With apologies to those for whom this is just dreamstuff... A long time ago I was trying various therapists to get help with some personal problems, and one of

With apologies to those for whom this is just dreamstuff... A long time ago I was trying various therapists to get help with some personal problems, and one of them did something that they called "germ-line regression". This was like a hypnotic past life regression, but rather than going back through previous incarnations, it was going back through the genetic line of my ancestors. We went back to a man who lived in Europe at the time when the Romans were making inroads up there. His name was something like "Otygh" and he was a huge "Conan the Barbarian"-looking dude, biggest and toughest guy in his village. He was pretty much the top of the local food chain and social hierarchy, no one above him but the gods themselves. And then the Romans show up... They're short (not too short, there were standards, but shorter than the barbarians), smelly (garlic eaters, eh?), weak and (seemingly) stupid, they're like beast-men, orcs. They should be easy to defeat, every other living thing has been, but damned if they don't keep winning fights! They always win!? WTF!? How is this possible? I can't exaggerate the rage and frustration Otygh felt at losing to these Romans. It was totally incomprehensible. For what it's worth, which may not be much, Otygh loved battle. Far from terrifying, it was exhilarating, right up until he started losing and the Romans torched his village and killed or enslaved everybody he knew and loved. Don't shed any tears for him, he was a murderous dickhead who did the very same thing to other villages.