistols. It also introduced people who ran around in random directions screaming "They're everywhere!" during an alien attack. Guess which one you'll be seeing more of. There are even some of these people, known as [=BoBs=], dressed in red, and they are the [[ColourCodedForYourConvenience weakest color aside from yellow]]. In the sequel, however, all [=BoBs=] carry handguns, and the red ones are [[MauveShirt security guards, and are stronger than the other [=BoBs=]]].
** [=BoBs=] also have the similarity of marines in shooting you when you start to murder them, with even unique dialogue for that situation (pretty good for 1995). Bungie actually encourages you to kill them, with quotes like "[=BoB-jam?=] Apply grenades liberally!" However, when you do fight them, they are some of the hardest enemies in the game because their pistols are very accurate and, unlike alien projectiles, you can't dodge a bullet. In some levels of Marathon Infinity, you have to fight both regular [=BoBs=] and armored vacuum suit wearing [=BoBs=], but the armored ones have slow-firing fusion pistols, making them easier to kill than the normal guys with pistols.
* DoubleSubversion in ''VideoGame/TalesOfTheAbyss''. Because clones (here called "replicas") aren't bound to [[PropheciesAreAlwaysRight a prophecy that affects the entire planet's population]], the BigBad wants to [[CloningBlues replicate the world and everyone in it]]. Since cloning people in this setting tends to kill the original, the originals that the BigBad used for his clone army become Redshirts to their replicas, since the BigBad wants them to live in the place of the originals. ''However'', that same clone army ends up becoming Redshirts themselves when our heroes [[StormingTheCastle storm his fortress]] and wipe them out.

* In the Cataclysm expansion of ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'', there's a quest named "Madness" in which you are to accompany a Horde Negotiator to speak with the leader of the Dragonmaw clan of Orcs. You're informed that two have already been sent and not returned, but the quest giver feels assured that if you accompany the negotiator, the clan leader will respect your strength. Along the way, the developers attempt a trope overload, as the Negotiator lampshades {{Retirony}}, informs you that "After these negotiations, I am looking forward to a long and prosperous life." If talked to, he questions you "Hey, does this red shirt make me look expendable?" Once you begin negotiations, as one might predict from the quest name, the following conversation eventually takes place: [[Film/ThreeHundred "This is madness!" "This is... DRAGONMAW!]]" with an accompanying sparta kick into the fire for the poor ''Red Shirt''.
** [[LeeroyJenkins One particular player]] we all know about happens to have been in a party all wearing red shirts when his name became immortalized. Maybe that's why Leeroy...[[LeeroyJenkins Leeroyed.]]

