History Main / VirtualRealityInterrogation

* "[[Recap/LupinIIIS2E3 To Be or Nazi Be]]": An episode of the ''Anime/LupinIIIPartII'' series had the gang capture an old German soldier and convince him he was back in the war, with Hitler himself wanting to know where he had hidden the treasures he had been entrusted with. As soon as he squeals, "Hitler" turns out to be Lupin [[LatexPerfection in disguise]], and the whole base is a movie set.

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* This is the plot of an episode of ''Anime/ScienceNinjaTeamGatchaman / Anime/BattleOfThePlanets''.

[[folder:Fanfiction]]
* In ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4472109/1/CyberTech_War_of_the_Worlds CyberTech: War of the Worlds,]]'' [[RonTheDeathEater Dumbledore]] is captured by the good guys, manages to escape the prison, and, once he gets into Hogwarts, tells Snape to recover some prisoners from the Headquarters. Snape replies he can't get them all by himself, so Albus is forced to give Flitwick the location as well. Cue the illusion dissolving...

* In ''Film/{{Virtuosity}}'', the final battle between Sid 6.7 and Parker ends with Parker thrown off a building and dead...except that it's then revealed that they were able to trap Sid back in his VR computer and create a set of circumstances in which he would think he'd won. Though he still manages to almost actually kill Parker, when the hero finally escapes they're able to determine where Sid hid his last two captives from the events of the VR simulation.
* Not done with technology, but in a combination of this idea and TwoPlusTortureEqualsFive, the British spy protagonist of ''Film/TheIpcressFile'' is captured and held by enemy spies in a secret location in London. As part of an attempt to break him mentally and physically, his captors try to convince him that he's a criminal and traitor being held in an Eastern European prison. This includes having him visited by a spy pretending to be a representative of the Foreign Office, and thus a friendly face.
* Most of the protagonists of ''Film/{{Inception}}'' are professional Virtual Reality Interrogators. The method they use allows them to snoop through the subject's subconscious mind, usually by pretending they are on the subject's side in some way. Sometimes it works, but being too bold with this tactic can easily arouse too much suspicion and expose them.

* In ''Film/SpiderManFarFromHome'', [[spoiler:Mysterio/Quentin Beck uses holographic illusions to trick Peter Parker into thinking he's exposing his fraudulent scheme to Nick Fury and Maria Hill. Then it turns out the building is empty, and Mysterio proceeds to mentally torture Peter with more illusions. After a while, Mysterio appears to have been shot from behind by a "real" Nick Fury, who then asks Peter who else knows about Beck's plan. It turns out that was just another layer of the illusion, and Beck now knows who to target.]]

* In ''Literature/TheStarsMyDestination'', there is an attempt to get information from the protagonist by simulating for him [[LotusEaterMachine a reality where he is rich and happy]], and his adventures are AllJustADream. He spots AGlitchInTheMatrix (his own reflection) right before talking.

* The Sobornost in ''Literature/TheQuantumThief'' have turned this trope into an art form. Whenever they need to extract information from a gogol (an uploaded mind), they simply make a backup and then subject it to wide variety of painful and pleasurable experiences in the matter of microseconds, and if it breaks down they make another copy and try again with new variation until they get the desired results. It's the most sophisticated form of MindRape imaginable.
* In ''Literature/AlteredCarbon'' Takeshi Kovacs is subjected to a virtual reality where he is sleeved in a female body and raped violently and repeatedly numerous times, however he recognizes the simulation from his time putting down a rebellion on an Islamic planet. And later he shows one of his interrogators the program they used on the insurrectionists — he creates a virtual doppelganger of the interrogator to torture ''himself'' for information.
** Inverted in the follow-up novel, ''Broken Angels'', where Takeshi makes it perfectly clear that the man is in a virtual software room. He then informs him that, if the man doesnt tell him what he wants to know, he will just leave him there with his stack plugged into the self-powered VR device. In a construct designed as little more than a very short term holding area, i.e. nothing happened, no other people are programmed in. Alone. For the relative centuries that the battery would keep the simulation running for. Worse than any other interrogation technique, really.
** It becomes clear this is endemic to the setting; a more innocuous example involves job interviews being carried out in cyberspace to save time and travel expense - and save interviewer attention by using software doubles of the interviewers to do most of the actual work and make it unclear to the candidates how many of them there are.
* In ''Literature/{{MARZENA}}'', Dr. Lauren connects Dr. Sam to a virtual reality created via the bio-feedback of his dreams, and then send a virtual avatar controlled by Kristen to steal his banking information. Crazy Dream Sequence full of NightmareFuel follows.

