Redshirts
Author: John Scalzi
Publisher: Tom Dougherty Associates/Tor Books
ISBN-10: 0-7653-1699-4
ISBN-13: 978-07653-1699-8

What used to be called “sacrificial lambs” or “cannon fodder” became institutionalized in s-f as the “redshirt” in the original Star Trek TV series of 1966-69. The Star Trek uniforms consisted of several colors. As the TV Tropes website puts it of the red-shirted uniforms, “The color of shirt worn by the nameless security personnel on the original Star Trek series. Their only job was to get eaten, shot, stabbed, disrupted, temporally-shifted, frozen, desalinated, or crushed into a cube. Their death would give William Shatner and DeForest Kelley a corpse to emote over, and Leonard Nimoy a corpse to, well, “not emote over.” The tradition that a character wearing a red shirt would die became so widespread that subsequent TV series with no connection to Star Trek such as Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Lost dressed characters fated to die in red shirts, and reviewers began to refer to characters who exist only to meet dire fates as “redshirts”.

What if a story’s low-ranking characters became aware that anyone dressed in a red shirt is fated to die? That is the premise, handled both humorously and seriously, of Redshirts by John Scalzi.

In the late 2460s, young Ensign Junior Rank Andrew Dahl requests assignment to the Universal Union flagship Intreped, specifically to the Xenobiology Department which specializes in exploring new planets. Dahl is proud of his prestige posting, which will give him a chance to ‘get out into the field’. “‘Yes, sir,’ Dahl said. ‘It’s that front line science that appeals to me. The exploration.’” (p. 30)

But when he discusses his assignment with some other friendly new crewmen, Andy learns that they are all replacing recent fatalities.

“‘People here have away missions on the brain.’ [Dahl said]
‘It’s because someone always dies on them,’ Hanson said.
Duvall arched an eyebrow at this. ‘What makes you say that, Jimmy?’
‘Well, we’re all replacing former crew members,’ Hanson said, and then pointed at Duvall. ‘What happened to the one you replaced. Transferred out?’’
‘No,’ Duvall said. ‘He was the death by vaporization one.’
‘And mine got sucked out of the shuttle,’ Hanson said. ‘And Andy’s got eaten by a shark. Maybe. You have to admit there’s something going on there. I bet if we tracked down Finn and Hester, they’d tell us the same thing.’” (p. 36)

When Andy investigates further, he learns that the Intrepid’s explorational ‘away missions’ usually consist of Captain Lucius Abernathy and Chief Science Officer Q’eeng as observers, and Astrogation Lieutenant Kerensky as the mission leader of several non-coms; and that in 100% of past missions, they have encountered a deadly threat that the three officers have survived (Kerensky barely), but the redshirted minions have always fallen victim to. Naturally, none of the Intrepid’s more experienced non-coms, including Andy’s Xenobiology teammates, want to be assigned to an away mission.

Andy decides that this is more than coincidence. Since when does a large ship’s captain personally accompany an exploration mission, especially after experience shows that these missions are highly dangerous?

“‘Dahl, tell me,’ Collins said. ‘When Q’eeng and Abernathy were here, how were they talking to you?’
‘What do you mean?’ Dahl asked.
‘Did they come in and quickly tell you what you needed?’
Collins said. ‘Or did they go on and on about a bunch of crap you didn’t need to know?’
‘They went on a bit, yes,’ Dahl said.
‘Was the captain particularly dramatic?’ Cassaway asked.
‘What is ‘particularly dramatic’ in this context?’ Dahl asked.
‘Like this,’ Mbeke said, and then grabbed both of Dahl’s shoulders and shook them. ‘Damn it, man! There is no try! Only do!’
Dahl set down the vial so it was not accidentally shaken out of his grip. ‘He said pretty much exactly those words,’ he said to Mbeke.” (pgs. 41-42)

Why is Kerensky always chosen to lead the away mission, and why is he the only one of the low-ranking explorers to barely survive? Why is an Astrogator chosen for planetary exploration, anyway?

