Great Mother of the God-man, Most Holy Virgin. I, Jan Kazimierz, king by the grace of Thy Son, King of kings and my Lord, and by Your mercy, having fallen to Your Most Holy feet, do choose you on this day as my Patroness and Queen of my countries...- King John II Casimir Vasa of Poland taking his Lvov vows on April 1, 1656.
People's Republic of Poland
September 17, 1975 P.C
Warsaw
Seat of the Primate of Poland
"We are happy to announce that the so-called Kingdom of Riem has just signed important trade agreements to modernize their country to Polish standards. Polish industrial and construction companies will receive lucrative exclusive contracts to raise the level of civilization in the local areas. King Riem, Bank I said that this agreement opens a new era for his country and he hopes to further..." The radio was trumpeting yet another propaganda success story of People's Poland.
"Bank, what a name. Surely our envoys could hardly keep from peeing themselves laughing. He admired what he read, he maintained an inhuman seriousness while reading it." Rev. Bronisław Piasecki, the Primate's secretary, spoke up with a giggle. "Isn't that right, Your Eminence?" he turned to the Primate of the Polish Catholic Church, Stefan Wyszyński, called by posterity and while he was still alive the Primate of the Millennium.
This man, no longer young, was the de facto true leader of the Polish nation in those difficult times before the Polish Pope. It was he, and not the successive First Secretaries, who was the true protector and statesman. If John Paul II was the uncrowned king of Poland, then Wyszyński was the same as during the First Republic/Commoweathl, when one king died and no new king was elected.
Interrex, a person who replaced the king during an interregnum and held temporary royal power until a new king was elected. He was always the Primate of Poland, although sometimes, for various reasons, he was replaced by another bishop if the primate was dead or cursed from the church, which happened only twice during the free election.
Fortunately Primate Wyszyński is neither cursed nor dead. Although probably many communists would like to see him in the grave, but they knew very well what would happen if they killed him. All Poles, even those non-Catholics, will rise up in protests, compared to which both Poznan in 1956 and the workers on the Coast in 1970 looked like a small band of troublemakers.
Simply the Primate has too much respect in the nation, and the three-year confinement in Komancza in the 60s during Gomulka's rule only strengthened his authority, despite the fact that he often made difficult decisions to agree with the communists, which many perceived as betrayal.
Well, the Primate is a statesman after all, and a statesman does not waste the Polish nation or especially the last bastion of freedom in the communist nightmare. And let's add to this that Primate's origin is the child of a peasant church organist, who was not excessively rich after all.
So it was somewhat ironic that against the communists the one they were theoretically supposed to liberate was fighting. A member of the white proletariat against the red aristocracy, this obvious irony hurt the eyes of all those who like progress and see the future in some form of socialism or communism and of course are for revolution.
In the end, it is hard to say that communism is the promised place for workers and peasants when your greatest enemy is a reactionary institution run by a peasant son.
What's more, after the transfer and establishment of contacts with Japan, Wyszyński's authority was so high that, despite the obstacles posed by the communist security police, Wyszyński also became the one to whom the Catholic Church in Japan submitted as the temporary head of the church until a new pope was elected.
Unfortunately, this whole barrel of honey was not lacking a large spoonful of tar. The information coming from Japan frightened Wyszyński strongly and then he flew into a rage. The results of the activities of the Second Vatican Council were strongly negative, contrary to expectations, and what was worst, a wave of abuses and other negative phenomena spread throughout the church. Especially the scale of pedophilia in the opinion of a Polish bishop of very old age, because before the war, was in his opinion shocking.
Besides, John Paul II was terrified about what would happen under his nose if Poland was not welcomed into this world. And the not-so-positive reports of Polish priests in Japan during the transfer about the state of the church in Poland were a kind of rotten cherry on the cake of corruption.