* ''Literature/JudgeDee'' once had a prisoner who refused to talk even after torture, so he had his henchmen put on [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ox-Head_and_Horse-Face bull and horse masks,]] making the suspect think she was facing the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yama_(East_Asia) judge of the dead]] (the Judge's resemblance to the Yama is repeatedly noted throughout the series), finally getting her to confess.
* ''Literature/EncryptionStraffe'' has three entire chapters dedicated to such a process in a simulated hellscape, nicknamed by its author as the "hell arc".

* In one episode of ''Series/{{VIP}}'', Val and Tasha are kidnapped and drugged after they hide a witness in a safehouse. In order to make them reveal the secret, the villain attempts to convince them they've been comatose for 40 years.

* ''Series/TheHardyBoysNancyDrewMysteries'': "Sole Survivor", where Joe wakes up in a hospital room with no clue where he is or how he got there, only to be told that he's not only been in a coma for a year, but that his father and brother are dead. Cue fake newspapers, fake newscasts, and forged letters from all his surviving relatives and friends. Of course, Frank and Fenton are very much alive, and the whole thing is a MindScrew to get Joe to reveal information on a defection attempt.
* ''Series/{{Alias}}'': Sidney's father suffered from a TapOnTheHead and now thinks he's back in the 1970s with his wife and young daughter. So Sidney has to pretend to be her own mother, married to her father, in order to get her father to give up some secret codes. To make it extra-uncomfortable, her father, thinking she's his wife, tries to make out with her.
* ''Series/AlteredCarbon'': There are rentable clinics where you can put a prisoner in a VR simulation where they can be killed and revived over and over. Unlike other examples of this trope, Kovacs knows all too well he's in a simulation and not even death will make the torture stop. Worse, he doesn't have the information the interrogator wants so he can't even confess. It takes him mentally stopping his own heart to finally escape. [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge Revenge for this experience]] is what convinces him to hunt down the criminal conspiracy, rather than any moral reasons.
* ''Series/ThePrisoner1967'':
** In the episode "[[Recap/ThePrisonerE2TheChimesOfBigBen The Chimes of Big Ben]]", Number 6 escapes the Village and is transported to London, where he meets a former superior. As he's about to explain why he resigned, he hears the WestminsterChimes which match the time on his watch, still set to the time in the Village. Turns out he's still there.
** In "[[Recap/ThePrisonerE3ABAndC A, B and C]]", Number Six is drugged and hooked up to a machine that controls his dreams. He meets several characters who try to get him to confess why he resigned. Eventually he figures out what's going on and manages to seize control of the dream.
* ''Series/LegendOfTheSeeker'': Season 1, Episode 12 "Home" is driven by this plot device. Darken Rahl has his pet wizard trap Richard in a dream about his home. Inside the dream, Rahl takes on several different characters to try and convince Richard that the goings-on of the series so far was [[AllJustADream all just a dream]] to learn the location of one of the boxes of Orden from him. Ultimately, [[ThePowerOfLove the power of love]] combined with Rahl pushing too hard breaks the spell at the last moment.
* ''Series/StargateSG1'' features "[[Recap/StargateSG1S2E22OutOfMind Out of Mind]]", a ClipShow in which the framing device is that O'Neill, Carter and Daniel awaken from stasis in what appears to be the SGC, almost 79 years in the future, and they need information for their incomplete records. They discover it is actually a Goa'uld hoax by Hathor.
* ''Series/TheAvengers1960s'':
