Cosmoralia's Prince Ithaca is about to wed Princess Lilia of Ayodoya and be crowned Astralta III. The apparently favorable celestial bearings mean he will be no mere monarch but holy king of a new "papacy". Alas, the peaceful inhabitants of Planet Astria have no clue that they're next in line for invasion by a ruthless machine force—a threat that seems to metaphorize the inherent perils of politics and desire in this multilayered saga. The tension slowly mounts to an unbearable pitch in this ominous first volume of three. Following the conclusion of her award-winning and epochal To Terra..., Keiko Takemiya paired up with science fiction legend Ryu Mitsuse to create yet another milestone that was shortly made into an animated TV feature. Andromeda Stories is comics pioneer Takemiya's second work to appear in English.

The machine race known only as the Enemy has swiftly taken over the Cosmoralian Empire, but Queen Lilia and her son, Prince Jimsa, manage to flee. The only place to escape to, however, is the desert wasteland where the elements, predatory beasts, and bandits pose almost as great a threat to survival as the machine invaders. Prince Jimsa, growing ever stronger in the face of adversity, prepares to inherit his mantle as the Sun King, the descendant of the combined Murat, Ayodoya, and Cosmoralian legacies. It will fall upon his shoulders to turn the machines away before its too late.

In this final chapter of the epic outerspace series, King Ithaca and the entire government of the Cosmoralian Empire have been transformed into cyborg minions of a machine army determined to destroy all indigenous biological life. The King's wife, Queen Lilia, and her son, the rightful Cosmoralian heir, Prince Jimsa, have become refugees in their own dominion, along with a band of resistance fighters, The Murats. The resistance effort is led by a healer known simply as "The Old Man", who explains that the future of humanity rests in the messianic destiny of their leader incarnate, who will be known unto them by a red dragon-shaped birthmark. Meanwhile. knowledge surfaces that Prince Jimsa's twin sister, Affle, who bears this birthmark, survived despite being ordered to death at birth by the Cosmoralian Empire because it was believed royal twins would presage doom.