← SCP Cost Explorer Read on SCP Wiki ↗
SCP-4228 Safe ~ medium confidence
SCP-4228
Expected annual
$2.0M
One-time setup
$21.4M
Annual recurring
$2.0M
Personnel
12
First-year (one-time) costs are dominated by infrastructure, legal retainer/reserves, and a large contingency reserve, totaling roughly $21.37M. Ongoing annual costs are approximately $1.98M/yr driven primarily by staffing (security and research), digital monitoring/takedown, legal obligations, and facility overhead.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $21.4M
Large Scale Leak Contingency $20.0M
[#25] Contingency reserve for large-scale leak/public-exposure response; analyst range provided $5M–$500M+, set conservatively at $20M here to represent probable large-response costs (range acknowledged).
Legal And Covert Retainer $500K
[#16] Baseline legal/cover-story/covert-operations retainer and initial buyout budget.
Facilities $350K
[#1] Hardened vault retrofit at Site-45 (Faraday cage, reinforced safe, EM/optical shielding, inert-gas suppression).
Equipment $188K
[#2, #3, #4, #7, #13] Archival cabinets/climate hardware ($15k), custom tamper containers ($8k), access control hardware ($25k), surveillance/CCTV install ($40k), air-gapped/write-blocked viewing station hardware ($100k).
Pr Misinformation Reserve $100K
[#21] Reserve for PR/misinformation control for small public incidents (kept available).
Background Checks Initial $75K
[#9] Deep vetting (polygraphs/background investigations) for ~15 staff.
Policy Development And Training Setup $50K
[#8] Initial SOP/minimal-authority policy development and initial classified briefing materials/training buildout.
Medical Baseline Tests $30K
[#10] Baseline polysomnography and initial psychiatric/sleep testing for ~15 personnel.
Record Redaction $30K
[#20] One-time re-documentation and secure document management setup to compartmentalize records.
Content Redaction $25K
[#14] Cataloging and secure destruction/redaction of non-essential materials (scripts, art, metadata).
Emergency Storage Setup $20K
[#12] Secure storage setup & protocol for emergency medical/amnestic kits.
Initial Research And Lab Setup $0
[]
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $2.0M/yr
Staff Wages $940K/yr
[#5, #11, #27] Vault security guards (~6 @ $50k = $300k/yr), memetics research/containment team (2 senior @ $150k + 2 tech @ $80k ≈ $460k/yr), administrative staffing (containment officer + records clerk ≈ $180k/yr).
Facilities Maintenance $227K/yr
[#2, #4, #7, #13, #22] Climate control/archival maintenance (~$2k/yr), access-control maintenance (~$2k/yr), surveillance/storage retention and maintenance (~$8k/yr), air-gapped hardware maintenance (~$15k/yr), proportional Site-45 overhead allocation (~$200k/yr).
Digital Monitoring And Takedown $200K/yr
[#15] Continuous OSINT/detection and takedown retainer for internet remediation (~$200k/yr).
Rapid Response Team Retainer $120K/yr
[#6] On-call armed rapid-response/security team retainer and annual training/drills.
Research And Monitoring $117K/yr
[#8, #14, #24, #26] Annual policy refresher training (~$10k/yr), redaction audits (~$5k/yr), periodic media migration amortized (~$2k/yr), and research moratorium/compliance management (~$100k/yr).
Cover Story And Legal $100K/yr
[#16] Ongoing legal/covert operations budget for NDAs, small settlements, and legal actions (~$100k/yr).
Psych Remediation $100K/yr
[#18] Psychological remediation contracts and funds for exposed civilians/staff (~$100k/yr).
Medical Monitoring $50K/yr
[#10] Ongoing sleep studies, psychiatric follow-ups, and monitoring for cleared personnel (~$50k/yr).
Medical Countermeasures Supplies $50K/yr
[#12] Stocking amnestics/psychiatric meds and controlled dispensing (~$50k/yr).
Incident Drills $25K/yr
[#17] Annual incident response and containment drill budget.
Logistics And Transport $20K/yr
[#23] Secure transport capability amortized for occasional internal moves (~$20k/yr).
Media Disposal $15K/yr
[#19] Budget for secure destruction/disposal of discovered external copies (~$15k/yr).
Record Redaction Maintenance $10K/yr
[#20] Ongoing maintenance for redaction/compartmentalization systems (~$10k/yr).
Background Checks Renewal $8K/yr
[#9] Annual renewals/monitoring for previously vetted staff.
Supplies And Consumables $0/yr
[]
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $2.0M/yr
96.5% probability / year
Normal, uneventful year with containment intact and no major leaks.
no leaks routine maintenance regular training/drills
🚨 Minor Incident $2.1M/yr
3.0% probability / year +$150K vs baseline
Limited external dissemination of metadata or a small leak requiring targeted takedowns, PR action, and modest amnestic/medical response.
small public post/uploads localized exposure targeted takedown & PR
🚨 Major Breach $7.0M/yr
0.5% probability / year +$5.0M vs baseline
Significant leak with many exposures requiring mass amnestic deployment, extended suppression efforts, large legal settlements and extended medical care.
widespread leak multiple public exposures mass amnestic distribution
🚨 Catastrophic Exposure $102.0M/yr
0.0% probability / year +$100.0M vs baseline
Uncontrolled mass dissemination across a city/region/nation requiring prolonged emergency response, mass medical care, and systemic remediation.
nation-level spread persistent replication via metadata failure of suppression options
👥 Personnel 12 total
Role Count Notes
Security Officer / MTF Agent 6 [#5] 24/7 vault guards: two-person minimum per shift, three shifts = 6 total guards.
Research Scientist 2 [#11] Two senior memetics researchers on the dedicated containment/research team.
Technician 2 [#11] Two technicians supporting memetics research and containment operations.
Administrative Staff 2 [#27] One containment officer/manager and one records clerk for approvals, logs, and audits.
📋 Confidence Notes
Estimates are drawn directly from detailed analyst line items; recurring staffing, monitoring, and legal costs are well-specified. Large-scale leak contingency and probability estimates are inherently uncertain due to the memetic nature of the object, so top-end contingency sizing and breach probabilities are approximate.
← SCP-4227 ↑ All SCPs SCP-4229 →