** In one episode, Tara King is victim of such a ploy by villains trying to locate John Steed and whoever he was protecting.
** Another has a fake "training seminar" orchestrated by enemy agents. British agents would not crack during the "interrogation simulations", but would later casually discuss the subject matter at the bar...
* In the ''Series/RedDwarf'' three-parter "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIIIBackInTheRedPartI Back]] [[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIIIBackInTheRedPartII in the]] [[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIIIBackInTheRedPartIII Red]]", the Dwarfers are subjected to this by the newly resurrected crew to verify their story that it's three million years in the future and most of them had been killed by a radiation leak then reconstructed by nanites. While Lister, Cat, Kryten, and Kochansky are under, Rimmer tries to erase their memories of giving him access to the personnel files, which leads to the reveal of another layer of virtual reality.
* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'': Starbuck suspects this trope when she's shot and wakes up in a Resistance hospital. [[spoiler:Turns out it's a Cylon BabyFactory.]]
* In an episode of ''Series/MetalHurlantChronicles'' the guy giving people virtual reality fantasies that become real turns out to be a prisoner being subjected to a virtual parole hearing. He fails.
* Done to John Crichton at least twice in ''Series/{{Farscape}}''.
** The first time, he appears to find a wormhole back to Earth and his friends follow, only to be held by the government, who dissect Rygel. [[spoiler: except it was made by the Ancients to determine if Earth would welcome alien immigrants.]]
** The second, he wakes up from a coma and is told he dreamed the whole thing after the Farscape project crashed, except that all the aliens he knew are on Earth as well, and no one seems to care. Having been through something similar before, he's certain it's a fake even before Scorpius's neural clone reveals himself. [[spoiler: It's actually a subversion - the point is not to trick him into divulging information, but just to psychologically torture him until he breaks - at this point things get really weird.]]
* ''Series/MissionImpossible'': In "Operation Rogosh", an unbreakable foreign agent known as "The Monster" who specializes in mass murder is discovered in Los Angeles, the IMF team needs to break him (only to discover a planned biological attack on Los Angeles area water system). The team must trick him into revealing the location of his biological devices by convincing him that it is three years into the future, he is back in his own country, and he is on trial for being an American spy.
* Done twice in ''Series/BabylonFive'':
** "[[Recap/BabylonFiveS01E08AndTheSkyFullOfStars And The Sky Full Of Stars]]" has Commander Sinclair abducted by two operatives who drug him up and put him into a rig that lets the interrogator into Sinclair's head. The operatives, Knight One and Knight Two, want to find out [[DrivingQuestion what really happened to Sinclair at the Battle of the Line]]. Sinclair [[LaserGuidedAmnesia would really like know too]], but he understandably doesn't appreciate their efforts.
** "[[Recap/BabylonFiveS04E19BetweenTheDarknessAndTheLight Between The Darkness and the Light]]" has Captain Sheridan hooked up to a similar rig, as his interrogators try to figure out what he knows about [[spoiler: the Mars Resistance, who Sheridan had been working to recruit into his rebellion against President Clark's totalitarian government.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Technobabylon}}'', Latha [[SlippingAMickey puts a mook to sleep]], enters his unconscious mind and then tricks him into giving away a door access code by making him believe he is at work.

-->'''Petey:''' Well, the simulation has him thinking along the righ track.
* In ''Webcomic/GeneralProtectionFault'', Nick gets kidnapped by Ki's counterpart from the "Nega-verse", who tricks him into getting into the [=MuTEX=] virtual reality machine on the night before his wedding to Ki, but instead transports him back to her dimension, where he is sedated on arrival and places him into her [=MuTEX=] in order to trick him, while sleep-deprived, into telling her how to make Project Velociraptor. Unfortunately, Nega-Ki makes a few mistakes, and Nick sees through her.