‘Why did you want Lieutenant Kerensky’s medical records?’ Hanson asked.
‘Kerensky was the victim of a plague a week ago,’ Dahl said. ‘He recovered quickly enough to lead an away mission, where he lost consciousness because of a machine attack. He recovered quickly enough from that to hit on Maia sometime today.’
‘To be fair, he still looked like hell,’ Duvall said.
‘To be fair, he should probably be dead,’ Dahl said. ‘The Merovian Plague melts people’s flesh right off their bones. Kerensky was about fifteen minutes away from death before he got cured, and he’s heading an away mission a week later? It takes that long to get over a bad cold, much less a flesh-eating bacteria.’
‘So he’s got an awesome immune system,’ Duvall said.
Dahl fixed her with a look and flipped Finn’s phone to her. ‘In the past three years, Kerensky’s been shot three times, caught a deadly disease four times, has been crushed under a rock pile, injured in a shuttle crash, suffered burns when his bridge control panel blew up in his face, experienced partial atmospheric decompression, suffered from induced mental instability, been bitten by two venomous animals and had the control of his body taken over by an alien parasite. That’s before the recent plague and this mission.’” (pgs. 67-68)

Andy and his four buddies learn that this is just the beginning of the weird stuff. Kerensky is going psycho wondering why he is always the leader of the away missions that go to hell, and that he is the only survivor. Barely. Andy discovers discrepancies between the Intrepid’s blueprints and the shipboard reality. They aren’t the only ones to notice things. Andy suddenly finds himself and some of his official Xenobiology teammates assigned to a special away mission by Q’eeng. When Andy is the only survivor, he is ostracized by the rest of the Xenobiology Department and transferred to the bridge crew:

“‘Someone once told me to stay off the bridge,’ Dahl said, and then nodded over at Trin. ‘Two people did, actually. But one of them was more forceful about it.’
‘Nonsense,’ Collins said. ‘The bridge is the perfect place for someone like you. You’ll be in contact with senior officers on a daily basis. They’ll get to know you very well. And there will be lots of opportunities for adventure. You’ll be going on away missions weekly. Sometimes even more often then that.’ She smiled thinly.” (p. 91)

Dahl and his friends find Jenkins, an older crewman who has a theory about what is going on that is so far-fetched, so incredible that none of them can take it seriously – except that it is the only theory that fits all the facts. After one of the friends is killed, the others are forced to discuss it seriously.

“‘I hate it that we now have discussions like this,’ Hester said.
‘I don’t think any of us like it,’ Dahl said.
‘I don’t know. I think it’s interesting,’ Duvall said.
‘It would be interesting if we were sitting in a dorm room, getting stoned,’ Hester said. ‘Talking about it seriously after our friend has died sort of takes the fun out of it.’” (p. 138)

Redshirts is a masterpiece of deadpan humor mixed with suspense. For all the ridiculous implausibility of their situation, people are dying painfully and messily. Can Dahl and his friends figure out the secret of survival?

And then, after the story ends, there are three codas in which Scalzi drops the humor and gets intimately serious.

Redshirts is not only an in-depth dramatization of an increasingly frequent TV trope, it is also a very funny parody of the TV series that started it all. Commander Q’eeng is emotionless and, by his strange name, probably partially inhuman. Captain Abernathy dramatically overemotes whenever he is at center stage. Chief Engineer West stays in the engine room. Lieutenant Kerensky lives only to fall into near-death situations. Everyone runs about breathlessly delivering messages in person that could just as easily be delivered by phone or intercom.

For all its seeming originality and uniqueness, Redshirts’ basic plot is very similar to a previous s-f classic novel – but if I told you which one, then I’d have to kill you! Two novels with similar plots in a hundred years? That’s not too many.

Read Redshirts! I’ll bet that you don’t guess the solution.

Is ‘sphagettify’ a real word?