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Federation of Hold My Beer [Now with Narration!]
(startrek.website)
Too long, don't wanna read? I got bored. Feel free to listen instead.
We also gotta remember, Star Trek is almost always focuses on the big ships. Enterprise, Voyager, Cerritos, they are all important, but I highly doubt the federation needs to deal with a major galactic event every other Tuesday. I doubt the USS Luna had as much adventure as the TItan. Most are standard surveying ships, like a Steamrunner with a crew of 24.
If they did, the Federation does a shockingly good job.
Isn't the entire concept behind Lower Decks is that the Cerritos isn't a big, important ship? The California class only has 13 decks, which is the third smallest ship in the entire series--the only ships smaller than the Cerritos were the Defiant (which was an "escort ship" not intended for long missions) and the NX-01 Enterprise. It's also slower than everything else in the 24th century--while most other ships can handle warp 9 without problems, the Cerritos flies itself apart if it goes above warp 8 for too long. It's not all that strong either, practically every time it gets in a fight it gets its ass kicked.
It's becoming the "Enterprise of the California class" and becoming slightly more important each season.