* In the second season of ''WesternAnimation/TheAvengersEarthsMightiestHeroes'', after a prolonged period of torturing ([[GoryDiscretionShot off-screen]]) for information without success, Captain America's Skrull captors have his next interrogation "interrupted" by a rescue by the other Avengers (actually shapeshifted Skrull). It doesn't work though, as Captain America sees through it immediately.
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', Mom wants to get Fry's bank information. Since his PIN was related to his old job in the twentieth century, her sons set up an elaborate hoax to convince him that coming to the future was AllJustADream and he was back in his old life.
* An episode of ''WesternAnimation/BuzzLightyearOfStarCommand'' uses the FakedRipVanWinkle variant; he's convinced a NegativeSpaceWedgie transported him into the future and destroyed Zerg. In reality, the "museum pieces" are his actual armour, the kids he's telling stories (and weaknesses) to are robots and Zerg is alive, well and showing Buzz's captive crew the whole setup to taunt them.

* In the ''Series/RedDwarf'' three-parter "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIIIBackInTheRedPartI Back]] [[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIIIBackInTheRedPartII in the]] [[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIIIBackInTheRedPartIII Red]]", the Dwarfers are subjected to this by the newly resurrected crew to verify their story that it's three million years in the future and most of them had been killed by a radiation leak then reconstructed by nanites. While Lister, Cat, Kryten, and Kochansky are under Rimmer tries to erase their memories of giving him access to the personnel files, which leads to the reveal of another layer of virtual reality.

* In the ''Series/StarTrekEnterprise'' episode "Stratagem". Captain Archer tries to get information out of an alien by convincing him that they are now friends and that years have gone by. The alien ship they have supposedly stolen is [[FauxtasticVoyage actually set up inside a small shuttle in the ''Enterprise'' landing bay]]. The small touches making the simulation seem real include tattooing both their arms with prison barcodes.
* Subverted in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Future Imperfect", where Riker thinks he is a victim of one (he is supposedly a couple of decades in the future, and suffering from amnesia, but his supposed wife is a woman of his dreams, that he knows never existed outside the holodeck). The Romulans reveal themselves when he calls them out on it. However, as it turns out [[spoiler:the Romulans aren't real either - there is just one alien, highly psychic and very lonely, keeping Riker in a LotusEaterMachine to have some company and conjuring things from his mind - the whole espionage plot was the device's attempt to respond to Riker's realisation that the first reality was fictitious, based on his own assumptions about what might really be going on.]]
** Similarly, in "The Inner Light", Picard thinks this is happening to him when he finds himself reliving the life of a long-dead alien scientist before finding out that there's no deception at all.
* In the ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'' episode "Inquisition", Section 31 tries to probe Doctor Bashir for possible disloyal behavior by secretly slipping him in a holodeck simulation in which prominent members of the Dominion try to convince him that he's a ManchurianAgent and actually unsuspectingly working for them. It doesn't work and Doctor Bashir remains loyal to the Federation, despite all the mounting "evidence" to suggest otherwise, and in doing so impresses Section 31 so much that they later turn to him for some of their own covert ops.

** In the episode "The Chimes of Big Ben", Number 6 escapes the Village and is transported to London, where he meets a former superior. As he's about to explain why he resigned, he hears the WestminsterChimes which match the time on his watch, still set to the time in the Village. Turns out he's still there.
** In "A, B and C". Number Six is drugged and hooked up to a machine that controls his dreams. He meets several characters who try to get him to confess why he resigned. Eventually he figures out what's going on and manages to seize control of the dream.

* ''Series/StargateSG1'' features season 2, episode 22, a ClipShow where the framing device is that O'Neill, Carter and Daniel awaken from stasis in what appears to be the SGC, almost 79 years in the future, and they need information for their incomplete records. They discover it is actually a Goa'uld hoax by Hathor.
* In ''Series/TheAvengers1960s'', Tara King was victim of such a ploy by villains trying to locate John Steed and whoever he was protecting.
** Another had a fake "training seminar" orchestrated by enemy agents. British agents would not crack during the "interrogation simulations", but would later casually discuss the subject matter at the bar...
* In the ''Series/RedDwarf'' three-parter "Back in the Red" the Dwarfers are subjected to this by the newly resurrected crew to verify their story that it's three million years in the future and most of them had been killed by a radiation leak then reconstructed by nanites. While Lister, Cat, Kryten, and Kochansky are under Rimmer tries to erase their memories of giving him access to the personnel files, which leads to the reveal of another layer of virtual reality.
* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003''. Starbuck suspects this trope when she's shot and wakes up in a Resistance hospital. [[spoiler:Turns out it's a Cylon BabyFactory.]]