* Any non-plot-critical {{N|onPlayerCharacter}}PCs in the ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonor'' series. Sometimes, your allies are scripted to automatically drop dead if they aren't killed prior to a certain point. Plot-essential [=NPCs=] will generally become these after they've served their purpose.
* In ''VideoGame/EVEOnline'', there's a mission where the objective is to find a man named Red. When he's found [[spoiler:he's dead and]] described as wearing a red shirt.
* ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' has both the fairy maids of the Scarlet Devil Mansion and the rabbits of Eientei, alternating between Red Shirts and Mooks depending on perspective, whose sole purpose is to get slaughtered by vastly more powerful characters, with ''Silent Sinner in Blue'' in particular not being kind to them. Fortunately for them, in Gensoukyou {{Non Lethal KO}}s are the law.
** Faries also play with this a bit in that they can't actually die permanently, making sending them into otherwise suicidal situations feasible. Otherwise, they're at the bottom of the [[FoodChainOfEvil cosmic food chain]], below even humans, of which both are targets of [[ToServeMan being eaten]] by youkai.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'', the power armored soldier in Operation Anchorage who runs into the pulse field and dies is labeled a Red Shirt in the GECK.
** In the main game, the first named Brotherhood of Steel soldier to die during gameplay is appropriately named Reddin.
* In the ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' "Meet The Videos" this trope is inverted with the RED team mercenaries regularly defeating BLU mercenaries.
* The Gallian army in ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles''. If the raw deal a Redshirt normally gets is a sushi platter, the one these guys get is still flopping on the deck with its eyes bugging out. For starters, their only representative is an asshole and none of them have faces, defining traits, or redeeming value (when their enemy counterparts get two cutscenes to show how human they are). Then the vast majority gets burnt alive in an explosion, which is par for the Redshirt course, except the explosion was a ''[[TheWoobie woobiefying]]'' moment for the person who blew them up, and [[AMillionIsAStatistic no one cares that they're all dead afterward.]] And as if that wasn't enough, if the player somehow manages to kill off all the distinct personalities of Squad 7, they'll start filling slots in the militia, and still have no faces or final words, fully prepared to die in thankless, anonymous droves (and if the player didn't care about Squad 7, they probably won't mind killing off what amounts to ordinary, faceless PlayerMooks). Apparently the difference between the militia and the army is that the army can train soldiers to be more disposable than toilet paper.
* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'':
** In ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]''[='s=] ''Siege at Firemoth'' DLC, you team up with three NPC companions who fit the FighterMageThief trio. All three will almost certainly die in the first stage of the assault on the eponymous Fort Firemoth, leaving you to finish alone.
** When you go to [[spoiler:trap the dragon Odahviing]] in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'', the people on the Dragonsreach balcony are you, the Jarl of Whiterun, his adjutant, and some nameless guard. No points for guessing which one gets snapped up and flung into the distance on [[spoiler:Odahviing]]'s first pass.

* In ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty: VideoGame/ModernWarfare 2'''s Takedown mission, one of your squadmates is [[MeaningfulName aptly codenamed]] [[NewMeat "Meat"]], and is picked off shortly after the shooting starts. Royce, the next in line, is gunned down a little while later.
** Hell, the idea of NPC redshirts is even a thematic element of the ''Videogame/CallOfDuty'' franchise as the massive amounts of friendly [=NPCs=] are meant to reinforce that the player is simply one among many thousands of soldiers engaged in real battles, as a contrast to the OneManArmy that the player character inhabits in other war [=FPSes=]. Gradually, this element diminished as the series went on, with the nameless cannon-fodder [=NPCs=] being there to make you feel comparatively more awesome.
* ''VideoGame/RainbowSix'' is a particularly interesting example in that your squadmates can ''unintentionally'' become red shirts as a result of either poor map planning on your end or the game's [[ArtificialStupidity famously spotty team AI.]] Of course, if you wanted to, you could just place your squadmates in locations where they're bound to be immediately killed and then go about the whole map by yourself. But that would naturally put you at a ''major'' disadvantage after the first level.
* In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOriginsAwakening'' you start the game with Mhairi. She is a serviceable tank during the first mission but her main purpose is to die during the subsequent Grey Warden joining ritual. The ritual has already been established as dangerous so it would have seemed like a [[ContrivedCoincidence contrived coincidence]] for all of the participants to survive.
* ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'' mod ''Dreamcatcher 4'' has a red-shirted elven soldier named Issachar standing on the battlements of the Lakeside Keep. If you ask him why the red shirt, he says that it was given to him to wear along with something vague about being on security detail.

* ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar II'': The first two games use a squad system, where your heroes will always be the last of the three or four Space Marines in the squad to die, losses being replenished at a teleporter. The third goes back to individual heroes, though these can be exchanged for EliteMooks that cost nothing to replace at a teleporter.
* In ''Franchise/StarWars: VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed'', your allies, though few and far between, are still noticeable in their ineptitude. The few 501st troopers on Kashyyk are almost impossible to keep alive, being able to be one-shot by the Wookies, and doing minimal damage to them. The rebel troops on Felucia do not fare much better, despite their increased numbers, and the Wookies that you can free upon your return to Kashyyk, while being good at tanking the enemy fire, will eventually fall to the sheer numbers of the enemy. The only allies notable for not being offed quickly are the Bespin Guards, which can hold their own in their short appearance, but do not have a lot of screen time.
* In ''VideoGame/CryingSuns'', your commandos are interchangeable goons with two hit points apiece and no sprites. They exist to act as meat shields for your officers during expeditions, and to be deployed during certain anomalies.

