<P> Battlestar Galactica is an American science fiction media franchise created by Glen A. Larson . The franchise began with the original television series in 1978 and was followed by a short - run sequel series (Galactica 1980), a line of book adaptations, original novels, comic books, a board game, and video games . A re-imagined version of Battlestar Galactica aired as a two - part, three - hour miniseries developed by Ronald D. Moore and David Eick in 2003 . That miniseries led to a weekly television series, which aired until 2009 . A prequel series, Caprica, aired in 2010 . </P> <P> All Battlestar Galactica productions share the premise that in a distant part of the universe, a human civilization has extended to a group of planets known as the Twelve Colonies, to which they have migrated from their ancestral homeworld of Kobol . The Twelve Colonies have been engaged in a lengthy war with a cybernetic race known as the Cylons, whose goal is the extermination of the human race . The Cylons offer peace to the humans, which proves to be a ruse . With the aid of a human named Baltar, the Cylons carry out a massive attack on the Twelve Colonies and on the Colonial Fleet of starships that protect them . These attacks devastate the Colonial Fleet, lay waste to the Colonies, and virtually destroy their populations . Scattered survivors flee into outer space aboard a ragtag array of available spaceships . Of the entire Colonial battle fleet, only the Battlestar Galactica, a gigantic battleship and spacecraft carrier, appears to have survived the Cylon attack . Under the leadership of Commander Adama, the Galactica and the pilots of "Viper fighters" lead a fugitive fleet of survivors in search of the fabled thirteenth colony known as Earth . </P> <P> Glen A. Larson, the creator and executive producer of Battlestar Galactica, claimed he had conceived of the Battlestar Galactica premise, which he called Adam's Ark, during the late 1960s . As James E. Ford detailed in "Battlestar Galactica and Mormon Theology," a paper read at the Joint Conference of the American Culture and Popular Culture Associations on 17 April 1980 (and published as "Theology in Prime Time Science Fiction: Battlestar Galactica and Mormon Doctrine," Journal of Popular Culture #17 (1983): 83--87), the series incorporated many themes from Mormon theology, such as marriage for "time and eternity", a "council of twelve," and a planet called Kobol, as Larson was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter - day Saints . However, he was unable to find financial backing for his TV series for a number of years . Battlestar Galactica was finally produced in the wake of the success of the 1977 film Star Wars . The original Cylons of Battlestar Galactica, robotic antagonists bent on destroying all humankind, owe much to Fred Saberhagen's berserker stories, including Saberhagen's fictional race The Builders whose "sliding single red eye" became the signature design element for the Cylons . </P> <P> Larson had envisioned Battlestar Galactica as a series of made - for - TV movies (a three - hour pilot program and two two - hour episodes) for the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). A shortened version of the three - hour pilot, Saga of a Star World, was screened in Canadian theaters (before the TV series was telecast) and in American, European and Australian theaters later on . Instead of two additional TV movies, ABC decided to commission a weekly TV series of one - hour episodes . </P>

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