A redshirt is a stock character, used frequently in science fiction but also in other genres, whose purpose is to die soon after being introduced, thus indicating the dangerous circumstances faced by the main characters. The term comes from the science fiction television series Star Trek, in which security officers wear red shirts and are often killed on missions under the aforementioned circumstances.

Star Trek has taken a turn for the morbid the past few weeks. Okay, maybe not in general, but for me it has, anyway: Last weekend I saw this episode, in which no fewer than four redshirts are killed off, which was just… impressive. Even by Star Trek’s standards of killing anyone who even gets close to wearing the color red, it was just like… whoa. Four poor bastards unceremoniously knocked off in just under an hour? That’s dedication! Either that, or Gene Roddenberry just fucking hated the color red SO MUCH.

Then I found out about “Analytics According to Captain Kirk,” an article that’s way too smart for me, but which I pretended to understand while I read it. Basically, Matt Bailey examines the whole redshirt phenomenon using “math” and “science” and “episode data” and “numbers” and a bunch of other things beyond my comprehension to come up with charts like this:

And then there’s this.

Wow. Nothing like some ’60s sci-fi to remind you of the soul-crushing inevitability of death. Thanks to Dane for the heads up about the whole analytical graph thing, and also thanks to Dr. Leonard McCoy for being a total badass.