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SCP-2985 Safe ~ medium confidence
SCP-2985
Expected annual
$1.8M
One-time setup
$928K
Annual recurring
$1.7M
Personnel
10
Initial capital/setup is estimated at roughly $0.93M, driven by lab buildout, secure vault/fire-suppression, and in-house forensic/memetics equipment. Recurring annual costs are roughly $1.74M driven primarily by specialized staff wages, ongoing monitoring/R&D, legal/cover operations, and contingency/reserve allocations.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $928K
Initial Research And Lab Setup $570K
[#3, #9, #11, #21] Acoustic/memetic containment booth + high-end workstation and licensed software ($80,000), in-house forensic analysis kit (GC-MS/FTIR/SEM baseline) ($225,000), controlled-access transcription/tooling protocols ($15,000), and initial R&D grant for neutralization research ($250,000).
Facilities $145K
[#1, #13] Climate-controlled vault installation ($80,000 midpoint) and non-water fire-suppression system installation ($65,000 midpoint).
Equipment $138K
[#2, #12, #16, #10, #25] Safe for CD storage ($7,500), alarms/CCTV/install hardware ($50,000), archive-quality framing for 5 paintings ($25,000), secure digital archiving hardware ($37,500), and certified media-destruction hardware ($17,500).
Sop Development $30K
[#4] Development and vetting of memetics safety SOPs, legal/ethics/memetics consultant fees ($30,000 midpoint).
Crate Purchase $25K
[#15] Purchase of museum-grade custom crates for transport (assumes 5 crates, $2k–$8k each; midpoint used).
Training Program Development $20K
[#18] Initial development of memetics-safety training and screening programs ($20,000 midpoint).
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $1.7M/yr
Staff Wages $895K/yr
[#5, #6, #7, #8] Four full-time guards (4 × $45,000 = $180,000), one full-time conservator ($75,000), one memetics/cognitive researcher ($165,000), and field monitoring team (3 operatives + 1 analyst combined estimate $475,000).
R And D Program $300K/yr
[#21] Ongoing multi-year R&D program for neutralization/desensitization and computational memetics research ($300,000/yr assumed operational budget).
Cover Story And Legal $175K/yr
[#20] Legal, cover-story, and public-relations budget to manage exposures and negotiations ($175,000/yr midpoint).
Overseas Intervention Contingency $100K/yr
[#23] Annual budget allocation toward covert/discrete overseas seizure operations, safehouses and travel (contingency; per-operation costs vary widely).
Incident Response Fund $62K/yr
[#19] Annual set-aside/reserve for quarantine, rapid isolation readiness, emergency counseling and rapid response ($62,500 midpoint of $25k–$100k reserve).
Replacement Conservation Contingency $50K/yr
[#24] Reserve for emergency conservation treatments, settlements, or replacement costs per incident (budgeted as annual reserve).
Supplies And Consumables $36K/yr
[#9, #17] Forensic consumables/analytical consumables ($30,000/yr) and general consumables (gloves, swabs, archival supplies) ($6,000/yr).
Market Monitoring Systems $35K/yr
[#22] AI/image/audio matching, scraping, compute and analyst time for monitoring auctions/social media ($35,000/yr midpoint).
Training And Medical Screening $25K/yr
[#18] Recurring medical/psychological screening, annual refreshers and EAP counseling budget ($25,000/yr midpoint).
Logistics And Transport $15K/yr
[#15] Secure, climate-controlled armored/crated shipping/movement estimated at one significant move per year ($15,000 midpoint per move).
Facilities Maintenance $13K/yr
[#1, #13, #14] Vault maintenance/calibration ($4,000), fire-suppression inspections/top-ups ($3,250), HVAC service contracts ($2,000) and continuous energy consumption ($4,000).
Cctv Monitoring $9K/yr
[#12] 24/7 monitoring contract and intrusion detection services for alarms/CCTV ($9,000/yr midpoint).
Research And Monitoring $6K/yr
[#3] Software updates, calibration and license maintenance for the memetic analysis workstation and spectrogram tools ($6,000/yr midpoint).
Sop Revision And Training $6K/yr
[#4] Annual SOP revisions, red-team reviews and refresher training ($6,000/yr midpoint).
Controlled Transcription Events $6K/yr
[#11] Budget for restricted transcription events and secure contractor time ($5,500/yr midpoint).
Digital Storage Maintenance $3K/yr
[#10] Maintenance, media refresh and secure-media upkeep for air-gapped storage ($3,000/yr midpoint).
Media Destruction Operations $1K/yr
[#25] Per-operation costs for secure media destruction (assume occasional use; $1,250/yr midpoint).
Safe Monitoring $600/yr
[#2] Ongoing monitoring and maintenance of the fireproof, tamper-evident safe ($600/yr midpoint).
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $1.7M/yr
83.0% probability / year
Normal operational year with no major incidents; routine monitoring, maintenance, and planned R&D spending only.
no incident scheduled maintenance planned R&D activity
🚨 Minor Incident $1.8M/yr
15.0% probability / year +$50K vs baseline
Localized containment incident or temperature/RH excursion, small accidental exposure, or a single painting requiring emergency conservation and legal action.
environmental excursion single-person exposure minor public leak / small legal claim
🚨 Major Breach $2.5M/yr
2.0% probability / year +$750K vs baseline
Significant exposure event or high-profile leak requiring international covert intervention, large legal settlements, extensive remediation, and surge R&D.
public release of cognitohazardous audio multi-person exposure international/overseas operation
👥 Personnel 10 total
Role Count Notes
Security Officer / MTF Agent 4 [#5] Four full-time guards to provide 24/7 coverage (shift rotation and leave coverage).
Research Scientist (Art Conservator / Collections Manager) 1 [#6] One full-time certified conservator for condition checks, handling and humidity/temperature logging.
Research Scientist (Memetics / Cognitive Scientist) 1 [#7] One memetics/cognitive researcher to analyze the cognitohazardous audio and supervise safe analysis methods.
Field Operative 3 [#8] Three undercover field operatives for monitoring POI-2985 and art shows.
Analyst 1 [#8] One analyst to process field intelligence and market-monitoring outputs.
📋 Confidence Notes
Notes and item-level ranges are well-documented, enabling a medium-confidence estimate. Remaining uncertainty stems from wide ranges for contingency operations, R&D multi-year budgeting and frequency of overseas/intervention events; assumptions were made about operation frequency and R&D annualization.
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