Wyszyński therefore decided that it was necessary to put an end to this madness at the very beginning before it spreads and begins to destroy everything that made up the Church. And when John Paul II was elected, work began on analyzing the damage done to the Church by these corrupt members of the clergy.
Of course, all this was done very carefully in Poland. Wyszyński knew very well that half of the destruction of the Polish Church was the work of the Polish secret police and their patriotic priests, who together with their red masters would not allow themselves to be destroyed so easily. The other part of the problem stems from the lazy attitude of the Polish clergy, who hiding in the shadow of the great bishops of the 20th century, began to neglect their duties because the Polish Pope and the Primate of the Millennium were enough to keep the sheep in the fold.
As it turned out, they are not enough if their successors are, let's face it, scoundrels and parasites feeding on the carcass of the real clergy. Of course, the Polish Primate was very frightened by the state of the whole Church and what happened after his death. But he was not going to give up without a fight, if he could avoid it, he would avoid it. That is why John Paul II's first decree was to de facto suspend forever the provisions of the Second Vatican Council in view of the failure of its effects.
In Japan it passed without much of an echo, although many Japanese Catholics and those from other countries who had the misfortune to be in Japan on the unlucky 1st of January were strongly surprised that some parishes suddenly returned to the old Roman rite. In Poland it was a kind of a noticeable revolution or, better said, a counter-revolution, which was received with reluctance by part of the church, also called the liberal side.
You can say that this decision lit the fires of controversy in the church. As for the Counter-Reformation, in Poland returning to the old was not a problem, all the current priests know how to celebrate such masses, and redecorating churches to the old style is not a problem. After all, the Council happened not so long ago.
But in Japan? It was a problem, there were not many priests who knew how to say Mass, so temporarily the new rite was left and Poles were supposed to send some of their priests to help. Given the fact that the old Roman rite was and is universal by nature, it would not have been a problem for them to conduct mass, and the sermon need not be preached in the old rite.
But let's leave aside this description of the ecclesiastical disputes that occupied Wyszyński, who had to reconcile his role as a member of the clergy and the de facto highest authority after the Pope, with the role of the Polish Statesman and Poland's last free leader.
There was no longer a government in exile of the Second Polish Republic, which was to cease to exist only after Lech Walesa was elected president, transferring to him his powers and insignia of power creating from the Free Third Republic the legal successor of interwar Poland.
There was only him, against the whole hierarchy of the Polish United Workers' Party and its satellite parties. He was Stefan Wyszyński with the slowly growing authority of John Paul II against the triumvirate of Gierek-Kowalczyk-Jaruzelski.
What can the Polish Archbishop of Gniezno and Warsaw, who is the Primate of Poland, do against the Party-Security-Military alliance? Contrary to what one might think, quite a lot. Especially today, when it is his authority and his own aversion to senseless shedding of blood, especially Polish blood, that makes the Polish nation not try to break the communists to the rest.
Another thing is that Poles generally hate the fact that they feel robbed by the sick system more than they hate communism. That they are being suffocated, and the whole system has such absurdities in it that to a person from outside the communist system, who hasn't lived a day in it, they seem like fiction, a fairy tale for children. The lie, which the capitalists sell to the stupefied masses, is that the socialist system does not work because any example from communism... excuse me, socialism, because in Poland the propaganda speaks only about socialism.
Not that Wyszyński was a capitalist, he saw its flaws, it is stripping man to the level of an animal which has only to consume and work for profit. Profit that exists only for profit. That is why he was a supporter of limiting the free market and its rush for profit.
Although he knows that the average Pole is not aware of these flaws of capitalism, it was simply an ideal, just like democracy. Just like America... America in Polish dreams is an ideal, the most wonderful country in the world, a paradise for everybody. A place where everybody wants to escape from Poland.
He was not so wrapped up in adoring the USA, he saw its rot, its madness and despite everything, its insanity. Yes, it was a much better country than the Soviet Union, better than People's Poland. But not paradise.