* ''Series/MissionImpossible'':
** In "Operation Rogosh", an unbreakable foreign agent known as "The Monster" who specializes in mass murder is discovered in Los Angeles, the IMF team needs to break him (only to discover a planned biological attack on Los Angeles area water system). The team must trick him into revealing the location of his biological devices by convincing him that it is three years into the future, he is back in his own country, and he is on trial for being an American spy.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[Film/TheMatrix Your mind makes it real...]]]]

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' MOM wanted to get Fry's bank information. Since his PIN was related to his old job in the twentieth century, her sons set up an elaborate hoax to convince him that coming to the future was AllJustADream and he was back in his old life.

* There was an episode of ''Series/{{Galidor}}'' where one of Gorm's minions created a virtual reality simulation of Allegra's bedroom to convince her it was AllJustADream, and get her to talk about her adventures. Nick managed to break the illusion before she revealed any dangerous information.

* In ''Film/ReadyPlayerOne2018'', the heroes hijack The BigBad's account and reroute his connection so he ends up in a virtual recreation of his office, held at gunpoint by Wade and Daito using skins that make them look like their real selves. They end up exposing their ruse because Wade forgets to close the door behind him when he leaves the simulation and removes the skin, allowing the villain to catch a glimpse of his avatar reflected on the surface of his rig.

** In the episode "The Chimes of Big Ben", Number 6 escapes the Village and is transported to London, where he meets a former superior. As he's about to explain why he resigned, he realizes that the situation has been faked to trick him and discovers he's still in the Village.

Compare MindReadingMachine and SchrodingersButterfly.

* In ''[[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4472109/1/CyberTech_War_of_the_Worlds CyberTech: War of the Worlds]]'', [[RonTheDeathEater Dumbledore]] is captured by the good guys, manages to escape the prison, and, once he gets into Hogwarts, tells Snape to recover some prisoners from the Headquarters. Snape replies he can't get them all by himself, so Albus is forced to give Flitwick the location as well. Cue the illusion dissolving...

* "[[Recap/LupinIIIS2E3 To Be or Nazi Be]]": An episode of the ''Anime/LupinIIIRedJacket'' series had the gang capture an old German soldier and convince him he was back in the war, with Hitler himself wanting to know where he had hidden the treasures he had been entrusted with. As soon as he squeals, "Hitler" turns out to be Lupin [[LatexPerfection in disguise]], and the whole base is a movie set.

* Subverted in another ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode, where Riker thinks he is a victim of one (he is supposedly a couple of decades in the future, and suffering from amnesia, but his supposed wife is a woman of his dreams, that he knows never existed outside the holodeck). The hostile aliens reveal themselves when he calls them out on it. However, as it turns out [[spoiler:the aliens aren't real either - there is just one alien, highly psychic and very lonely, keeping Riker in a LotusEaterMachine to have some company and conjuring things from his mind - the whole espionage plot was the device's attempt to respond to Riker's realisation that the first reality was fictitious, based on his own assumptions about what might really be going on.]]

** The first time, aliens trap him in a [[DreamWithinADream multi-layer simulation]] and try to make him reveal his recipe for "concentrated dark matter" once he thinks he's escaped; but he figures it out and gives them a different formula that blows up their entire ship.[[note]]The latter formula (plutonic quarks, cesium, and bottled water) contains a GeniusBonus for viewers familiar with chemistry, who may be able to spot what the aliens missed and discover Rick's tactic. While plutonic quarks are not a real ingredient, mixing cesium and bottled water (or any water) would indeed result in an instant explosion. The explosion wouldn't be anywhere near as large as the one in the show, thankfully—presumably that's what the plutonic quarks were for.