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SCP-233 Keter ~ medium confidence
SCP-233
Expected annual
$14.6M
One-time setup
$282.5M
Annual recurring
$11.7M
Personnel
34
One-time capital outlays are dominated by the custom vanadium-lined containment cube, reinforced foundation, and a large contingency reserve; recurring costs are driven by specialized staffing, ongoing R&D, legal/cover-up, and high-availability facilities operations. Total one-time costs are in the low hundreds of millions with annual operating costs in the mid tens of millions.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $282.5M
Facilities $160.5M
[#1, #2, #21] Vanadium-lined 23×23×23 cube construction and installation plus structural reinforcement, foundation, site prep, land/installation and perimeter land-control costs (containment shell, civil works, anchoring, exclusion-zone installation).
Contingency Reserve $100.0M
[#23] One-time contingency/reserve allocation for severe incidents, large-scale evacuation, legal settlements, controlled demolition and site sanitization (recommended fund allocation).
Emergency Response Equipment $10.0M
[#16] Mobile rapid-response teams' equipment, arrester-of-last-resort systems, emergency demolition/controlled-isolation hardware and contracts for hazmat/ordnance capacity (one-time equipment/capex).
Equipment $5.5M
[#3, #4, #6, #11, #12, #14, #20] Initial purchase and installation of redundant environmental control systems, power/UPS install, atomic/GNSS-backed timekeeping hardware, robotics purchase, high-integrity sensing hardware, specialized computing cluster setup, and signage/printer hardware for labeling changes.
Initial Research And Lab Setup $5.0M
[#13, #17, #26] Base-23 R&D prototyping (FPGA/software), on-site decontamination/hazard-lab setup, and initial data-conversion/archival integration.
Specialized Firearms And Ammo $1.0M
[#9] Tooling/R&D for .2323-caliber weapons conversion and initial dedicated ammo stockpile (initial capital + initial rounds stock).
Initial Legal Retainer $300K
[#15] Initial legal/PR retainers and contract setup costs for cover stories, local-government agreements, and sealed-record arrangements.
Initial Training And Sops $150K
[#19] Development and initial rollout of SOPs, training material, drills, and compliance documentation for numeric/timing restrictions.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $11.7M/yr
Staff Wages $3.0M/yr
[#7, #13] Ongoing wages/benefits for 24/7 security rotations (special shift timing), base-23 R&D staff and essential engineers/administrative staff.
Research And Monitoring $2.0M/yr
[#24] Ongoing research program funding for safe-use studies, collaborations, grants and basic operational research into exploitation of base-23 computation (annual research budget).
Cover Story And Legal $1.5M/yr
[#15] Annual legal, public-relations, government liaison retainers and ongoing legal monitoring to prevent leaks and manage incidents.
Logistics And Transport $1.0M/yr
[#8, #21] Class-D procurement/transport lifecycle costs (age-restricted selection, vetting, rotation) and logistics for site liaison and controlled evacuations.
Medical Surveillance And Insurance $800K/yr
[#18] Ongoing medical checks, forensic protocols, mental-health services, and annual contribution to fatality/insurance reserves.
Facilities Maintenance $550K/yr
[#3, #4, #22] Recurring maintenance for HVAC/environmental controls, backup power maintenance/fuel contracts, and regular NDT/structural inspections of vanadium lining and seals.
Emergency Readiness $500K/yr
[#16] Annual readiness contracts, rapid-response team retainers, hazmat/ordnance drills and standby demolition/isolation capacity maintenance.
Replacement Budget $500K/yr
[#27] Annual budget for replacement/indemnity of items accidentally destroyed by SCP-233 and collateral-damage reimbursements.
Supplies And Consumables $400K/yr
[#12, #17, #25] Consumables including filters/PPE, calibration supplies for analog instrumentation, hazardous-waste handling consumables and routine incident cleanup supplies.
Energy Costs $300K/yr
[#5] Recurring electrical energy costs to run environmental controls, compute clusters, robotics and continuous monitoring.
Computing Operations $300K/yr
[#14] Ongoing operations, isolation, and error-correcting storage costs for specialised base-23-capable compute clusters.
Ammunition Resupply $200K/yr
[#10] Ongoing procurement of .2323-caliber rounds, specialized ammo logistics, and periodic ballistic testing.
Perimeter Patrols $200K/yr
[#21] Patrols, local police liaison fees, and perimeter enforcement within the 23m exclusion zone buffer.
Robotics Maintenance $150K/yr
[#11] Maintenance, spares and service contracts for tele-operated manipulators and redundant robotic systems.
Data Archival Operations $150K/yr
[#26] Recurring archival operations, analog backups, conversion labor and secure media handling to bridge base-23/binary data.
Sensing Maintenance $100K/yr
[#12] Calibration, cross-checking and maintenance for analog/hardened sensing and inspection systems.
Training And Audit $75K/yr
[#19] Recurring refresher training, SOP updates and independent compliance audits for numeric/timing policies.
Labeling And Updates $15K/yr
[#20] Annual updates to signage, tamper-resistant labels and UI reformatting in base-23/approved notations.
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $11.7M/yr
86.0% probability / year
Normal year with routine operations and no major incidents; standard research and containment activities continue.
no incidents routine maintenance scheduled research
🚨 Minor Incident $16.7M/yr
8.0% probability / year +$5.0M vs baseline
Localized containment event causing small-area contamination, equipment loss, or single-personnel fatality requiring emergency response and replacements.
small breach accidental introduction of banned number equipment failure during shift change
🚨 Major Breach $111.7M/yr
1.0% probability / year +$100.0M vs baseline
Large-scale containment failure with multiple fatalities, wide-area impact, extensive remediation, legal settlements and potential controlled demolition of site.
full containment breach chain reaction destruction public exposure
🚨 Research Breakthrough Requiring Scale Up $41.7M/yr
5.0% probability / year +$30.0M vs baseline
Decision to pursue large-scale exploitation of SCP-233's computational speedup, requiring ASIC production, expanded facilities and staffing.
positive R&D results executive approval for scale-up capital investment in ASIC production
👥 Personnel 34 total
Role Count Notes
Security Officer / MTF Agent 18 [#7] 24/7 armed guards with special shift timing and caliber-specific training; chosen count consistent with analyst note ranges (12–24).
Research Scientist 8 [#13] Base-23 mathematicians/software engineers and R&D staff required for ongoing prototyping and experiments.
Engineer / Maintenance 4 [#3, #4, #11] Facilities, power and robotics maintenance staff to keep containment and equipment operational.
Administrative Staff 2 [#8, #15] Logistics, Class-D management, and liaison/administrative support for legal/cover activities.
Medical Officer 1 [#18] Ongoing medical surveillance, forensic protocols and post-incident care coordination.
Site Director / Executive Staff 1 [#15] Oversight, executive decision-making and external legal/PR coordination.
📋 Confidence Notes
Analyst notes provide detailed line-item ranges for nearly all categories, allowing reasonable mid-point estimates; however large ranges on critical items (vanadium lining, contingency needs, and potential production-scale R&D) and anomalous behavior of the object produce residual uncertainty in both one-time and incident costs.
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