In fact, in Wyszyński's opinion the USA is the reversal of everything that the USSR was, but just as Communist Russia destroys everything in a sick ideology and reduces everything to the level of an animal with the boot and whip, the USA does it with the help of coca-cola and Hollywood movies.
But, unlike Communism, American Liberalism does it nicely and because of its ideals is hampered by a corset of Christian values. But break that corset, break those chains and you get the same effect as in the USSR de facto only that people will want it until they realize they are in hell and the whole thing starts to collapse.
Too much prosperity is as bad as too little. Unfortunately Poles did not know this, and because Poland began to get rich on export to other countries, they began to get rich themselves on a scale not seen for a long time. What not long ago was the peak of dreams, now became the norm and within reach of even the average poor person.
And the country began to gain only more and more momentum. Anyway, what to say, it is enough to look out the window and see a whole bunch of buildings being built in the capital, including many skyscrapers making the Palace of Culture and Science cease to be the tallest building in the capital and will not be visible from afar as a kind of giant over the tenements and blocks of the city.
And the number of cars driving on Warsaw streets increased to such a level that slowly the capacity of the streets will be filled up and traffic jams will start to form. In short, Poles were finally starting to live at a decent level.
However, this now did not occupy the mind of the Primate, nothing of the sort, what did occupy his mind was the date. The first anniversary had already passed, and the year was coming to an end, in a month's time, on All Saints Day, it would snow again, covering the whole country in the greatest winter in many years. According to Japanese scientists, it is a result of the fact that this planet is much larger and the level of development is lower, hence the temperature of this world called by the Poles Arcadia is much lower than on Earth.
"The first of April ... a large number of believers in the Queen, New Poles seeing her as their protector. It seems that our Lady has not only a sense of duty but also of humor." Wyszyński muttered under his breath then turned to Piasecki, "Did you say something Bronisław?"
"Well I was talking about this King Riem, he has such an unfortunate name that most likely our envoys could hardly keep from laughing when they heard it, but what do you mean by the First of April?" Piasecki replied.
Wyszyński tilted his head slightly back and to the left then raised his left eyebrow "What's April 1st?" Piasecki thought for a moment before replying "Well this one, April Fools' Day."
"I?" Asked the Primate, Piasecki furrowed his brow for a moment before replying "There is also the anniversary of the Transfer to Arcadia..." He paused for a moment seeing by the Primate's expression that this was not what he was talking about now, he scratched his head before he was enlightened by the statue of the Virgin Mary standing on the desk, a gift from the New Poles to the Primate of the Polish Catholic Church.
This statue stood out from many others, namely it depicted Mary in the Royal attire, with two white crowned eagles on powerful clasps on her coat in the Polish red color, and on her face there was a calm smile befitting the Queen-Mother, which is what she formally was for Poland. What was striking was the scar on her face, two longitudinal ones going from her nose through her cheek to the bottom. Identical to those on the Picture of Our Lady of Czestochowa.
"... The Lwów Vows of Jan Kazimierz, choosing Mary as patroness and Queen of the Polish Crown giving our country into her protection and which your Eminence ordered to be renewed barely a decade ago, although not personally because he was Primate imprisoned by the Communists in Komańcza." Said Piasecki in a tone of sudden revelation.
Then he turned to the Primate "Does Your Eminence think that..." He had not finished when Wyszyński nodded "I think so." Whereupon Piasecki furrowed his eyebrows "Well, if perhaps or better said most probably the Mother of God brought us here then who brought the Japanese here?"
Wyszyński bluntly stated, "Looking at the popularity of the natives' belief in the Sun God, I'm shooting that the Japanese most important goddess took them here, their Amaterasu." Piasecki marveled at this "What is your eminence saying? He recognizes this pagan goddess of theirs as real?"
