SCP-3400 — SCP-3400 | Cost Breakdown

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SCP-3400 Keter ~ medium confidence

SCP-3400

Expected annual

$15.9M

One-time setup

$37.1M

Annual recurring

$14.3M

Personnel

One-time setup and R&D (laboratories, secure vault, purchasing field assets and incident reserve) ≈ $37.15M; baseline annual operations driven by MTF staffing, ocean surveillance, legal/cover operations and ongoing R&D ≈ $14.33M/yr.

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $37.1M

Incident Response Reserve $10.0M

[#21] Establishment of an emergency contingency reserve for large breaches, international operations, mass amnestic campaigns and re-charter costs.

Countermeasure Dev Seed $10.0M

[#30] Seed funding for large-scale R&D program to develop definitive countermeasures (biochemical/memetic).

Initial Research And Lab Setup $8.3M

[#12, #13, #14] Initial laboratory instrument buildout (GC-MS/LC-MS/NMR/etc.), dedicated MRI/fMRI capability (onsite installation midpoint), and seed funding for protective/neutralization R&D.

Equipment $4.5M

[#2, #3, #5, #18, #26] Field hardware purchases (amortized helicopter and small boats), initial hydrophone/UAV/hardware nodes, secure storage containers, initial secure-IT/hardware and communications kit.

Facilities $3.4M

[#4, #9, #11] Dedicated containment/research vault build-out and structural conversions (BSL-3/chemical secure suite and liquid-tight vault), quarantine-room conversion, and secure detention cell conversion.

Incinerator Purchase $500K

[#6] Purchase of mobile/high-temp incinerator units for at-sea or shoreline disposal.

Front Organization Setup $200K

[#17] Establishing a plausible-deniability front organization / research NGO to explain vessel activity and media cover.

Training Course Development $125K

[#19] Initial SOP and course development for MTF, lab, and medical training (drills, simulations).

Decontamination Setup $60K

[#7] Initial decontamination station installs, specialized autoclaves and spill-response kit setup.

Ppe Initial $60K

[#8] Initial procurement of liquid-impermeable PPE kits for field and lab staff (bulk initial purchase for staff).

🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $14.3M/yr

Staff Wages $2.9M/yr

[#1] Dedicated MTF Gamma-6 personnel cost (24 operatives at ~$120k total comp/yr each; readiness rotations and benefits).

Countermeasure Ongoing $2.0M/yr

[#30] Multi-year R&D operating budget for scale-up and development of a definitive countermeasure if program proceeds beyond seed phase.

Research And Monitoring $1.8M/yr

[#12, #13, #14, #30] Annual research staffing/consumables, fMRI time/usage costs, ongoing neutralizer/protector R&D and smaller-scale animal-model programs.

Logistics And Transport $1.2M/yr

[#2, #22] Field deployment operational costs: helicopter/boat ops, fuel, ship charters, airlift/shipping under secure chain-of-custody.

Cover Story And Legal $1.2M/yr

[#16, #17, #24] Legal/diplomatic retainers, cover-story NGO operating budget, baseline insurance and indemnity programs.

Ocean Surveillance $1.0M/yr

[#3] Hotspot-level ocean surveillance (satellite subscriptions, UAV sorties, passive hydrophone upkeep).

Veterinary Support $1.0M/yr

[#15] Recurring marine-veterinary support, equipment and per-whale humane termination logistics averaged across expected operations.

Incident Response Reserve Maintenance $500K/yr

[#21] Ongoing maintenance/availability costs for the rapid-response reserve (readiness, retainers, small replenishment of emergency funds).

Ecological Monitoring $500K/yr

[#25] Long-term ecological monitoring and mitigation programs to track secondary effects of whale population interventions.

Facilities Maintenance $400K/yr

[#4] Annual operations and maintenance for containment vault and associated facility systems (filters, inert-gas purge, environmental control).

Monitoring Aftercare $300K/yr

[#23] Surveillance, stipends, identity replacement and long-term follow-up for amnestized/released subjects.

Personnel Vetting $300K/yr

[#27] Continuous vetting, background checks and counterintelligence programs to mitigate insider risk.

Amnestic Drugs $200K/yr

[#10] Stockpile, administration, and per-administration medical costs for amnestics (baseline reserve and occasional administrations).

Detention Long Term $200K/yr

[#11] Long-term secure detention costs for severely infected individuals (baseline expectation small number under care/secure detention).

Data Security $200K/yr

[#18] IT operations, classified database maintenance, secure comms subscriptions and insider-threat monitoring.

Supplies And Consumables $150K/yr

[#5, #7, #8, #29] Ongoing consumables: containment monitoring, decon consumables, PPE replacement, chain-of-custody supplies and small tools.

Psychological Care $150K/yr

[#20] Ongoing mental-health program budget for exposed and high-readiness staff, counseling and substitute staffing during leave.

Incineration Ops $100K/yr

[#6] Recurring contracted hazardous-waste disposal and small-volume incineration budget (per-liter disposal costs aggregated to baseline operations).

Training And Sops $100K/yr

[#19] Annual refresher courses, simulations and SOP updates for field and lab personnel.

Ethical Oversight $100K/yr

[#28] Internal review boards, compliance and controlled external auditing to prevent protocol drift and unlawful human-subject research.

Comms Ops $50K/yr

[#26] Satellite phone/radio subscriptions, comms maintenance and redundancy for field teams.

⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $14.3M/yr

85.0% probability / year

Uneventful year: hotspot monitoring and routine interdictions with no large-scale exposures or international incidents.

localized interdictions routine surveillance no major breaches

🚨 Minor Incident $15.3M/yr

12.0% probability / year +$1.0M vs baseline

Localized multi-person exposure or a small cluster event requiring surge MTF ops, additional amnestics, extra legal/cover response and disposal.

small passenger vessel exposure localized mass amnestic campaign extra incineration/disposal

🚨 Major Breach $64.3M/yr

3.0% probability / year +$50.0M vs baseline

Large, visible cluster/exposure (e.g., populated vessel or harbour event) requiring international operations, mass detentions/terminations, large legal payouts and major R&D acceleration.

large yacht/harbour exposure cluster international diplomatic incident mass amnestic and incineration campaign

👥 Personnel 24 total

Role	Count	Notes
Security Officer / MTF Agent	18	Front-line operatives for interception, capture/termination and boarding; included in staff_wages [#1].
MTF Team Leader	3	Team leadership and mission command; included in staff_wages [#1].
Medic / Medical Specialist	2	Field medics for casualty care and amnestic administration support; included in staff_wages [#1].
Support Specialist / Boatswain	1	Technical/boating support for small-boat operations; included in staff_wages [#1].

📋 Confidence Notes

Analyst notes provide ranges for most line items; many costs (surveillance scale, number of whale terminations, incident frequency, and international legal payouts) are highly scale-dependent, so midpoint estimates were used. Keter-class behavior and ocean operations introduce notable uncertainty.

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