The Big Planet is a distant, metal-poor world with an area twenty times larger than the Earth, inhabited by the descendants of outcasts and dissidents who have formed tribes and societies with amazing customs. On the Big Planet, beauty and evil coexist in constant tension. The usurper Charlie Lysidder, who has taken the throne of Bajarnum of Beaujolais, seeks to rule the entire vast planet, and Claude Glistra heads an earthly delegation authorized to investigate the illegal space trade in weapons and slaves, bringing profit and power to Lysidder. Sabotage in orbit leads to the crash of the starship Glystra in an area full of dangers, 64 thousand kilometers away from the Earth Enclave. Will Glystra be able to succeed - or even just survive? Thousands of years later on the same Big Planet, Apollo Zamp, the owner and captain of a sailing floating theater traveling from port to port along the Vissel River and its tributaries, hopes to win the theater competition and receive the promised prize - an unprecedented amount of metal - despite the numerous dangers of long-distance voyages to the unknown northern expanses and the machinations of his persistent rival, captain-director Garth Ashstorm. The presence of a mysterious aristocratic beauty on board the theater distracts Zampa and significantly complicates his task.