Magic: The Gathering Star Trek Perfectly Captures the Sci-Fi Show’s Most Brutal Running Joke

The *Magic: The Gathering* Star Trek set makes many cards create red 1/1 Officer tokens, even when the cards themselves are other colours. The choice reflects the Star Trek “redshirt” joke: unnamed security and operations officers often died on away missions, signalling danger while the main characters remained safe.

In *The Original Series*, red uniforms marked security and operations staff, while gold and blue denoted command and science or medical roles. The trope endured even after *The Next Generation* changed uniform colours, and later appeared in works such as John Scalzi’s novel *Redshirts* and the film *Galaxy Quest*. In the game, the Officers can be sacrificed or used to block, but also help with effects such as stationing spacecraft or finding one with Captain Jean-Luc Picard.