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According to the Star Trek: Lower Decks showrunner Mike McMahan,

The ship is in great condition. It’s a California-class ship, which has always existed in Starfleet — [this is] what we’re saying — that they’re the utility support ships. In the California-class [line], there are three types of hull painting: there’s blue, red, and yellow.

LOWER DECKS Roundup: McMahan Talks Cerritos Starship Design, Starfleet Recruitment Posters, and a New Visit to THE READY ROOM

This means that California-class ships were likely ubiquitous in the The Next Generation/Deep Space Nine era from an in-universe perspective. California-class ships likely frequently called at DS9, and many of the crew of the Enterprise-D and Voyager would likely have had service history on board a California-class ship at some point in their careers or at least encountered one.

To this end, are there any specific pre-Lower Decks ships that we now (with the release of Lower Decks and supporting material) know to have been California-class? To be clear, I'm looking for more evidence than "yes, they were there" and asking about specific ships, whether or not named. For example, a source indicating that one of the ships lost at Wolf 359 was California-class would count, even if the ship is not named, since we know there were at most 40-ish ships there and not an indefinitely vague number. Likewise, a source indicating that the unseen but mentioned ship that Wesley returned to the Academy on in a specific episode was a Cali-class would count since it would be a specific ship that we already knew existed (we just didn't know what class it belonged to).

I do recognize that the California class was, out-of-universe, invented for the Lower Decks show. My question solely concerns in-universe matters and especially whether any previously mentioned (but unseen) ships have been reconned to California-class.

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  • 2
    It may be better to read that as there has always been "support ships" rather than always specifically California class. Commented Jun 29, 2022 at 13:58
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    Might be worth looking for other ships named for small cities in the Los Angeles—Long Beach—Anaheim California Metropolitan Statistical Area. Commented Jun 29, 2022 at 14:11
  • "that we now know to have been Cali class": do you mean we would know this because the ship fulfilled a 'support' function? Or because we saw the ship on-screen and it looks like a California class? Because for the former it seems a bit a of stretch to assume that all support ships are always California class
    – dennis_vok
    Commented Jun 29, 2022 at 21:09
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    @MikeMcMahanTM - says the ship will be a new class call[ed] the California class that operates [as] a support ship. The #StarTrekLowerDecks ship will be called the U.S.S. Cerritos. #StarTrekSDCC - mobile.twitter.com/StarTrekOnPPlus/status/1152659444326490112
    – Valorum
    Commented Jun 29, 2022 at 22:27

2 Answers 2

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Thus far, no ships in the existing Star Trek canon have been revealed to have been California class.

Excepting the video games and the Lower Decks TV show (for which the class was invented), the sole mention of that ship-class within the Extended Universe has been in the novels Star Trek: Coda - The Ashes of Tomorrow and Star Trek: Coda - Oblivion's Gate, which introduces a new California-class vessel not seen in Lower Decks.

A second earlier, and he would have been in his seat next to Captain Hautuk, but the spatial shockwave that had slammed into the Saticoy came from out of nowhere, knocking the small California-class cruiser off its axis.

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There is a Memory Alpha article for the California Class.

It has a section listing all known ships of the class.

USS Alhambra
USS Cerritos (NCC-75567)
USS Merced (NCC-87075)
USS Rubidoux (NCC-12109)
USS Solvang (NCC-12101)
Unnamed California-class starships

All examples listed are from the show Lower Decks.

So, the answer to your question is no.

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