* In an IDW ''Franchise/StarTrek'' comic, a Red Shirt security officer named Boyd outright complains about this to Chekov, Bones, and two other security officers. His words: "You're not redshirts, you two are fine. Security doesn't always make it home as much as you guys."
** Another IDW ''Star Trek'' comic [[LowerDeckEpisode told from the perspective of a security officer]] justified the trope by observing that more officers in Starfleet wore red uniforms (for engineering, security and ships operations) than both gold (command) and blue (sciences) combined. So statistically the Red Shirts are more likely to die during Starfleet missions.
* Phil Foglio's ''ComicBook/BuckGodotZapGunForHire'' series has the evil "X-Tel" corporation, whose security forces' uniform consists of grey shirts... [[https://ghostarchive.org/archive/iZ5f1 and red PANTS.]]
* The ''ComicBook/XWingRogueSquadron'' comics started to display this later on. There were complaints after the first several arcs that, while people quit or transferred out, no-one ever died. Promptly someone who'd been there since the beginning and one who'd been around for an arc got killed in ''Requiem for a Rogue'', and in the arc after ''that'' four new pilots were introduced. One instantly immersed himself in a subplot, another took equally little time to establish her status as part of a rather pragmatic {{Proud Warrior Race|Guy}}. The other two failed to do anything but sort of hang around in the background, and by the end of the book those two had been shot down and killed within two pages of each other.
* ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'':
** According to Website/TFWikiDotNet, across all Transformers media, this happens with characters that don't have toys in the toyline, in order to [[MerchandiseDriven keep selling toys of the characters that have]]. Though the [[ComicBook/TheTransformersMarvel Marvel series]] did subvert this once with the Seacons, the most recent [[CombiningMecha combiner team]], getting introduced and killed off in a span of four issues, even though they were still on the toy shelves.
** ''ComicBook/TheTransformersLastStandOfTheWreckers'': The whole mini-series is basically a ''Transformers'' story told from the viewpoint of a bunch of Red Shirt second stringers. In fact a large part of the characters' portrayals are built around the fact that this trope applies. Pyro fears that he'll die a meaningless death so he's spent most of his life trying to plan the perfect death. Ironfist is basically in complete denial about his role as a Red Shirt until later in the story where he seems to almost quietly accept his perceived unavoidable death. It helps to mention the writers openly referenced the story as "Last Stand of the Wreckers is a story about redshirts." on one of the opening pages of the Hardback copy.
* Franchise/MarvelUniverse:
** In a ComicBook/{{Taskmaster}} mini-series, the main villain is a former mook turned leader who actually calls himself Red Shirt. He's the only one that doesn't get the joke. He also doesn't get why it's funny that he calls his organization the [[FunWithAcronyms Minions International Liberation Front]].
** Agents of ComicBook/{{SHIELD}} who are not major characters could just as easily be called Blue Shirts with the number of times SHIELD agents are killed en masse.
** The same goes for former Marvel supervillain prison, The Vault which was not only a CardboardPrison but was staffed by an army of men wearing armor based on Comicbook/IronMan suits called The Guardsmen. Every time there was a breakout, several of them would be killed. In fact, Comicbook/{{Venom}} once killed a group of Guardsmen during one of his many escapes and the guards' friends and family became an armored SuperTeam intent on killing him.

* ''ComicBook/CaballisticsInc'': During the group's first mission to stop a zombie incursion in the London Underground, they're accompanied by a group of special forces who are clearly there to serve as cannon fodder.

