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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is The

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Speaker 2: Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 2: Your Mind focusing on mythical creatures, ideas, and monsters in time.

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Speaker 2: I've covered a number of Star Wars species and creatures

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Speaker 2: in the past on The Monster Fact, and since we're

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Speaker 2: celebrating Star Wars Week here, I have won more for you,

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Speaker 2: a force sensitive humanoid species known as the mirror Luca.

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Speaker 2: The mirror Luca have existed in Star Wars comics and

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Speaker 2: novels for decades at this point, with specific examples falling

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Speaker 2: into canon or extended universe status, but we're not going

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Speaker 2: to get too wrapped up in this division. The mirror

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Speaker 2: Luca look like typical humans, except they have no eyes

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Speaker 2: and generally keep their vestigial eye socket it's covered with

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Speaker 2: a blindfold. While other species in the Star Wars galaxy

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Speaker 2: possess only varied levels of connection to the force, the

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Speaker 2: Meriluka all possess enough force to manifest a kind of

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Speaker 2: force sight, an ability to sense their surroundings via forced

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Speaker 2: sensitivity in a way that makes up for their lack

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Speaker 2: of visual sense. Organs. This of course, plays on a

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Speaker 2: long standing Star Wars trope in which a forced sensitive

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Speaker 2: individual trains with a blindfold or some sort of blindfold

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Speaker 2: like device on so that they can better trust their

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Speaker 2: innate force sense of their surroundings. We see Luke do

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Speaker 2: this in the original nineteen seventy seven film. In Star

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Speaker 2: Wars Rebels, the Jedi Canonjaris sustains a blinding injury and

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Speaker 2: is forced to depend on his forced senses in this way.

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Speaker 2: And if you like me, played the video game Star

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Speaker 2: Wars Jedi Night Dark Forces two back in oh nineteen

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Speaker 2: ninety seven, you'll remember the game's chief antagonist, the Dark

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Speaker 2: Jedi Jerrik, played by christ Her name was also blind.

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Speaker 2: Subsequent Star Wars media retcon Jerrik to be both an

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Speaker 2: Imperial inquisitor and a member of the Mira Luca species.

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Speaker 2: Christopher name, by the way, has come up on Weird

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Speaker 2: House Cinema before, as he played Johnny Alucard in the

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Speaker 2: Hammer horror film Dracula AD nineteen seventy two, opposite Christopher Lee,

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Speaker 2: who of course has his own Star Wars heritage. But

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Speaker 2: I found this idea quite fascinating. The humanoids of the

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Speaker 2: Mirror Luca home world benefiting from species wide force sensitivity,

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Speaker 2: might have evolved to depend on the force as their

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Speaker 2: primary sense. To the degree that their eyes atrophy away

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Speaker 2: like some manner of organisms adapted for life in say

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Speaker 2: deep caves or the deep ocean, or something exposed to

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Speaker 2: the presumably much stronger sensory input of for sight, their

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Speaker 2: brains came to depend on it as the prime sense

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Speaker 2: to form a mental model of the surrounding world. Now

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Speaker 2: we don't quite have a parallel for this in the

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Speaker 2: natural world, but I was reminded of the common rat.

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Speaker 2: A rat's eye sight is quite poor, but makes up

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Speaker 2: for it with suburb hearing, scent, and touch via their

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Speaker 2: whisker sense, which I am tempted to compare it to foresight.

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Speaker 2: In this scenario, rats excel at life and artificial human

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Speaker 2: constructions such as the interiors of walls or say in

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Speaker 2: the sewer, as well as all sorts of naturally occurring

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Speaker 2: spaces like this, and to navigate these environments, these little mazes,

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Speaker 2: they depend in large part on high resolution sensory maps,

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Speaker 2: which they generate in their heads via constant sweeps of

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Speaker 2: their delicate whiskers. They can also detect slight changes in

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Speaker 2: air currents with their whiskers. Our perception of reality is

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Speaker 2: based on the mental models we form based on input

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Speaker 2: from our senses. Animals with different levels of sensory details,

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Speaker 2: such as stronger hearing or weaker sight, or different cognitive abilities,

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Speaker 2: they essentially occupy a different sensory world. So it's a

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Speaker 2: fascinating exercise to imagine what our own lives would be

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Speaker 2: like with any of these sensory knobs adjusted even a

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Speaker 2: little bit, or indeed an entirely new sensory input, perhaps

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Speaker 2: based on the mysterious force added to the equation. Tune

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Speaker 2: in for additional episodes of The Monster Fact, The Artifact,

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Speaker 2: or Animalius to Pendium each week. As always, you can

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Speaker 2: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind

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Speaker 2: dot com.

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

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Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,