Wyszyński smiled slightly and then shook his head "Not really, I think that this Shamash/Amaterasu most probably exists but I don't think it is a god, rather a very powerful being which people in their ignorance called a god but which is not a god." Piasecki thought for a moment before replying "Well all in all, if God has even shown his power, magic is real in this world then why can't the rest be? Though all in all it makes sense, pagan idols had to come from something and not from the ceiling..."
Wyszyński in turn smiled slightly, "Although at least the plus of this whole event is the fact that we have separated those who are uncertain from those who are stubborn in not recognizing God and his existence." Piasecki agreed with him after which he asked in another very interesting matter.
"Your Eminence if I may?" He asked and the Primate gave him a sign that he could, "Why have you and Pope John Paul II taken an indifferent approach to the magic here? It is almost as if you are encouraging the conversion of mages without paying any attention to it."
Wyszyński raised his right eyebrow slightly "Maybe it's because the magic here, is not de facto magic from our world? That it might as well be called something other than ours?" Piasecki quipped "You mean?"
The Head of the Polish Nation sighed "As you know, I have acquaintances and friendly ears in the Polish Academy of Sciences, I know who I need and he knows someone else from the biology institutes, and at our KUL there is also solid research work going on, you could say that the entire science of the Polish nation is studying Arcadia with a joint effort."
Then he opened a drawer in his old desk that dated back to the 16th century and pulled out a folder. Piasecki read on it Analysis of Abilities and Origins of Magic, Catholic University of Lublin.
The Primate then opened it and handed the report inside to Piasecki to read.
"Skip the beginning, it's redundant and go to page... 18 there will be a list of autopsies of slain Parpaldians and more specifically their mages and start with the words Noted Abnormal" Primate instructed, Piasecki complied and quickly found the passage in question then began to read.
Abnormal, as compared to the typical Homo Sapiens Sapiens, growth of glands and organs and enlarged and more numerous nerves in the body have been noticed. It can be seen that there are very thick nerves the size of arteries running through each limb. The cells of the body themselves are larger and there are unknown elements in them.
Moreover, a strange property was noticed in the form of the feeling of an electric kick when the body was touched, and as examined, the energy production activity was noticed to be slowly dying down, and despite the passage of weeks the body still remained warm although it cooled down very slowly.
This agrees with emerging reports from folk tales and beliefs of the natives that the body of a mage gives his magic to the environment after his death, according to us this magic is actually some form of electrical energy because an unknown chemical compound has been detected in the bodies of all those killed, and its intensity is high in mages and low in "non-mages". But it doesn't exist in our bodies.
In turn a bottom-up initiative of one of our chemists and biologists proved that this compound is toxic for organisms originating from our earth in the intensity equal to that in non-magical organisms, although it is recommended to acquire local mice and transfer from their organisms to our mice.
Piasecki stopped reading the list then looked at the Primate questioningly and the latter wordlessly confirmed the question not asked aloud. "Interesting, for us magic is a poison and for them something normal." He added after a long moment.
"That's right, which is probably why God forbade it, because magic to us is a poison, something unnatural to our bodies and these ancient wizards were poisoning themselves and as we know poison can cloud judgement like mercury or lead destroying reason. I think that's why the word for witch in the Bible is also translated as poisoner, besides the fact that many of these witches were poisoners and for that they were hanged, drowned or burned." Replied the Primate calmly.
After which a brief moment passed before the enlightened Primate, as if with renewed vigor, threw in "Well, let's leave the scientific and religious matters and move on to national affairs, what is the status of the work of our Retreat Monastery?"
Piasecki contentedly replied "Very good, if God grants it the work should be finished by Easter." Wyszyński nodded slowly "Good, and how are our penitents-priests?" He said with cool calmness.
"Well, they don't brawl much, though there was an attempt to escape albeit ineptly from the island besides, they work like the rest and in accordance with your eminence's wishes eat two meals a day and a scanty one at that as part of their penance for their sins." Replied Piasecki calmly with undisguised satisfaction.
