Major Story Arcs

Macha is king of Machovia, which is centered on the mall planet of Gimmegimme. While he and his wife, Queen Dibbich, are ostensibly the rulers, they are basically puppet leaders under the control of the manipulative Unkshuss family, including Pobidiah, a religious leader and the builder of Gimmegimme, and Jobidiah, who owns many of the businesses on the planet.

They have manipulated him into a long war with another interstellar kingdom, Goyimia, over reasons that almost everyone has forgotten.

Macha has occasional lapses into insanity, which the Unkshusses take advantage of by sending him off to the Jobidiah Unkshuss Home for Miscreants and Madmen every once in a while. It is there that he meets Moonshadow for the first time, although Moon doesn't believe he's really the king.

Later, Moon and his friends become heroes in the Machovian army, and are brought to the king's castle to live. There, Moon finds out that Macha is in fact the king, and he becomes the nanny for the king's children. Despite his lengthier relationship with the king, Moon becomes better friends with Dibbich than Macha, probably because of Macha's insanity. He swings back and forth from kindness to whacking Moon with a sausage.

Macha is aware of how the Unkshusses are manipulating him, but can do nothing about it, and debases himself in front of them regularly. He does attempt to have them killed at one point, but fails.

In the midst of one of his mood swings, tempered by his fear and hatred of Podibiah, Macha asks Moon to join him in the library. There he pulls two secret books out of the toilet (because Pobidiah has outlawed all other books). These books, Ragstone Phillit's We Are All Ants in a Meaningless Cosmos, and The Gospel of Shree Quack-Quack H'onnka, become the two most influential books on Moon's philosophy of life. However, after Moon bonds with Macha over the books, he ends up in a situation with the Lady Shady that was set up by Pobidiah. Moon is accused of rape and forced to leave the palace, Macha is once again accused of insanity and sent away, and the queen is confined to quarters. The Unkshusses have almost complete control.

Much later, Moon is captured and brought to the Unkshuss's dungeon, but he escapes and Queen Dibbich is finally able to take control of the kingdom out of the Unkshuss's hands. She says that Macha will arrive home soon after to help her rule, but Moon leaves before he sees him.