Ok, let's say that two FFs can establish a cryptographically secure channel. The two players can each choose to block the channel at any time, but it can't read, inject, delete, or change the order of messages. Is that sufficient to make it arbitrarily unlikely for any player to put the FFs into a state where FF1 will treat FF2 as a cooperator, but FF2 will treat FF1 as a defector? I think the answer is yes, using the following protocol:

FF1 will start by sending a 1 or 0 (chosen randomly) to FF2. After that, each FF will send a 1 or 0 after it receives a 1 or 0 from the other, keeping the number of 1s sent no more than the number of 1s received plus one. If an FF receives N 1s before a time limit is reached, it will threat the other as a cooperator, otherwise as a defector. Now in order to cheat, a player would have to guess when to block the channel, and the probability of guessing the right time goes to 0 as N goes to infinity.

This is not necessarily the most efficient protocol, but it may be good enough as a proof of concept. On the other hand, the "merger by secure joint construction" approach seems to have the advantage of not having to deal with this problem. Or is there an analogous one that I'm not seeing?