What these penitents had done appalled him that the authority of the pastor and the good name of the priest could be so tarnished and used for such an unholy exploitation of the innocent. Unfortunately this was a small, fortunately isolated group of sinners without a strong backing in the church mafia, which could be quietly and easily taken, but to get rid of the church mafia had to be careful, the SB mafia effectively guarded their shepherds in the ranks of the church using the natural in the church negative tendencies to conquer the church from within to end up as another organ of communist Poland. And it's hard to keep such shepherds if you don't have any hooks on them, right? The combination of provocation and the natural tendency of power-hungry people to appear in every institution gave a wide field for the secret security services.
Wyszyński was implacable in his purge plans, but he knew how to calmly and slowly look for ways to catch those mafiosi in cassocks, and their buddies in grey coats behind them. Ways that were not morally questionable and at the same time sufficient to punish the guilty.
Piasecki didn't know why, but the Primate, hearing about it, suddenly became as if rejuvenated and gained energy to destroy this cancer inside the church, to cut it out calmly like a surgeon.
"Good." Wyszyński muttered then got up from his chair and walked to the window, then opened it, letting the noise of the street into the quiet office. Polish Fiats 125p and Polish Toyotas Corolla AE86 built under license at FSO filled the street as typical Poles' cars, with the occasional car from the future owned by one of the immigrants being brought back.
Next to them there were already legendary FSC Żuk, Polish delivery vans which de facto rebuilt and built Poland anew, although this car had its years, because de facto it came from the 50s, from the era when there was a shortage of everything and everything was taken, and the fact that Żuk by some miracle succeeded is another matter.
Next to this could be seen imported from Japan or assembled in Poland, more precisely in Japanese Economic Zones, "Polish" delivery vans of Japanese brands. De facto they were produced almost entirely in Japan, sent in parts to Poland and assembled here with some parts of Polish origin, there was little of this and this number was a simple saving on costs, because the duties were prohibitive on cars to protect own brands and plants, although there was a loophole which the Japanese, like earlier the Italians from Fiat, exploited. Because the duty was on the whole car, and if the car came to Poland in parts and the required threshold of parts coming from Poland was given, then the duty was not applied and it was treated as a Polish product.
But despite this, such cars were rare, because Japanese Companies had orders for a whole decade and because the Japanese and so far only one in the world manufacturer of suitable semiconductors for cars had limited production capacity and JSDF and other more important departments had priority production was less than desired and prices higher than they should be.
Of course, some temporary solution was to limit electronics in new models and even to bring back to production older, less picky models of cars or just selling licenses for old cars from the 70s and 80s to Polish factories to produce them under license as part of orders for Japanese Companies.
This lowered costs and the price of products, but it was neither an insufficient solution nor one that could match the ambitions of the Japanese. It was a different matter for the Poles, who in this way gained access to a multitude of technologies and technological methods which had been previously closed to them because they were too expensive and, unlike Fiat, could not be paid for in kind, for example with coal which Fiat accepted as payment in addition to the parts produced for Italian Fiats.
And sometimes the Poles got the technology ahead of the 70s without much problem, not that they had any difficulty in duplicating it, especially when it came to electronics, you can sometimes be surprised and the Japanese were surprised more than once that the Poles, with little difficulty, were able to create more crude but still working replacements for the Japanese.
Japan, in a way, showed the way that worked, and the Poles did not kick down the open door, but took advantage, albeit playing with non-standard approaches, but the main force followed the marked and worn path.
It was so much easier, because in some areas, the Poles were pioneers going blindly towards what would be in the future (read in Japan) the world standard. Hardly anyone realized, because it is not very common in the knowledge and the collapse of many well-functioning companies in the electronics industry in the 90s due to the lack of competence of the management as well as the rather desperate plan of Balcerowicz implemented because the party nomenklatura was beginning to usurp the national public good as part of grassroots privatization made these companies a thing of the past.
