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SCP-4517 Unknown ~ medium confidence
SCP-4517
Expected annual
$1.0M
One-time setup
$446K
Annual recurring
$1.0M
Personnel
10
One-time setup and property acquisition dominate initial costs (~$446k), while recurring personnel (ML engineers, researchers, security) plus overhead and a research scaling reserve drive annual costs (~$1.01M). Main recurring drivers are staff wages, cloud/compute, and organizational overhead.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $446K
Facilities $306K
[#1, #3, #4] Property purchase of the apartment and title transfer plus structural security upgrades and minor internal containment fittings/modifications (midpoint estimates of provided ranges).
Equipment $75K
[#5, #6, #7, #8, #16] Discreet CCTV/audio/tamper sensors, secure comms/router/firewall appliances, on-prem GPU inference server and NAS, UPS/backup power, and one-time encrypted archival hardware/vaulting (midpoint estimates).
Contingency Relocation Reserve $41K
[#22] One-time reserve for emergency relocation, secure transport and specialist lifting equipment (midpoint).
Cover Company Setup $16K
[#2] One-time corporate/cover shell company formation, conveyancing and legal fees for clandestine purchase (midpoint of range).
Sop Development And Training Initial $8K
[#21] Initial SOP creation and initial training/drill development (initial one-time cost midpoint).
Initial Research And Lab Setup $0
[]
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $1.0M/yr
Staff Wages $575K/yr
[#10, #11, #12, #13] Salaries for Balance.aic engineers (1–2 FTE), research staff (2–3 FTE), on-site/security rotation (3–4 personnel), and footage archivist/analyst (1 FTE); values are midpoints of ranges.
Long Term Research Scaling Reserve $150K/yr
[#25] Annualized reserve for multi-year scaling of research (midpoint of £200k–£1M amortized over ~5 years to represent an annual allocation).
Organizational Overhead $131K/yr
[#24] Allocated HR, payroll taxes, benefits and central Foundation overhead (20–35% of direct salaries; midpoint applied).
Research And Monitoring $60K/yr
[#9, #15, #17, #20] Cloud storage/compute and model inference costs, human-subjects participant compensation, archival maintenance/integrity checks, and medical/psychological monitoring for staff (midpoints summed).
Cover Story And Legal $44K/yr
[#23] Ongoing legal/PR/cover contingency, shell company maintenance and local response budget for enquiries (midpoint).
Logistics And Transport $31K/yr
[#14] Tenant management, background-filtering program, inducements/subsidies and periodic on-site checks to manage neighboring tenants (midpoint).
Facilities Maintenance $19K/yr
[#18, #19] Annual equipment repairs/replacements, sensor recalibration and locksmith services plus utilities and basic facility operating costs (midpoint sums).
Supplies And Consumables $0/yr
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⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $1.0M/yr
89.0% probability / year
Normal year with steady monitoring, routine research, and no major incidents.
no_incident routine_operations
🚨 Minor Incident $1.1M/yr
10.0% probability / year +$100K vs baseline
Localized tampering, sensor/network failure, or minor tenant-related exposure requiring incident response and limited remediation.
tampering power_or_network_outage localized_data_loss
🚨 Major Breach $2.0M/yr
1.0% probability / year +$1.0M vs baseline
Significant containment compromise or public exposure requiring relocation, broad legal/PR operations, large-scale data recovery and potential expansion of security posture.
public_exposure physical_removal_attempt catastrophic_data_loss
👥 Personnel 10 total
Role Count Notes
ML Engineer / Software Maintainer 2 [#10] 1–2 FTE for Balance.aic development and maintenance; midpoint staffing of 2 used.
Research Scientist 3 [#11] 2–3 FTE cognitive/ontology researchers; midpoint staffing of 3 used.
Security Officer / MTF Agent 4 [#12] 3–4 rotating personnel for periodic on-site inspections/response; conservative 4 chosen to ensure coverage.
Archivist / Analyst 1 [#13] 1 FTE or contract equivalent for footage archival and human review.
📋 Confidence Notes
Estimates derived from analyst-provided ranges and midpoints with USD conversions and amortization assumptions; reasonable mapping of line items but ranges and future research scaling introduce uncertainty.
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