* ''ComicBook/HuntersHellcats'' would occasionally feature additional, previously unseen, members of the squad who would die during the opening scenes to show how dangerous the current mission was.

* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jut657kfhrE "Those Poor Guys In Red"]] by Vlad G. Pohnert is an excellent compilation set to "Another One Bites The Dust" by Music/{{Queen}} providing an impressive number of examples of why those guys in ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' were the {{Trope Namer|s}}.

* In ''Fanfic/RiskItAll'', one of Ren's prestige ranks invokes this trope, being the next step up from Minor Character and just below Named Character, indicating that Ren's super identity is starting to become well-known in Gotham after his viral video of him fighting a mobster who gets shot dead.

* The ''FanFic/PonyPOVSeries'' parodies this trope in the Shining Armor Arc, with the [[TheEmpire Hooviet]] [[MookLieutenant Commisars]], none of whom go past a single scene without dying. It's suggested in-universe that [[BigBad Makarov]], GenreSavvy LargeHam that he is, is using his [[RealityWarper abilities]] to deliberately invoke this trope for the sake of telling a better story.
* Played with in the ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'' fic ''Fanfic/{{Bait and Switch|STO}}''. Four bit part crew members beam down with three members of the command crew. Two are low-ranking officers (an ensign and a lieutenant junior grade), another is a senior chief petty officer, and the third a crewman. The officers peel off early and act as a sniper and spotter, the senior chief gets shot in the chest but survives and is beamed out, and the crewman survives until near the end of the chapter when an Orion matron breaks his neck. In general the fic leans more on {{Mauve Shirt}}s: Regardless of whether they die, almost any ''Bajor'' crewman [[TheCaptain Eleya]] interacts with is given at least a name, if not some minor characterization.
* In the ''Fanfic/AllGuardsmenParty'', the guardsmen are typically grouped with several less combat-focused teammates. Most of them don't survive.
* Poked fun of in ''WebVideo/RWBYThoughts''. When the aircraft Weiss gets attacked, the pilot worries that they'll crash. Weiss knows she can't die as a main character, but the unnamed pilot isn't so lucky:
-->'''Pilot''': "We're not gonna make it!"
-->'''Weiss''': "Uh, there's a main character on this ship and that's ''my'' character song playing, so I think I'm fine. But as for you..."
* ''Fanfic/RocketshipVoyager''. The {{Space Marine}}s assigned to ''Voyager'' used to have bright-red space armor "designed by the psychotechs to intimidate food rioters" which they've long since burnished down to bare metal and repainted in disruptive pattern camouflage. Also red coveralls are worn by Spacefleet crewmen who handle munitions or hazardous waste. In the final chapter a scratch team of UN space marines, Maquis rebels and Spacefleet ensigns are sent on a rescue mission that kills eight of them, most in a [[MythologyGag similar fashion to how their]] MauveShirt [[MythologyGag characters died]] in ''Series/StarTrekVoyager''.
* ''Fanfic/ThingsIAmNotAllowedToDoAtThePPC'': Attempting to invoke the phenomenon of expendable extras by having people go to the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' continuum while wearing red shirts is banned, even as an AprilFoolsDay prank.

* Subverted in the ''Franchise/StarTrek'' ExpandedUniverse novel ''The Eyes of the Beholders'', by A.C. Crispin. The apparent red shirt for a mission not only survives but saves the rest of the away team.
** Played with in the ''Day of Honor'' TOS novel. A redshirt got himself good and toasted... but it was in an honorable way to the Klingons. They decided to give this guy an annual holiday.
** PlayedForLaughs in the ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' novel ''By the Book'', in which several minor characters play an RPG in the mess hall between shifts. One character, Crewman James Anderson, sees his characters repeatedly killed in the adventure, much to the amusement of everyone else. Once its status as a RunningGag is established, he decides to have fun with it and name his characters in alphabetical order.
* Also brilliantly skewered in the James Alan Gardner novel ''[[Literature/TheLeagueOfPeoplesVerse Expendable]]''.
* In ''Literature/SuperMinion'', [[DefiedTrope defied]] with Hellion's minions, especially unpowered ones. Everyone who goes on missions gets bulletproof clothing, and regular minions are generally expected to just surrender if confronted by a hero without boneheads or villains to protect them. Because of Fortress City's weird laws, it's almost impossible to make any charges stick against regular minions, and HH has very good lawyers who represent even regular minions.

