"Yes we do. If your unstoppable force meets their unstoppable force for all we know the result is 'the fight goes on until she squints and in the meanwhile there's a crater where some innocent Midwestern farm town used to be'. But if you can produce tame Siberians on demand you just jumped ridiculously in Endbringer-related combat effectiveness, fuck guns you have a Siberian just have her go give them a hug."

"Well, I mean, if I can up and believe a Siberian copy into existence there's nothing saying I can't believe something better than the Siberian into existence. Unless the Siberian's the very top of what's possible when it comes to unstoppable forces and immovable objects. But in any case, yeah, Siberian hugs."

"The Siberian's recognizable. I mean, maybe you should make her bigger or something so she can be seen for farther away, but everyone knows the stripes."

"Yeah. I wonder what the capes would actually do if they saw the Siberian at a fight like that." Pause. "What would Jack do if he saw something like the Siberian fighting an Endbringer on the news?"

"Nnnnno idea. But like I said there usually isn't much recording going on."

"Sure, but I don't think this news could be kept silent, especially if she does as much damage as I want her to, i.e. enough damage that Leviathan decides to give up the attack after ten minutes."

"Yeah. So then you might get a fight with them whether you liked it or not. And the Siberian could just go around your copies and kill you, whereas you don't really have a win condition like that."

"So I don't ever, ever let her know where my real self is. I mean, there really is no reason why I would, even the binoculars are too large a concession, I could watch what the shoulderbot perceives from a secure, remote location while a copy has all my powers and then some because I can actually perceive them."

"Yeah, I should upgrade your shoulderbot so it's better equipped for that but it could do it even now."

"Mmhm. Hmm..." Think. "Should the Siberian copy be something known to be, you know, mine? Or a secret weapon?"

"Good question. Does it matter why people believe in it, does it have to be by way of you or can it just be 'that sure looks like a Siberian copy'?"

"The latter, I'm pretty but not wholly sure."

"I'm not sure what a good way to test that is."

"Well... maybe I make something that's supposed to do a thing, like not a floating ping-pong ball but maybe something like a remote-controlled toy car or something, and then we tell someone else what it's supposed to do while I'm not around nor mentioned at any point, and then we see if their being around makes it do whatever-it-is better?"

"Or you could make a robot that looks like one of mine..."

"...and then what?"

"And then a real one can say what 'they' are doing and they do a thing. It's a little more controllable than people's expectations of remote control cars."

"How would that measure another person's belief in it?"

"Have it and the real bot try to pick up a thing that they couldn't lift if the fake one was the chassis it looks like?"

"Ooh, okay, yeah, that sounds good. But it should be something I can't believe it into lifting on my own."

"Do you have to know how heavy it is? If it's a box filled with parts or something and I know how heavy it is but you don't, does that mean you can't get your bot to lift it, or do we need to do something more complicated?"

"Well, like you said earlier, it's subverbal. I'm pretty sure if I don't actually know how heavy it is, how heavy I expect it to be will have a role to play there. Not a simple role, though, because I will also be taking that fact into consideration, there'll be a short feedback loop."

"Well, we make sure you can't get it to lift the same box when nobody else is watching, then have someone else watch? And compare between whether you think they're watching or not etcetera."

"Yep. And then if all goes right, the Endbringers will be getting Siberian-hugs!"

"Mm-hm. It's probably too early for me to augment the bot to do video filtration so you don't get contaminated by the Simurgh through the feed, isn't it..."