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SCP-4053 Neutralized ~ medium confidence
SCP-4053
Expected annual
$138K
One-time setup
$183K
Annual recurring
$113K
Personnel
0.25
One-time setup costs (mainly for optional sandbox/reactivation work and legacy-data recovery) total roughly $183k; ongoing preservation and overhead average about $112.8k/year driven by staff, security, power/cooling and retainer/opportunity-cost allocations.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $183K
Initial Research And Lab Setup $146K
[#7, #10, #12] Media imaging/legacy recovery tools and labor ($15,000), isolated sandbox/reactivation lab hardware and instrumentation ($125,000), one-time software/emulator/license acquisitions ($5,500).
Equipment $17K
[#3, #4, #9] UPS hookup/infrastructure ($5,000), environmental/fire sensors installation ($2,750), legacy-hardware parts & specialist handling ($9,000).
Transportation Per Move $6K
[#17] Per-move secure transport/packing and handling (estimate midpoint per potential relocation).
Disposal Secure Destruction $6K
[#18] Secure degaussing/shredding/incineration and certificate-of-destruction contingency cost (mid-range estimate).
Tabletop Planning $4K
[#15] One-time tabletop planning for incident response/contingency procedures.
Archival Backups $3K
[#8] Initial purchase and writing of air-gapped archival media (LTO tapes, encryption) and first geographic copies.
Facilities $2K
[#1] Physical mounting, asset tagging, transfer and marginal allocation charge for rack placement in Sector-C.
Documentation And Chain Of Custody Setup $1K
[#13] One-time setup of tamperproof logging, processes and tools for signed image storage and chain-of-custody.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $113K/yr
Incident Response Retainer $30K/yr
[#15] Annual retainer for emergency technical/containment teams and on-call rapid-response readiness (mid-range).
Staff Wages $20K/yr
[#6] IT/sysadmin and records-curator fractional FTEs for maintenance, audits, firmware preservation and integrity checks (budgeted ~0.2–0.3 FTE-equivalent).
Cover Story And Legal $15K/yr
[#16] Legal, PR and cover-story maintenance costs for FOIA, classification maintenance and external inquiries.
Opportunity Cost Allocated Overhead $12K/yr
[#19] Internal chargeback for dedicating rack/power/cabinet space instead of productive use.
Facilities Maintenance $11K/yr
[#1, #3, #4, #8, #9] Allocated rack/premises overhead, UPS/battery maintenance share, sensor calibration/inspection, periodic archival refresh/storage and legacy-hardware inspections.
Physical Security Incremental $10K/yr
[#5] Marginal security costs: escort hours, extra audits, CCTV storage and restricted-area access control overhead.
Power Consumption And Cooling $6K/yr
[#2] Electricity and cooling for servers/standby (~midpoint estimate for 1–2 kW draw with PUE/cooling).
Research And Monitoring $4K/yr
[#14] Periodic neutrality verification, non-reactivating tests and sample audits to confirm the object remains inert.
Documentation And Audit $2K/yr
[#13] Recurring audits, signed-log storage and verification costs for chain-of-custody.
Supplies And Consumables $1K/yr
[#20] Cables, labels, replacement media, PPE, ESD bags and small consumables.
Software And License Maintenance $1K/yr
[#12] Ongoing licenses, emulator support and small legacy-OS support fees.
Logistics And Transport $0/yr
[]
Sandbox Operational $0/yr
[#10] Recurring sandbox operational costs ($20k–$100k/yr) are contingent on authorization; baseline assumes sandbox is not kept active.
Reactivation Project Resourcing $0/yr
[#11] Reactivation/analysis projects cost ~$150k–$500k per engagement; treated as intermittent project spend (not baseline).
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $113K/yr
93.0% probability / year
Normal preservation year with no reactivation or incidents; routine maintenance, overhead, audits and retainers only.
no_reactivation routine_maintenance
🚨 Reactivation Project $588K/yr
5.0% probability / year +$475K vs baseline
Authorized reactivation and study: build/activate isolated sandbox, run a short-term specialist project and operate sandbox for the year.
HMCL_authorizes_reactivation project_team_deployed
🚨 Minor Incident $183K/yr
2.0% probability / year +$70K vs baseline
Accidental access/data corruption or limited containment issue requiring emergency response and forensic recovery/destruction.
accidental_reactivation limited_data_breach hardware_failure_requiring_emergency_response
👥 Personnel 0.25 total
Role Count Notes
IT Sysadmin / Engineer 0.2 [#6] Fractional FTE performing filesystem checks, firmware preservation and integrity hashes (budgeted portion of staff_wages).
Records Curator / Archivist 0.05 [#6, #8, #13] Fractional support for archival backups, chain-of-custody and documentation maintenance.
📋 Confidence Notes
Analyst notes are detailed with ranges for almost every line item, enabling reasonable point estimates; uncertainty remains around contingency events (reactivation, incidents) and chosen midpoints for ranges, hence medium confidence.
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