SCP-3423 — SCP-3423 | Cost Breakdown

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SCP-3423 Safe ~ medium confidence

SCP-3423

Expected annual

$1.8M

One-time setup

$189K

Annual recurring

$1.8M

Personnel

One-time setup approximately $188,950 primarily for equipment and modest facility retrofit; recurring costs approximately $1,800,200/year driven by staff wages, global monitoring/research, contingency and PR/legal overhead.

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $189K

Equipment $91K

[#2, #3, #4, #16] Curtains, in-chamber sensors/recording installation, bodycams + ingestion software, and one-time IT/security setup costs (UPS, mounts, installation).

Database Dev $35K

[#12] One-time custom database development and secure records-management setup.

Facilities $25K

[#1] Retrofit or small object cell buildout; assumes a retrofit or minimal fit-out rather than full high-end construction.

Legal Setup $22K

[#13] Initial legal/privacy policy review, consent forms, and employment-compliance setup.

Training Setup $10K

[#15] Initial SOP development and training material creation.

Psych Baseline $5K

[#14] Baseline psychological/medical screenings for personnel likely to enter the chamber (aggregate estimate).

Initial Research And Lab Setup $0

[#11] Major capital instrumentation (SEM/mass spec) is optional; baseline estimate assumes existing lab access (one-time instrumentation cost not purchased).

🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $1.8M/yr

Staff Wages $923K/yr

[#5, #6, #7] Ongoing salaries + benefits for containment technicians, monitoring/analysis team, and security staff (midpoint aggregate of provided ranges).

Contingency Fund $275K/yr

[#19] Reserved fund for large incidents, public exposure responses, large-scale field operations or emergency coordination.

Research And Monitoring $265K/yr

[#9, #10, #11, #20] Global OSINT/subscription monitoring, paid data/telescope time agreements, routine laboratory analyses, and annual approved test budget.

Cover Story And Legal $120K/yr

[#13, #21] Ongoing legal counsel, privacy/labor dispute resolution and PR/cover-up / witness management costs.

Logistics And Transport $85K/yr

[#8] Field response deployments, vehicles, aviation and travel contingency for verification/rapid response.

Database Maintenance $35K/yr

[#12] Ongoing DBA/admin, secure archival maintenance, and records management support.

Recording Storage $24K/yr

[#3, #4] Ongoing storage, bandwidth and redundant archival costs for high-resolution video/IR/audio and sensor logs.

Training And Drills $20K/yr

[#15] Recurring training, SOP refreshers, and periodic safety drills.

It Security Maintenance $15K/yr

[#16] Ongoing encryption, backups, pentesting and incident-response capability upkeep.

Psychological Monitoring $15K/yr

[#14] Annual psychological screening, counseling and medical supervision for personnel entering the chamber.

Archival Retention $14K/yr

[#22] Long-term secure retention and archival storage for instance records and legal holds.

Facilities Maintenance $6K/yr

[#18] Ongoing repair/replacement budget for frame/chamber components and minor carpentry repairs.

Supplies And Consumables $4K/yr

[#17] Gloves, sampling kits, replacement cables, curtain maintenance, and other consumables.

Curtain Replacement $200/yr

[#2] Occasional curtain replacement/repair costs.

Scale Up Option $0/yr

[#23] Optional high-scale monitoring / aviation / dedicated satellite tasking budget; set to zero in baseline (range $250k–$3M+/yr if activated).

⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $1.8M/yr

82.0% probability / year

Normal year with routine monitoring, occasional minor deployments, no major incidents or scale-up.

routine_monitoring no_public_incident

🚨 Minor Incident $1.9M/yr

15.0% probability / year +$50K vs baseline

One or a few localized, reachable SCP-3423-1 appearances requiring field deployment, documentation and small repairs/PR actions.

reachable_appearance small_field_deployment minor_repairs

🚨 Major Breach $2.3M/yr

1.0% probability / year +$500K vs baseline

A public-exposure-style incident or harmful cognitohazard appearance causing medical incidents, large witness management and emergency legal/PR response.

public_exposure cognitohazard_injury large_witness_management

🚨 Scale Up $2.8M/yr

2.0% probability / year +$1.0M vs baseline

Program chooses active global/space-level tracking and retrieval posture requiring dedicated satellite/telescope time, expanded teams and aviation assets.

increased_frequency strategic_decision_to_scale

👥 Personnel 11 total

Role	Count	Notes
Containment Technician	2	[#5] Dedicated technicians to manage the chamber, scheduling and on-call coverage.
Research Analyst / OSINT	3	[#6] Analysts for image/video analysis, database curation and triage of SCP-3423-1 reports (midpoint staffing).
Security Officer / MTF Agent	6	[#7] Site security force to control access and respond to incidents (shift coverage).

📋 Confidence Notes

Detailed analyst notes provide good coverage of likely cost categories and ranges, but large variances (optional instrumentation, scale-up choices, and unpredictable incident frequency) leave meaningful uncertainty.

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