* The African porters of ''Congo'', the movie or the Crichton novel, seemed to regenerate like clones. "Oh, look, there are three left. Oh, wait, the apes just killed them all. Hey, where did those other two porters come from?"
* Parodied in ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'', when Molly is fighting a [[BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind psychic battle]]. Her Headquarters for the fight is a copy of the classic ''Enterprise'', complete with Kirk!Molly, Spock!Molly, Scotty!Molly, and a (construct) Redshirt!Molly who dies at the first real trouble. Harry is just miffed that she didn't use ''Star Wars''.

* Even though the ''Literature/WarriorCats'' series has a strict AnyoneCanDie policy (and how), the seldom seen Tribe of Rushing Water is made up of about 75% Red Shirts, who get killed off in bunches pretty much anytime the Tribe is featured in a book.
* In the prologue of ''[[Literature/InheritanceCycle Eragon]]'', [[ActionGirl Arya]] is accompanied by two guards who are killed in the ambush quite easily. It's eventually {{deconstructed|Trope}} (albeit a few books too late), as she was great friends with one and in love ([[OurElvesAreDifferent as much as elves can be anyway]]) with the other. Their deaths, along with, y'know, being ''tortured'', are the reason she became TheStoic.

* Lampshaded by one ''Literature/CiaphasCain'' 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 Creator/TerryPratchett post in his fan newsgroup:
-->''[[Literature/{{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 ''Series/{{Star Trek|The Original Series}}'' episode "Planet of Wobbly Rocks where the Security Guard Got Shot".''
* ''Literature/AllQuietOnTheWesternFront'' 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 NewMeat 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 FireForgedFriends the story centers around. They're not very effective at communicating their newfound survival strategies, so the waves of NewMeat that supplement their ranks continue to get mowed down (and [[WeHaveReserves continue to get replaced]].)
* PlayedForLaughs in ''Literature/TheRedTapeWar'': "Under no circumstances are you to jeopardize your life or your ship. The life of your companion, however, is absolutely and thoroughly expendable."
* Utterly spindled, folded and mutilated by ''Literature/NightOfTheLivingTrekkies'', where the hero encounters a terrified man in a red shirt at a Star Trek convention attacked by the living dead. Turns out that "Ensign Willy Makit" has lost the rest of his group, several trekkies who claim to be from the U.S.S. Expendible... ''who died in ways completely unrelated to the zombies''. (Willy didn't even ''know'' about them until the hero showed up.) It gets better: Willy's real name is [[spoiler:[[PunnyName Kenny Dyes]]]], and [[spoiler:he ultimately dies... in a way ''completely'' unrelated to the zombie attacks]].
* Averted in ''Literature/TheNameOfTheWind'', where the Adem, a warrior race whose mercenaries wear all red outfits, and are pretty unlikely to even be wounded.
* Parodied by Creator/JohnScalzi in his book ''Literature/{{Redshirts}},'' told from the point of view of an ensign on a space exploration vessel:
-->The worms were in a frenzy. Somebody now was likely to die.\\
It was likely to be Ensign Davis.
* Their outfits never get described, but in ''Literature/GalaxyOfFear: Army of Terror'' the ''Millennium Falcon'' lands on Kiva carrying its usual famous crew and a number of Rebel grunts. They join the Arrandas and company, who have [[DoorstopBaby found a baby]], and decide to help them evacuate. [[DwindlingParty Guess what happens.]] [[spoiler:The baby is [[EnfantTerrible actually a monster]]; he doesn't strike when either of the Arrandas or Luke Skywalker are holding him, but when a random Rebel has him and is out of view for even a moment...]] Not ''all'' of them die, but all the ones whose names are mentioned.
* [[spoiler:Walter]] from ''Literature/TheHost2008''. Up until his death throes, the only real characterization he has is "Supports Wanderer." When his death scene rolls around, it just serves to illustrate how caring and sensitive Wanderer is.
* ''Literature/AllHands!'' is a major subversion, as [[spoiler:every named character dies, while a large number of unnamed crewmen survive]].
* There are pairs of minor backup agents in ''Literature/ThursdayNext'' who tend to only show up to get killed and have {{punny name}}s like Khanon and Fodder, or Deadman and Walken.
* ''Literature/{{Barkwire}}'' junior editor Ron Christianson never returned after being sent to review an [[BearsAreBadNews unusually large and unfriendly]] dog named Scar.
* Duncan Idaho from the ''Literature/{{Dune}}'' series is a strange example. He dies early on in the first book, but thanks to the magic of [[SendInTheClones cloning]], he keeps popping up again and again (and getting killed again and again,) and actually manages to be an important character regardless of his obvious red shirt status.

