Headscratchers / Star Trek: Deep Space Nine S04E19 "Hard Time"

• The Argrathi are pretty free with their explanation of their punishment system to the Starfleet officers in spite of being paranoid about O'Brien trying to get their technology, so it seems like the punishment system isn't a secret. Wouldn't it play a lot different on prisoners who already know that everything that happens to them is just a simulation?
  • Honestly, how much would that help? Even knowing it's all in your head, it would be YEARS of torment and isolation. How long would it be before reminding yourself you aren't ACTUALLY dying as you go seeming days without food just stopped helping? The only situation it would really prevent would be one like O'Brien experiences, since the prisoners would KNOW their cellmate isn't a real person - but even then, how many times have people gotten incredibly attached to characters in games that take hours to complete, to say nothing of decades where they might be your only friend?
  • That also depends on the idea that they know about the punishment system when they're sent into it. If these people can implant memories of a decades-long prison sentence, it doesn't seem impossible to assume they can also take out the knowledge that the government is capable of this kind of mental manipulation in the first place.