Starfleet Academy Starship Thread

[Dukhat]

Did they really talk about her as an old ship, though? I always got the impression that the idea was that the Cerritos just wasn’t necessarily the most top-of-the-line, premium, high-end ship of the fleet. Your basic, average, support vessel. Compared to more prestigious frontline explorers it might be undergunned, not as fast and somewhat smaller. It’s not fancy, but it’s charming.

But also, the registry might give an indication when a ship was commissioned, which might be recently, but it doesn’t necessarily tell you anything about how old the ship class may be. Design-wise I always felt the Cerritos was meant to evoke the era of the Ambassador class, on its way to the elegance of the Galaxy class, but not quite as organic yet. So the California class might have been around for a while, but the Cerritos could still be more recent.

I remember reading somewhere that the basis of the California class design was 'a ship that might have been introduced in TNG's 5th season,' or something like that. So with that info, and the general design of the ship itself inside and out, indicates that it's not all that old. McMahon did make a comment that these support ships have 'always been around,' but I don't think he literally meant the California class specifically, just random support ships.

One problem that cropped up registry-wise is that the USS Rubidoux NCC-12109, with already too low of a registry, was replaced by the brand-new USS Solvang NCC-12101, a registry even lower than the ship it replaced. Luckily this was the only instance of this.

Also, the design of the California class could have it potentially be a ship built during the Lost Era, after the Ambassador class but before the Galaxy family (Nebula, New Orleans, Challenger, Springfield, Cheyenne, Olympic, Galaxy.) Unfortunately it also shares design elements with the Parliament class, which is a post-TNG design, reinforcing the 'TNG 5th season ship' idea more.

Another bit of weirdness was that Mariner referred to a Steamrunner/Saberrunner class ship as an 'old tub,' which makes zero sense since that ship would have been much newer than any TNG-era ship.

I got the impression the California's were to the Galaxy what the Oberth was to the Connie?

Not quite. The Oberths were science vessels, not second-contact support ships.