The show was developed by Ronald D. Moore as a re-imagining of the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series created by Glen A. Larson.
The story arc of Battlestar Galactica is set in a distant star system, where a civilization of humans live on a series of planets known as the Twelve Colonies of Kobol.
Out of a population numbering in the billions, only approximately 50,000 humans survive, most of whom were aboard civilian spaceships that avoided destruction.
Of all the Colonial Fleet, the eponymous battlestar Galactica appears to be the only military capital ship that survived the attack.
Under the leadership of Colonial Fleet officer Commander William "Bill" Adama and President Laura Roslin, the Galactica and its crew take up the task of leading the small fugitive fleet of survivors into space in search of a fabled refuge known as Earth.