SCP-404 Safe ~ medium confidence
SCP-404
Expected annual
$1.2M
One-time setup
$946K
Annual recurring
$1.2M
Personnel
8
Estimated one-time setup costs of approximately $945,500 for retrofit, equipment, and initial research; main recurring drivers are staff wages, ongoing research/monitoring, IT/security, and emergency response totaling about $1,192,700/yr.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $946K
Initial Research And Lab Setup $260K
[#13, #21] Initial forensic/research program budget and seed grant for mechanism research (forensic tests, specialized lab work, and initial research lab setup).
Facilities $250K
[#1] Section Alpha-1 retrofit: reinforced containment room, ballistic door, tamper sensors and anchors; construction and installation costs.
Equipment $150K
[#2, #3, #4, #6, #7, #12, #15] Archival micro-vault, environmental control installation hardware, CCTV install, access control/biometric install, remote handling/viewing rig, scanner & workstation hardware, secure server hardware, and camera/recording gear (one-time purchase/installation).
Legal Insurance Reserve $150K
[#22] Contingency/legal liability & insurance reserve for accidental exposures or third-party claims.
Incident Containment Contingency $125K
[#17] One-time contingency fund for incident-specific remediation, evidence destruction/replacement, and immediate cover-story logistics.
Training Curriculum Development $10K
[#16] Initial SOP and curriculum development for staff training.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $1.2M/yr
Staff Wages $678K/yr
[#5, #9] Salaries for containment/security (3 full-time guards) and research team (Archivist, 2 Document Researchers, Psychologist, Security Liaison) including typical benefits (estimate aggregated).
Research And Monitoring $215K/yr
[#10, #12, #21] Ongoing medical/psych monitoring program, digitization/storage maintenance, and annualized long-term research grant funding for follow-up studies.
It Security And Insider Monitoring $65K/yr
[#18] DLP, privileged access management, logging, audits, and insider-threat monitoring for sensitive digital records.
Subject Provisioning $60K/yr
[#19] Volunteer stipends/oversight or incremental D-class provisioning costs for controlled testing programs.
Cover Story And Legal $50K/yr
[#11] Ethics, legal oversight, consent processing, redaction, internal authorizations and occasional legal work.
Emergency Response And Training $50K/yr
[#8] Rapid response unit on-call costs, training, drills, and equipment amortization for response to unauthorized movement or recovery operations.
Administrative Overhead $40K/yr
[#23] Records management, classification maintenance, clearance renewals, and administrative support.
Training And Sop $20K/yr
[#16] Recurring staff training, refresher courses, SOP updates, and compliance exercises.
Storage Growth $6K/yr
[#20] Annual budget for additional shelving, archival boxes, and moderate repository expansion as photograph/page counts grow.
Facilities Maintenance $4K/yr
[#3] Environmental controls energy and basic HVAC/humidity maintenance (continuous operation energy + routine servicing).
Cctv Monitoring Storage $2K/yr
[#4] Redundant recording, monitoring service and secure offsite backup storage costs.
Supplies And Consumables $1K/yr
[#14] Archival sleeves, gloves, acid-free folders, labels and replacement consumables for handling events.
Access Control Maintenance $1K/yr
[#6] Badging/biometric system maintenance and minor hardware support; two-person rule enforcement systems upkeep.
Logistics And Transport $0/yr
[]
Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $1.2M/yr
94.5% probability / year
Normal operations with scheduled testing, routine containment, and no major incidents.
routine testing scheduled training no breaches
🚨 Minor Incident $1.3M/yr
5.0% probability / year +$150K vs baseline
Small unauthorized handling or limited breach requiring emergency response, targeted forensics, and modest legal/cover-up actions.
unauthorized access small containment lapse limited public exposure
🚨 Major Breach $2.0M/yr
0.5% probability / year +$800K vs baseline
Significant loss of control (SCP-404 removed from Section Alpha-1 or large-scale exposure) requiring large-scale remediation, legal action, and possibly widescale amnestics/terminations.
complete removal public/diplomatic exposure mass unauthorized distribution
👥 Personnel 8 total
Role Count Notes
Security Officer / MTF Agent 3 [#5] Three full-time guards (rotating) providing 24/7 coverage for the repository.
Archivist 1 [#9] Dedicated archivist to manage documents and archival procedures.
Research Scientist / Document Researcher 2 [#9] Two document researchers for testing, digitization, and analysis.
Psychologist 1 [#9] Clinical/psych monitoring specialist for subject care and assessments.
Security Liaison 1 [#9] Liaison between research and security for access control and incident coordination.
📋 Confidence Notes
Analyst notes provide detailed line-item ranges allowing reasonable aggregation, but many items are range-based and contingent (research scale, contingency usage, legal exposures), so estimates have moderate uncertainty.
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