* In ''Literature/TheColdMoons'', named badgers are unlikely to be randomly killed off. Most badgers either die nameless or are only first mentioned after their death.
* In ''[[Literature/ChaosSeeds The Land: Forging]]'', a literal example is seen. A wood sprite joins Richter to fight at his side - with specific attention called to his red shirt - only to be killed moments later.
* Late in ''Literature/TheFold'' our heroes call for military backup. They get sixteen Marines, all of whom are dead after the next fight.
* ''Literature/VillainsByNecessity'': Kimi is introduced shortly before the first Test and dies attempting it, in order to hammer home to the party that the Tests are potentially lethal.
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'':
** Spoofed in ''Literature/TheLightFantastic'' with the barbarian heroine's gang of mercenary minions. The narration says they're all probably going to die so it won't bother naming them, but most of them actually live, despite some spirited attempts from the Luggage.
** Played seriously in ''[[Literature/NightWatchDiscworld Night Watch]]'' with Nancyball. He's the first of the Night Watch killed, when he's suddenly hit with a grappling hook in the stomach and dies. Unlike near every other character in the setting, he doesn't even get a visit from Death to flesh him out. Afterwards, the other coppers try talking about him, and they can't even ''think'' of anything about him, noting he never said much to anyone.
* ''Literature/TheToughGuideToFantasyland'':
** Type 1 Caravan Guards, who exist to get killed by bandits. Though they ''do'' have names and even personalities, it's said the protagonists shouldn't bother to learn them because of this.
** The Serious Soldier, who lacks personality and whose role in the story consists mainly of helping out in the fight scenes and inevitably dying at a dramatically appropriate moment.
* In ''Literature/TressOfTheEmeraldSea'', [[LemonyNarrator Hoid]] announces that he's going to call all the crew of the ''Crow's Song'' except the half-dozen or so with plot-relevant roles "Doug", to avoid the reader having to keep track of all their names. Surprisingly, only one Doug gets killed over the course of the story.

This is the [[EvilCounterpart Good Counterpart]] of EvilMinions and {{Mooks}} — set filler for our heroes' side. Their purpose is almost exclusively to give the writers someone to kill [[SortingAlgorithmOfMortality who isn't a main character]], although they can also serve as {{Spear Carrier}}s. In a series where TheMainCharactersDoEverything, if you suddenly see someone else who you've never seen before involved in the main story, they are probably Redshirts.

