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SCP-1989 Safe ~ medium confidence
SCP-1989
Expected annual
$364K
One-time setup
$352K
Annual recurring
$345K
Personnel
2.45
Estimated initial (one-time) setup is approximately $352,000 with recurring annual costs around $345,000; the largest drivers are the reinforced test chamber construction and specialist staff wages, with additional recurring costs for maintenance, legal/insurance, and research support.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $352K
Facilities $160K
[#1, #4] Cost covers a climate-controlled secure storage locker upgrade and construction/upgrade of a reinforced 3×3×3m experimental test chamber (ballistic/window/netting/anchors).
Initial Research And Lab Setup $94K
[#6, #7, #10, #11, #13, #14] High-speed cameras and sensor array ($40k), initial test-props/library ($10k), SOP/training development seed ($10k), research media & donor-player spares ($10k), secure-vault shelving/infrastructure for altered media ($10k), and digital archiving workstation ($14k).
Contingency Fund Seed $50K
[#16] Seed reserve for emergency repair or replacement of test-chamber components and destroyed players/equipment.
Decommissioning And Disposal $30K
[#26] Estimate for safe dismantling/incineration/disposal under hazardous-media protocols if decommissioning is required.
Equipment $13K
[#2, #5, #8] Surveillance/video hardware ($3k), remote operation/control hardware ($10k), and initial PPE purchase ($5k) (note: ranges averaged for estimate; recurring maintenance/medical standby handled elsewhere).
Public Cover Story Fund $5K
[#23] One-time allocation for case-dependent buyouts/initial cover-story expenses.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $345K/yr
Staff Wages $208K/yr
[#3, #9] Baseline personnel: 0.25 FTE security (~$10k/yr) + 0.1 FTE admin (~$6k/yr) plus 1x senior anomalous-object researcher (~$120k/yr), 1x lab technician (~$60k/yr), and 0.1 FTE engineering consultancy (~$12k/yr).
Cover Story And Legal $42K/yr
[#17, #23] Legal/compliance/records overhead (~$40k/yr) plus minimal recurring liaison/cover-story reserve (~$2k/yr).
Research And Monitoring $37K/yr
[#12, #14, #10, #8, #22] Ongoing equipment maintenance and parts sourcing (~$10k/yr), digital-archiving software/storage (~$2k/yr), refresher training/SOP updates (~$5k/yr), medical standby/training (~$10k/yr), and documentation/database upkeep (~$10k/yr).
Insurance And Indemnity $30K/yr
[#18] Lab insurance/indemnity/internal liability accounting reserve (~$30k/yr).
Contingency Topup $10K/yr
[#16] Annual top-up to the contingency/emergency repairs reserve for unpredictable damage from experiments.
Cross Testing Coordination $5K/yr
[#21] Administrative and technical costs for cross-testing risk assessments and approvals (occasional; averaged).
Facilities Maintenance $4K/yr
[#15, #24] Incremental power/HVAC and climate-control for storage (~$2k/yr) plus long-term archival preservation costs (~$2k/yr).
Logistics And Transport $4K/yr
[#19] Secure transfer and chain-of-custody for moves between storage and test chamber (~$2k–$6k/yr; midpoint used).
Altered Media Handling $3K/yr
[#13] Recurring costs for quarantined archival storage or destruction of altered media (disposal & chain-of-custody; estimated ~5 discs/yr at ~$600/disc).
Supplies And Consumables $2K/yr
[#7] Annual replacement/consumables for test props, nets, harnesses, catch-pads (~$2k/yr).
Research Program Funding $0/yr
[#25] Optional/scaleable: small dedicated research program would be ~$200k/yr and a full program $500k+/yr; set to $0 baseline unless program initiated.
Ethics Human Subjects Oversight $0/yr
[#20] Per-campaign IRB-style review costs (~$10k per review) and per-campaign human-testing campaign costs ($10k–$50k). Baseline assumes no human-subject campaigns.
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $345K/yr
85.0% probability / year
Normal uneventful year with scheduled experiments, routine maintenance, and no major incidents or scale-up.
routine_experiments scheduled_maintenance
🚨 Minor Incident $405K/yr
10.0% probability / year +$60K vs baseline
An experiment causes non-catastrophic damage (broken observation window, torn nets, destroyed player) requiring repairs and equipment replacement.
projectile_damage equipment_failure unexpected_debris
🚨 Research Scale Up $595K/yr
5.0% probability / year +$250K vs baseline
SCP-1989 yields publishable anomalous physics or necessitates expanded research and suppression efforts, triggering a funded research program and increased legal/suppression costs.
publishable_anomalous_physics external_interest need_for_publication_suppression
👥 Personnel 2.45 total
Role Count Notes
Research Scientist 1 Full-time senior anomalous-object researcher (note #9).
Lab Technician 1 Full-time lab technician for experiments and equipment maintenance (note #9).
Security Officer / Security Tech 0.25 Part-time security tech to manage access and move items during scheduled experiments (note #3).
Administrative Staff 0.1 Records/admin time for Level-3 approvals and logging (note #3).
Engineer / Maintenance (consultant) 0.1 Occasional audiovisual/electromechanical engineer consultancy (note #9).
Medical Officer 0 On-call med tech / ambulance coordination for live experiments (note #8); not dedicated FTE.
📋 Confidence Notes
Estimates are medium confidence: SCP is well-described (Safe, small) but many line items have wide ranges and optional/conditional costs (human testing, full research program). Midpoint choices and assumptions about usage rates were used where ranges existed.
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