Are gold shirts more dangerous than red shirts?

[RAMA]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105...trek-gold-shirts-more-deadly-than-red-shirts/

Well bust my buttons...

RAMA

 

[Captain Rob]

It would seem to make sense that if the enemy knows that the gold shirts are in charge. Always shoot the gold shirts. That's why the officers in real life dress like the enlisted out in the field. Plus they wear low visibility rank insignia. And saluting is a no no in a warzone.

 

[Lance]

That site said:

The redshirt rule never applied to Scotty.

So The Changeling doesn't count? Oh sure, he came back to life... but still, so did confirmed red-shirts Galloway and Leslie.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think someone once said it best--during a landing party that goes south with Kirk, Chekov, and a red shirt, which one of these three isn't coming back to the ship?

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I just remember that episode with the doomsday machine. Kirk sent a red shirt alone with the machine. Machine vaporizes red shirt. Kirk says "That was bad! Don't do that again!" Sends another red shirt alone with the doomsday machine. Doomsday machine vaporizes red shirt.

Maybe goldshirts have a higher fatality rate, but redshirts clearly have less value to the captain.

 

[Nerys Myk]

It probably wasn't the Doomsday Machine, as that was big enough to swallow a starship whole.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I just remember that episode with the doomsday machine. Kirk sent a red shirt alone with the machine. Machine vaporizes red shirt. Kirk says "That was bad! Don't do that again!" Sends another red shirt alone with the doomsday machine. Doomsday machine vaporizes red shirt.

Maybe goldshirts have a higher fatality rate, but redshirts clearly have less value to the captain.

You mean Nomad?

 

[Timo]

...And give it due credit - it vaporized two red shirts both times!

I wonder where the statistician behind the linked article got his data on how many people out of Kirk's 430 total wore red? Onscreen evidence isn't conclusive on that.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[C.E. Evans]

I wonder where the statistician behind the linked article got his data on how many people out of Kirk's 430 total wore red? Onscreen evidence isn't conclusive on that.

He based it on his own observations of TOS and applied a probability formula to determine that there were 239 red shirts aboard Kirk's Enterprise.

 

[blueshirt]

As long as blue shirts are still the safest, I'm happy.

I did always feel sorry for the engineers and Uhura, though. They should have been able to wear green so that no lethal enemy ever confused them with security.

 

[Timo]

A smart lethal enemy would concentrate on engineers, though. It's not as if Security would provide him with enough of a challenge or threat anyway.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blueshirt]

That's true. TOS always gave me the impression that you needed to be genuinely smart to be a science officer, engineer, or navigator but that pretty much anyone could qualify for Starfleet security.