The practice of introducing a character only to make that person suffer the nastiness of the week. It gained it's name from the use of the Red Shirt to indicate the Security details in Star TrekTM.
Since those days, the position of Red Shirt has become a mark of distinction in the books of certain authors, often being bid for in charity auctions at SF Conventions. David Weber in particular has also used the position to, ah, reward people on alt.books.david-weber who are particularly snerky (one who has, or pretends to have information about forthcoming books).
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