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SCP-2074 Safe ~ medium confidence
SCP-2074
Expected annual
$4.5M
One-time setup
$10.4M
Annual recurring
$4.4M
Personnel
12
One-time capital to establish in-house ROV, lab, and rapid-response capabilities is roughly $10M; recurring operations (vessel charters, staff, monitoring, intelligence, and communications) are roughly $4.36M/year, driven primarily by vessel/ROV costs and specialized personnel.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $10.4M
Equipment $3.6M
[#2, #3, #6, #12] ROV purchase ($1M–$6M chosen midpoint), seafloor node & buoy deployment ($200k–$800k), initial MVST/signal-analysis hardware/software ($50k–$250k), specialized manipulators/tooling ($25k–$250k).
Contingency Reserve $3.0M
[#25] Recommended rapid-response contingency reserve for unexpected escalation (deep recovery, hazardous anomaly).
Initial Research And Lab Setup $1.2M
[#19] Laboratory capital equipment (GC–MS, ICP–MS, sequencer, biosafety) purchase and setup.
Initial Investigative Surge $800K
[#9] Initial investigative surge / investigative spike (targeted investigations, surge HUMINT/SIGINT) per analyst note.
Initial Intel Campaign $700K
[#23] Initial targeted intelligence campaign (satellite tasking, informants, attribution) as a one-time cost.
Facilities $600K
[#11] Small wet-lab + secure vault retrofit cost for secure wet-storage, EM shielding and classified vaulting.
Interceptor Boat Purchase $350K
[#4] Purchase of a fast-response/interceptor craft (purchase option vs. recurring charter).
Permitting And Consultation $75K
[#13] Initial environmental permitting, indigenous consultation and compensation setup costs.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $4.4M/yr
Staff Wages $1.4M/yr
[#7, #8, #9] Salaries+benefits for scientific personnel (PI, geochemists, microbiologist, data scientist) and technical staff (ROV pilots, engineers) and core intelligence analysts.
Logistics And Transport $1.3M/yr
[#1, #2, #4] Dedicated expedition vessel charters for quarterly/supplemental cruises, incremental ROV charter costs when not owning pilots, and occasional escort/charter days for intercepts.
Research And Monitoring $530K/yr
[#3, #6, #19, #20, #21, #22, #24] Node servicing & battery swaps, MVST/storage/compute ongoing, laboratory service contracts, data archiving, routine anti-fouling/battery renewal, experimental campaign budget, and retained translation/linguistic support.
Intelligence Ops Ongoing $300K/yr
[#9, #23] Continued targeted intelligence/OSINT/SIGINT operations and covert monitoring of third-party interest (ongoing operations budget).
Insurance And Liability $250K/yr
[#16] Insurance, liability coverage, and annual provisioning for marine casualty contingencies.
Cover Story And Legal $230K/yr
[#13, #14, #15] Ongoing permitting/consultation budgets, public-relations/cover operations, and retained legal/diplomatic counsel.
Supplies And Consumables $100K/yr
[#10] Expedition consumables and per-cruise sample processing costs (lab consumables, reagents, sample shipping).
Ais And Satellite Monitoring $100K/yr
[#5] AIS aggregation/subscription, routine satellite tasking budget and imagery tasking for vessel detection and monitoring.
Medevac And Sar $60K/yr
[#17] Medevac standby contracts, SAR agreements, training and drills for offshore operations.
Facilities Maintenance $50K/yr
[#11] Ongoing utilities, maintenance and custodial support for secure wet-lab and vault.
High Bandwidth Comms $40K/yr
[#18] Satellite uplink costs, secure telemetry and encrypted comms redundancy for real-time ROV video and classified links.
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $4.4M/yr
88.0% probability / year
Normal monitoring and quarterly/supplemental expedition cadence with no major incidents or escalations.
routine_quarterly_cruises scheduled_node_servicing ongoing intelligence monitoring
🚨 Minor Incident $4.7M/yr
7.0% probability / year +$300K vs baseline
Small-scale incident such as equipment loss/damage, moderate recovery requiring additional ship time and repairs.
ROV_damage_or_loss unexpected_node_failure small_recovery_operation
🚨 Major Recovery Operation $7.9M/yr
2.0% probability / year +$3.5M vs baseline
Large-scale emergency operation to recover the corroded device or respond to hazardous anomalous behavior requiring extended vessel time, heavy equipment and escalated intelligence/legal action.
device_recovery hazardous_anomaly_activation extended_deep_recovery_cruise
🚨 Political Exposure $5.4M/yr
3.0% probability / year +$1.0M vs baseline
Public or international exposure requiring extensive diplomatic/legal response, expanded PR/cover operations, and possible litigation or compensation.
media_leak_or_published_expedition indigenous_rights_dispute diplomatic_incident
👥 Personnel 12 total
Role Count Notes
Research Scientist / PI 1 [#7] Principal investigator to lead scientific program.
Research Scientist / Geochemist 2 [#7] Geochemists for vent chemistry and mineral analyses.
Research Scientist / Microbiologist 1 [#7] Microbiologist for biological sample analysis and culture oversight.
Data Scientist / Linguist 1 [#7, #24] Data scientist/linguist for MVST signal analysis and translations.
Engineer / ROV Pilot / Technician 4 [#8] ROV pilots, electronics technicians and field engineers for operations and maintenance.
Security Officer / Intelligence Analyst 3 [#9, #23] Intelligence analysts and field operatives for monitoring third-party interest and ongoing HUMINT/SIGINT.
📋 Confidence Notes
Analyst notes provide detailed line items and ranges allowing mid-range estimates, but significant uncertainty remains about frequency of incidents, choice between charter vs. purchase, and the unidentified external actor, so confidence is medium.
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