Zio Zio was an inmate in the Akritirian maximum security detention facility . He had been imprisoned there for over six years as of 2373 . During this time , he had written a lengthy ' manifesto ' . Convicted for his crime s , Zio was imprisoned in the Akritirian detention facility and fitted with the implant that the prisoners knew as " the clamp " . While the clamp drove most of the other prisoners insane or caused them to become extremely violent , Zio spent much time thinking about what its true purpose could be and practicing a technique to ignore its effects , eventually succeeding in ignoring it completely . He also realized that the real purpose of the clamp was not for torture , as most prisoners thought , but was actually a method of keeping the inmate population under control , by turning the prisoners violent and causing them to often kill each other . This realization helped Zio to ignore the effects of the clamp , and he spent his time in prison writing a manifesto of all that he had discovered about the clamp , and his theories about its purpose . While none of the other prisoners were sane enough to learn from Zio ' s methods of controlling the clamp , his ability to ignore it earned him some respect among the others , and they left him alone . Around six year s into his imprisonment , Starfleet officer s Tom Paris and Harry Kim were falsely accused of committing a terrorist bombing and were placed in the detention facility . Zio took little notice of their arrival at first , but was eventually approached by Kim . When Paris was stabbed in a fight with other prisoners , Kim made a deal with Zio : if Zio gave him supplies to clean Paris ' wound , Kim would take Zio with him when he disabled a chute so they could escape . Zio initially refused the offer , but when Kim told him his plan to disable the force field guarding the chute , the prison ' s only exit , and offered to take Zio with him in exchange for his shelter , Zio reluctantly agreed . As Kim worked to disable the force field , Zio taught him his technique for controlling the clamp to help him focus on his technical work , and explained all that he had realized about the clamp . While Kim was more interested in escape than in theories about the clamp ' s real purpose , Zio continued to assist him in controlling it . After disabling the force field that protected the chute , Zio and Kim discovered that the hatch opened into space , and that the prison which they thought was an underground facility was really a prison in a huge space station . Zio abandoned the idea of a fast escape , deciding on a more long - term plan to share his findings about the clamp with the other prisoners and hopefully gather enough of a following to unite them and to escape when a ship docked with the facility to drop off another prisoner or food . Kim however , continued to work on a more short - term solution , still struggling with the clamp . Zio offered to let Kim read his manifesto , encouraging him to put more effort into ignoring the clamp and less into working on immediate escape plan . Around that time , the clamp began to effect the wounded Paris even more , who dismantled the pipe which Kim had been using for his escape plan . After Kim and Paris angrily fought and Kim nearly killed him , Zio encouraged him to finish Paris off , believing that Paris had been driven permanently insane by the clamp , and that he was now nothing but a drain on resources . Kim refused , insisting that Paris could still be saved and that they would be rescued . Zio then forced them to leave his shelter , not having enough resources for both of them . When Kim and Paris were rescued by the USS Voyager , Zio remained in the prison . Zio was the only inmate who could control the mental effects of the clamp that was placed on each prisoner . During his imprisonment , he occupied his mind with ideas about what the clamp ' s true purpose was , and eventually discovered it , even without any outside evidence . Due to his ability to control the clamp , Zio was much more clear - minded and sane than the other prisoners , although his focus on his manifesto led Kim to believe that Zio was insane . Zio had an unusual sense of morality , allowing Kim and Paris to use his shelter and resources , and only ordering them to leave after he believed that Paris had gone completely insane . Despite being more merciful and sane than the other prisoners , Zio had no qualms about killing when he deemed it necessary for survival . Paris and Kim witnessed him quickly kill another prisoner for food during a feeding session , something that Zio seemed to consider rather normal . However , unlike the other prisoners , Zio seemed to get no enjoyment out of killing , doing it as a necessity rather than for fun . He told Kim that in order to survive , he would have to become a killer .