SCP-4054 — SCP-4054 | Cost Breakdown

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SCP-4054 Safe ~ medium confidence

SCP-4054

Expected annual

$1.6M

One-time setup

$2.7M

Annual recurring

$1.5M

Personnel

Initial one-time setup is dominated by R&D, lab buildout, and contingency/long-term storage planning (≈$2.69M); ongoing annual costs are driven by staffing, acquisition funds, monitoring/OPSEC, and reserve allocations (≈$1.49M/year).

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $2.7M

Initial Research And Lab Setup $1.1M

[#5, #6] ROM extraction and electronics lab equipment plus initial tranche of specialized R&D to handle the anomalous extracted data file.

Long Term Storage Contingency One Time $1.0M

[#24] One-time contingency allocation toward exploratory / initial capital for bespoke storage solutions (highly uncertain / potentially much larger).

Contingency Reserve Capital One Time $250K

[#23] One-time portion / reserved capital for emergency retrieval campaigns (recommended minimum reserve).

Equipment $180K

[#4, #7] Three modified NES consoles (procurement & engineering) and secure compute/server development costs (one-time development).

Facilities $100K

[#1] Secure containment locker/vault installation (purchase + retrofit + installation).

Legal And Cover Setup $50K

[#11] Shell companies / cover operations and legal cover one-time setup.

Training Upfront $30K

[#22] Initial security clearances/background checks and upfront training costs.

🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $1.5M/yr

Staff Wages $490K/yr

[#3, #9, #15] On-site security staffing, field agents (salaries & benefits), and curator/records manager staffing.

Acquisition Fund $200K/yr

[#10] Annual acquisition / purchase fund for suspected cartridges (stealth purchases, auction buys, proxies).

Misc Overhead And Admin $194K/yr

[#25] Miscellaneous overhead & administrative costs (accounting, purchasing, utilities, site overhead; ~15% of program recurring budget).

Mtf Operations $100K/yr

[#12] MTF operations budget for routine investigative operations and contingency readiness (Mu-4 & Gamma-5 deployments).

Reserve Allocation $100K/yr

[#23] Recurring reserve allocation to maintain rapid-response capital for emergency retrieval campaigns.

Research And Monitoring $80K/yr

[#6, #7] Ongoing R&D follow-on budgets and continuous monitoring infrastructure hosting/ops for I/O-SAURON.

Cybersecurity And Opsec $80K/yr

[#8] Cybersecurity / OPSEC budget: red-team testing, anonymity services, audits, and contractor costs.

Cover Story And Legal $50K/yr

[#11, #21] Ongoing legal & administration for front companies plus PR / cover-story budget (false provenance, payments to auction houses, etc.).

Long Term Storage Contingency $50K/yr

[#24] Ongoing exploratory / contingency funding toward long-term storage research and small-scale experiments (highly uncertain).

Facilities Maintenance $30K/yr

[#2] Facility space and climate control (rent/premium utilities + maintenance).

Training And Clearance $30K/yr

[#22] Recurring training, periodic reinvestigations, and recertification costs for personnel.

Software And Licenses $20K/yr

[#16] Software/analysis licenses & tooling (reverse-engineering tools, debuggers, FPGA toolchains).

Human Intel Budget $20K/yr

[#20] Community infiltration & human intelligence budget (payments to informants/moderators/collectors).

Logistics And Transport $15K/yr

[#18] Secure transportation / courier costs for moving artifacts.

Insurance And Risk Mitigation $10K/yr

[#19] Insurance and risk mitigation premiums (collectibles/lab coverage assumptions).

Forensic Conservation $10K/yr

[#13] Forensic conservation & restoration of cartridges (professional electronics conservation budgets).

Spare Parts And Repairs $5K/yr

[#17] Spare parts & repair budget for modified consoles and laboratory gear.

Supplies And Consumables $2K/yr

[#14] Consumables & archival supplies (anti-static bags, silica gel, indicators, labeling).

⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $1.5M/yr

78.0% probability / year

Normal year with routine acquisitions, monitoring, maintenance, and modest ongoing R&D; no major incidents or campaigns.

routine acquisitions regular monitoring scheduled R&D and maintenance

🚨 Minor Incident $1.6M/yr

15.0% probability / year +$75K vs baseline

Targeted spike in acquisitions or a small emergency retrieval that requires additional short-term spending (legal, travel, rapid purchases).

unexpected auction/estate sale localized public reveal requiring rapid purchases

🚨 Major Acquisition Campaign $2.5M/yr

5.0% probability / year +$1.0M vs baseline

Large, concentrated acquisition campaign to outbid collectors or purchase multiple lots/estates containing potential copies.

multiple public sales of suspected copies coordinated collector sales or estate auctions

🚨 Research Scale Up $6.5M/yr

2.0% probability / year +$5.0M vs baseline

Program decides to aggressively pursue building bespoke long-term storage or massive distributed arrays to contain the anomalous extracted file.

R&D demonstrates containment requirement decision to fund full-scale custom storage project

👥 Personnel 8 total

Role	Count	Notes
Security Officer / MTF Agent	4	Overnight and two-person coverage, specialized training; maps to security staffing costs [#3].
Field Agent / Operative	3	Agents for flea-market/auction monitoring and acquisition operations; maps to field agent budget [#9].
Records Manager / Curator	1	1 FTE records manager/curator at Level-3 pay-grade; maps to curator staffing [#15].

📋 Confidence Notes

Notes are detailed and provide ranges for most items, allowing mid-range point estimates; however market volatility for rare cartridges, open-ended long-term storage R&D, and uncertain follow-on research funding reduce precision.

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