Here, many of these companies were created or established and have been operating since the previous decade thriving. And now? A new wave of investment, gradual liberalization of the market and Free Borderlands made everything take off and the path paved by the Japanese made it easier to move forward.
Wyszyński called the secretary's hand and his footsteps on the wooden floor were drowned out by the noise of the street. Then as Piasecki stood next to the Shepherd of the Polish Nation, Wyszyński said, "Beautiful and colorful isn't it?" Piasecki quietly replied "Yes Your Eminence."
"Poland, after years of slavery, like flowers and trees after a long winter, comes back to life again. The ubiquitous coarseness and greyness is slowly disappearing and people are slowly becoming more cheerful." Wyszyński said, and Piasecki had to agree, so far gray and gloomy blocks of flats are beginning to be painted in colors because finally there is no lack of paint, the clunkiness of Polish products disappears when the division into worse Polish and better foreign products finally ceases to exist and materials of good quality become a standard rather than an exception. And the people... Piasecki was amazed to hear, for the first time in decades, the merriment and laughter of people and children were much louder than a year ago.
Everything came to life, Warsaw stopped being a gloomy ghost town where everyone is afraid of everyone else. One can only say that it was finally becoming a normal city. Only the militia cars or the occasional security agents with their grim looks and the huge propaganda poster visible from the window spoiled the idyllic image.
They seemed to be an alien element, just like the Palace of Culture and Science, visible from afar but slowly obscured by the new skyscrapers under construction, formerly named after Joseph Stalin himself, the only so large building without a patron, obviously communist. It cast its shadow on Warsaw, but it was slowly being suppressed by the rest of the skyscrapers, so that probably, as the priest-secretary thought, in the future it would become an invisible part of reality.
Being there and yet seeming powerless, without its terrifying might representing the Soviet Union, workers' liberation...the promise of people power and the prosperity of communism.
It became a symbol of a bygone era, an old scarecrow that no one is afraid of and which was thrown into some corner of the barn because it became unnecessary.
"You see it's true?" Said the first Wyszyński quietly enough so that the eavesdroppers drowned out by the sounds of the street wouldn't catch his voice and loud enough so that despite the noise of the street Piasecki could hear him.
"That dark shadow which is losing its power, going into a corner. Changes are coming, changes that every Pole has been waiting for for over twenty years. The power of the communists is crumbling, and the faster Poland develops, the momentum with which the development goes is simply too powerful to control anymore, and the party has never fully controlled Poland, so they do not even have the illusion that they will succeed." Wyszyński continued.
"I suppose that's good, Your Eminence?" Piasecki replied uncertainly, Wyszyński paused for a moment, nodding his head slowly before replying "The mere fact that it destroys the power of the communists is good, the fact that the Poles don't notice that it also destroys something more is unfortunately only noticeable to us but that will be work for another day, today we must see to one thing."
"What?" Asked Piasecki and the True Leader of the Nation pointed with his hand to the Palace of Culture and Science in the distance, "That the Communists lose their power over the nation, and at the same time that they do not become like this Palace, a dark shadow and a poisoned spring which no one in the thicket of other buildings notices. So that their rot would be cut out of the Polish nation, so that all national defects would be easier to remove in the work of the nation on itself. This is the goal for today."
Piasecki agreed with Primate Wyszyński, the communists must be gotten rid of along with their rotten approach derived from Russia if Poland is to survive in this world and be able to compete with other powers and not be a subordinate of Japan.
The heritage of the Russian partition and the red yoke of communism must be finally overcome if this country is to become normal again. We should remind ourselves who he was, make Poles heal from complexes which have been haunting Poland since the defeat in memorable 1939 and which the communists are only fueling at the command of their masters from Moscow.
But you have to be careful, SB has ears everywhere, even here in the Primate's office in the form of wiretaps, after all, the window was not opened to let fresh air in, right?