In LD 4x06 Parth Ferengi’s Heart Place, Ransom mentions that there are no married officers on board. However, way back in LD 1x02 Envoys, when trying command in the simulation, Rutherford accidentally kills all the ship’s children via destruction of the pre-K and Kindergarten decks. I am thus wondering, are there actually any children on the Cerritos? I do have several theories (some of which could co-exist together), none of which I am certain of:
For No:
- Due to their longer-term mission, Starfleet legally requires schools on the California class in case officers with kids transfer on. These sit empty on the Cerritos.
- Perhaps during Envoys there were some kids, but they transferred off the ship before the Ferenginar visit.
- Alternatively, the training simulation (which seems to represent the Cerritos due to the bridge, LCARS colors, and addition of officers like Ensign Casey) drew upon a generic ops division Cali class configuration for the rest of the ship, thus falsely assuming there were children.
For Yes:
- Birth out of wedlock is common in some Federation cultures, including United Earth.
- It could be possible there are married officers that serve on different ships, with the kid(s) of that couple living on the Cerritos.
- There could be married couples on the Cerritos, but only ONE is an officer (a la O’Brien and Keiko); for instance, Lt. Holly has a husband who is a botanist. The Cerritos cannot allow her husband to do travel guide duty and must assign someone else.
- Similarly, maybe non-commissioned couples exist on the Cerritos, but an officer is required to do the duty.
- Maybe Ransom wasn’t totally literal. Officer couples may just be very rare aboard the Cerritos, and the only ones that are aboard include officers doing a duty so vital they can’t do travel guide duty. Ransom didn’t feel the need to fully explain this and went with the simple version when giving the job to the Beta shifters.
Update (8/23/2024): I was rewatching Lower Decks 2x10 First Contact and the mentions of Captain Freeman probably thinking the Captain Freeman Day decorations were for children implies that at least during season 2, there were children on the ship. I feel that the Archimedes incidents could be impetus for the ship being declared too uncomfortable for a family. I'll see in my rewatch if I come across any other implied children on the Cerritos in later seasons.
I think this is the simplest explanation: there are a number of married officers on board, some of whom have kids with them, but whose partners are deployed to other ships. The Cerritos is a relatively logical ship to have the kids on if you have to pick between two: it's not a frontline capital ship so it's missions are relatively low risk, and unlikely to take it especially far from core Federation space.