[[folder:Films — Animation]]
* Spoofed mercilessly in ''Sev Trek: Pus in Boots'' (an Australian CGI spoof of ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''). An alien asks the ''Enterforaprize'' to supply [[FaceFullOfAlienWingWong 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 [[FriendOrFoe lousy aim of the main characters]]. One dying ensign laments the fact that he would have been promoted to lieutenant in a few days, therefore becoming immune. Ensigns mentioned by name include Ens. Insignificant, Ens. Expendable, Ens. Cadaver, Ens. Bitpart, Ens. Anonymous, Ens. Disposable, Ens. Speakingpart, Ens. Deadmeat, Ens. Extra, Ens. Deathwish, Ens. Cannonfodder, Ens. Menial, Ens. Shortlived and Ens. Walkonpart.

'''Lt. Barf:''' {{With all due respect}} Captain, that man was dead from the moment he put on that ensign's uniform.

[[folder:Films — Live-Action]]

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS31E3VictoryOfTheDaleks "Victory of the Daleks"]], new Daleks are created with colours according to their rank. Those with the rank of "Drone" are red. We don't know if this was intentional.
** Clara wears a lot of red. Guess what happens in several of her appearances?

* ''Series/The100'': There is a lot of extras dying in this series, if there is a new character in scene, is because probably he gonna die.

** Scotty is one of the few characters to wear a red shirt in the original series, and he's one of the few characters to survive into ''The Next Generation''. He ''does'' get killed once, but [[OnlyMostlyDead he gets better]].

* ''WebOriginal/TheCodelessCode'' has the abbots. If they mismanage a project, they probably won't survive to the end of the story. Lampshaded in Case 125, where the head abbot is looking for replacements. A footnote notes that "abbots of the Spider Clan have life expectancy of a dolphin in the Gobi desert."

* Website/{{SFDebris}} theorizes the goldshirts are so incompetent because they're all algae scientists or astronomers, [[JoinTheArmyTheySaid unwittingly enlisted into combat]] once Starfleet re-militarizes during TNG. They're trained to measure soil toxicity, not kick-box with Borg.

* On the way to a battle with the forces of Marmo in ''Roleplay/RecordOfLodossWar'', protagonist Parn chats up a fellow soldier who is very optimistic about the whole thing. Naturally, as soon as the battle is over and the heroes lament the losses, they find the soldier's body. It was his fault -- he really shouldn't have shown Parn that [[FatalFamilyPhoto good-luck charm his child made for him]].

** In ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'', Athrun Zala's buddy Rusty Mackenzie (who never shows his face or has any dialogue) is killed. He's wearing red, which ironically is supposed to be the uniform of ZAFT's elite. [[spoiler:Nicol Amalfi gets the same treatment.]] So does [[spoiler:Heine Westenfluss]] from ''SEED Destiny''.

** Occurs in ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamSEED'', in which Athrun Zala's buddy Rusty Mackenzie (who never shows his face or has any dialogue) is killed. He's wearing red, which ironically is supposed to be the uniform of ZAFT's elite. [[spoiler:Nicol Amalfi gets the same treatment.]] So does [[spoiler:Heine Westenfluss]] from ''SEED Destiny''.
*** The Orb Union has the MBF-M1 Astray, a Mobile Suit notable for its Gundam-like appearance as they carry the same robotic eyes and V-Crest. It is also noted for its white and ''red'' coloration. They are later succeeded in ''Destiny'' by the MVF-[=M11C=] Murasame, [[TransformingMecha which can transform into a fighter mode]].
*** [[spoiler:Subverted with the Alliance side; the GAT-01 Strike Dagger serves much the same purpose as the RGM-79 [=GM=] in the original (and also closely resembles the older mobile suit), but as the main cast goes against the Alliance as well as ZAFT, the Strike Daggers are better classified as {{Mooks}}.]]

*** The Orb Union has the MBF-M1 Astray, a Mobile Suit notable for its Gundam-like appearance as they carry the same robotic eyes and V-Crest. It is also noted for its white and ''red'' coloration. They are later succeeded in ''Destiny'' by the MVF-M11C Murasame, [[TransformingMecha which can transform into a fighter mode]].