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SCP-2457 Safe ~ medium confidence
SCP-2457
Expected annual
$1.5M
One-time setup
$2.2M
Annual recurring
$1.5M
Personnel
12
Initial capital costs are moderate-to-high (~$2.2M) driven by research startup, contingency reserves, and emergency/containment equipment; annual operating costs are dominated by staffing and recurrent research/monitoring (~$1.52M/yr). Per-pregnancy medical and surrogate costs scale linearly and drive incremental per-event expenses.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $2.2M
Initial Research And Lab Setup $850K
[#8, #10, #25] Specialist R&D capital, sequencing / lab instrumentation, and initial large-scale program startup funds for suppression research and multidisciplinary investigation.
Contingency Reserve $500K
[#26] Containment-breach mitigation and public emergency reserve (one-time contingency capital).
Insurance Reserve $300K
[#20] Contingency / legal liability reserve or insured capital.
Equipment $200K
[#1, #2, #3, #5, #7] Primary and redundant cryogenic units, UPS/generator and installation, HD camera installs, emergency retrieval/robotic retrieval equipment and portable cryo containers.
Covert Acquisition $200K
[#13] One-time covert recovery/retrieval operation budget (operative deployment, local assets, legal mitigation).
Facilities $76K
[#4, #11] Class-E ward retrofit (one room) and cryogenic shelving/containers for morgue storage.
Cover Story One Time Incident $50K
[#14] One-time legal/PR/compensation costs per serious incident (forgery, payments, immediate PR response).
It Setup $18K
[#18] One-time secure EMR/record-keeping and access-control IT setup.
Staff Vetting Initial $12K
[#19] Initial background checks / security clearances for core staff (estimated per-head vetting aggregated).
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $1.5M/yr
Staff Wages $1.1M/yr
[#6, #7, #10, #19, #25] Salaries for research scientists, security/MTF, nursing/medical staff, engineers and administrative staff required for ongoing containment and research.
Research And Monitoring $190K/yr
[#8, #10, #25] Ongoing R&D testing, sequencing runs and small-team research budget (baseline small-program level).
Cover Story And Legal $20K/yr
[#14] Annual legal retainer and ongoing PR/legal contingency budgeting for secrecy maintenance.
Host Acquisition Per Pregnancy $20K/yr
[#15] Annualized surrogate/host recruitment, compensation and housing averaged over baseline pregnancy frequency.
Training Drills $20K/yr
[#21] Annual drills, tabletop exercises, and outside instructors for response coordination.
Emergency Equipment Replacement $20K/yr
[#7] Recurring replacement, calibration and training costs for emergency response equipment and suits.
Facilities Maintenance $12K/yr
[#1, #2, #3, #5, #11] Annual LN2/refill and maintenance, duplicate storage telemetry/monitoring, generator/UPS fuel and maintenance, camera/storage maintenance, and cryo-storage upkeep.
Supplies And Consumables $10K/yr
[#23] PPE, disposables, sample tubes, sterilants and routine consumables.
Logistics And Transport $10K/yr
[#12] Secure, temperature-controlled transport and occasional supervised transfers (baseline occasional transfers).
Hazardous Waste And Decontamination $10K/yr
[#17] Annual hazardous waste removal and decontamination program budget.
Data Management And It Hosting $10K/yr
[#18] Recurring hosting, encrypted backups, and IT support for secure records.
Staff Vetting Recurring $10K/yr
[#19] Annual HR/admin costs for re-screening and clearance maintenance.
Psychological Support $10K/yr
[#22] Counseling, psychiatric care, and remediation/amnestic program budgeting for exposed staff.
Ethical Oversight $10K/yr
[#16] Internal IRB/ethics panels and recurring compliance audits.
Medical Monitoring Per Pregnancy $6K/yr
[#6] Expected annual expense for medical monitoring averaged over low baseline pregnancy frequency (per-pregnancy clinical care cost multiplied by assumed baseline incidence).
Energy And Overhead $5K/yr
[#24] Incremental electricity, HVAC and facilities overhead attributable to freezers and monitoring systems.
Forensic Processing Expected $2K/yr
[#9] Expected annual cost for autopsy/forensic processing averaged over baseline incident rate.
Carcass Storage Upkeep $300/yr
[#11] Per-carcass annual upkeep averaged across baseline iteration frequency.
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $1.5M/yr
92.5% probability / year
Normal uneventful year with only routine monitoring, minor research activity, and no major incidents.
no_major_incidents occasional_lab_work
🚨 Minor Incident $1.6M/yr
5.0% probability / year +$81K vs baseline
Single controlled combustion event or isolated incident requiring forensic processing, emergency response activation, and a discrete cover-story/legal response.
single_host_combustion forensic_processing local_media_exposure
🚨 Major Breach $3.7M/yr
0.5% probability / year +$2.1M vs baseline
Uncontrolled public incident or media-exposed containment breach requiring large-scale mitigation, legal action, and emergency procurement.
public_breach multiple_uncontrolled_combustions widespread_media_exposure
🚨 Research Scale Up $2.4M/yr
2.0% probability / year +$900K vs baseline
Deliberate decision to scale active experiments (multiple induced pregnancies) after a research breakthrough, resulting in sustained increased annual operating costs.
major_research_funding decision_to_induce_multiple_pregnancies
👥 Personnel 12 total
Role Count Notes
Research Scientist 2 Research staff for sequencing, analysis and R&D (salaries included in staff_wages).
Security Officer / MTF Agent 4 On-site security and rapid response personnel.
Registered Nurse / Medical Staff 2 Day-to-day clinical monitoring and nursing for hosts; per-pregnancy costs modeled separately.
Obstetrician / Medical Officer 1 Physician-level obstetric oversight (consults and emergency on-call).
Engineer / Maintenance 1 Maintains cryogenic units, generators, environmental monitoring and facility systems.
Administrative Staff 1 Records, authorizations and logistics coordination; HR/admin recurring expenses included.
Emergency Response Specialist 1 Trained hazardous-response operator for post-combustion evidence recovery and decon coordination.
📋 Confidence Notes
Line items and cost ranges were provided in analyst notes, allowing moderate-confidence estimates for capital and recurring categories. Major remaining uncertainty is the frequency of induced pregnancies and incidents (affects per-iteration costs and scenario probabilities), so probabilistic assumptions were used.
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