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Battlestar Galactica is going back to where it all began.

Nearly two years after the idea was first a glimmer in a galaxy far, far away, Sci Fi Channel announced Tuesday that it has given the go-ahead for production to begin on Caprica, a two-hour prequel set 50 years before the Cylons annihilated the 12 Colonies of Kobol.

"We couldn't be more excited to see this long-anticipated project get off the ground," Mark Stern, Sci Fi's executive VP of programming, said Tuesday during the network's upfront presentation in New York.

"It's an amazing script and, though clearly inspired by the Battlestar mythology, it is not just a pale spinoff. This is a smart, thought-provoking, emotional and compelling character drama in its own right."

The Peabody Award-winning Battlestar Galactica, itself a reimagining of the original 1978 series, is heading into its fourth and final season on Sci Fi Channel, five years after the Galactica's search for the whispered-about 13th colony-Earth-first began with a three-hour miniseries.

Networks execs first announced plans for a prequel in April 2006 (also at the upfronts, when the networks pitch their jazziest shows to sell ad time), but with red tape being what it is, it took awhile to put the requisite pieces together.

Caprica will follow the stories of two powerful rival families, one of which owns the computer corporation that builds the first Cylons. Production on the prequel, which originally sprang from the minds of BSG creators Roanld D. Moore and David Eick as a potential separate series, is set to begin this spring in Vancouver.

Last summer, when the fate of Caprica still hung in the balance, Eick and Moore told E! Online's TV blog that they certainly hoped Sci Fi would find a place for it.

"It would take the stories that we came to discover on Battlestar Galactica and go all the way back to their embryo and the discovery of the technology that will link to the Cylons specifically," Moore said. "It's a tremendously arresting idea that was really beautifully executed, and we're anxious to have any opportunity to pursue it because we really think it's a special project."

"It's not on the immediate front burner, but I don't think anyone has said to us that it is definitively dead," Eick added. "And we continue to hope that there will be an opportunity in the forum and a programming need for it.

"It is certainly something we believe in and something we think would not only capture the Battlestar Galactica fans, but would open up a whole new audience to this mythology because it's a very different show."

To whet fans' appetites before the season-four premiere, originally scheduled for February but ultimately postponed to April 4 because of the writers' strike, Eick and Moore helmed the TV movie Battlestar Galactica: Razor, which focused on a young rookie Adama during the First Cylon War and premiered in November. (For a reminder of key plot points, jump to Watch with Kristin.)

e!online