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SCP-397 Safe ~ medium confidence
SCP-397
Expected annual
$1.7M
One-time setup
$2.0M
Annual recurring
$1.7M
Personnel
11
Estimated initial capital/refit costs are approximately $1.96M driven primarily by the secure arboretum build-out, contingency/cover-up reserves, and infrastructure redundancy. Recurring annual costs are about $1.70M driven mainly by security and research staff wages, contingency fund allocations, and ongoing maintenance/supplies.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $2.0M
Facilities $785K
[#1, #23] Secure arboretum build-out retrofit/new-build and one-time facility redundancy/backup power hardware and structural work.
Contingent Incident Remediation $550K
[#28] One-off reserve estimate for potential incident investigation, settlement, remediation and major cover-up if a serious historical-style incident recurs.
Equipment $288K
[#2, #5, #6, #12, #13, #15, #18] One-time purchase/installation of HVAC, CCTV/sensors, transfer hatch/secure cage and transport equipment, tranquilization kits, PPE/non-lethal suppression gear, safe writing tools, and initial IT security hardware.
Initial Cover Story And Legal $275K
[#21] One-time initial cover/PR/legal setup costs to establish plausible deniability and initial indemnity arrangements.
Initial Research And Lab Setup $48K
[#3, #4] Botanical procurement, quarantine, landscape setup, initial planting/hardening and related horticultural setup costs.
Initial Training And Documentation $15K
[#19] One-time SOP development, initial containment training and documentation development costs.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $1.7M/yr
Staff Wages $860K/yr
[#7, #11, #16] Full-time security guard wages (onsite guards pool/rotations), primate veterinarian salary, Level 3 researcher and direct research assistant salary components.
Contingency Fund Allocation $200K/yr
[#20] Annual allocation toward rapid-response contingency fund to cover escape/incident response, overtime, repairs, medical treatment and temporary operational impacts.
Research And Monitoring $161K/yr
[#14, #16, #17, #18, #19, #22, #27] Enrichment curation, researcher oversight costs, experimental/analysis budget, IT/security logging maintenance, recurring drills and training, audit/ethical oversight, and psychological mitigation/rotation programs.
Facilities Maintenance $125K/yr
[#2, #5, #23, #26] Recurring HVAC/electricity and maintenance, surveillance system maintenance/storage, generator/UPS fuel and testing, and general facility replacement/depreciation budget.
Cover Story And Legal $125K/yr
[#21] Ongoing legal/PR readiness, retainers and indemnity preparedness for investigations or publicity incidents.
Supplies And Consumables $90K/yr
[#3, #4, #11, #12, #13, #15, #25] Plant maintenance/replacement, vegetation hardening maintenance, veterinary meds/diagnostics, drug replenishment, PPE replacement, safe-writing consumables, and transcription/archiving services.
D Class Monitoring $60K/yr
[#10] Stricter D-Class selection, monitoring, secure holding, and surveillance program costs.
Logistics And Transport $36K/yr
[#6, #24] Vehicle/fuel/maintenance for transfers and per-transfer temporary staff/overtime costs (budgeted for regular approved transfers).
Security Vetting Program $25K/yr
[#9] Recurring security vetting, cognitive and psychological testing program for staff and D-class handlers.
Transfer Team Overhead $22K/yr
[#8] Extra pay, training and testing costs specific to maintaining a vetted 3-person high-IQ transfer team (overtime and training/testing).
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $1.7M/yr
84.0% probability / year
Normal year with routine operations, scheduled transfers, maintenance, and no major incidents.
routine_operations scheduled_transfers no_major_incident
🚨 Minor Incident $1.9M/yr
12.0% probability / year +$150K vs baseline
Localized escape attempt or sabotage requiring rapid-response, overtime, limited repairs and modest legal/cover actions.
small_escape_attempt localized_damage staff_overtime
🚨 Major Breach $2.9M/yr
3.0% probability / year +$1.2M vs baseline
Coordinated escape with D-Class collusion or staff casualty leading to large-scale response, investigations, legal settlements and heavy cover-up costs.
coordinated_escape D-Class_collusion agent_casualty
👥 Personnel 11 total
Role Count Notes
Security Officer / MTF Agent 8 Full-time onsite guards (rotations) trained in primate containment; wage assumptions based on $50k–$90k range.
Research Scientist 1 Dedicated Level 3 researcher supervising SCP-397, enrichment and approvals.
Research Assistant 1 Support for experiments, transcription oversight and enrichment curation (salary included in research staffing).
Veterinarian / Medical Officer 1 Primate-specialist veterinarian (salary and medical supply budgets accounted).
📋 Confidence Notes
Line items and ranges are well-documented in analyst notes, but many estimates are wide and incident/cover-up costs are highly scenario-dependent, producing uncertainty in annualized figures.
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