Today is a great day for Nerds the world over. Ain’t It Cool News is reporting that the Battlestar Galactica prequel, Caprica, is a go:

The “Caprica” pilot, set 50 years before the events of “Battlestar Galactica,” was shot a few months ago — and word had it that SciFi was waiting to see how the first January episodes of “Galactica” did in the ratings before the channel would consider taking “Caprica” to series.

The series, which deals with the “invention” of the Cylons, is set to shoot next summer and air in 2010.”

I’ll take a moment to let all Nerds regain consciousness before continuing. We all Ok there, guys? Good — now there’s more info on their post, but there are spoilers so I wanted to avoid any Nerd Uprising attacking the Lost In A Supermarket garage Secret Arctic Base, so proceed at your own risk, Nerdlings.

To make make things even better for Battlestar fans, someone posted a gang of Ralph McQuarrie concept images on Flikr. (It must be Nerd Christmas). As noted by AICN, after the success of Star Wars, Glen Larson and ABC hired Star Wars concept illustrator Ralph McQuarrie to create a load of designs for the original Battlestar Galactica series.

The ships look pretty much like the final product, but the Cylons look considerably different. Check out the best pics after the Jump…