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SCP-4605 Unknown ~ medium confidence
SCP-4605
Expected annual
$3.0M
One-time setup
$35.1M
Annual recurring
$2.6M
Personnel
15
Estimated one-time setup and contingency costs are approximately $35.1M driven primarily by excavation and catastrophic-containment reserves; steady-state recurring operations are about $2.645M/yr, driven by security staff, cyber monitoring, research staff, and cover/PR/legal operations.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $35.1M
Excavation Contingency $20.0M
[#11] Specialized excavation/tunneling contingency and heavy remediation equipment budget in the event of an excavation/recovery decision.
Catastrophic Containment Reserve $10.0M
[#30] Large-scale reserve for regional quarantines, mass arrests, and major info-control operations in catastrophic containment failure scenarios.
Equipment $1.2M
[#4, #6, #12, #21, #26] Remote surveillance/CCTV installation, Faraday/shielding equipment, robotics/remote-manipulation hardware purchase, secure storage hardware/ESD equipment, and communications jamming hardware one-time purchases.
Facilities $1.1M
[#1, #2, #13, #24] Land acquisition/lease and associated legal/title work, perimeter fencing and gates installation, small secure vault build-out, and off-grid power infrastructure (solar/battery/generator) one-time construction costs.
Emergency Response Reserve $1.0M
[#22] One-time reserve fund set aside for rapid mobilization/public-safety incidents; replenished as needed.
Initial Research And Lab Setup $560K
[#8, #10, #29] Geophysical/subsurface survey and interpretation, cyber/isolation forensics lab initial build-out, and initial archival/research instrument purchases and setup.
Misinformation Production $300K
[#17] Production of the initial 'Failed Extraction' documentary-level piece / long-form mainstream narrative assets.
Buyback Seed Fund $200K
[#19] Seed fund to initiate covert acquisitions/buyback program for civilian-held cartridges.
Legal Retainer Seed $200K
[#18] One-time legal retainer / initial litigation preparedness funds.
Local Compensation Initial $200K
[#16] Initial cover/compensation payments to affected local population and businesses (relocation stipends, reputation mitigation, initial buyouts).
Permitting And Mitigation $150K
[#15] Environmental permitting, assessments, and initial mitigation planning fees (NEPA-style reviews or covert equivalents).
E Waste Assessment $125K
[#14] Initial environmental testing and hazardous-materials assessment for Atari-era cartridges and landfill matrix.
Public Relations Initial $75K
[#28] Initial public-relations/legal fallback campaign (plausible civilian-facing narratives) production and buys.
Archival Conservation Initial $30K
[#25] Initial conservation/museumization work for selected exemplars and 1980s hardware.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $2.6M/yr
Staff Wages $1.4M/yr
[#3, #7, #9] On-site security (8 guards + site manager) with benefits/overtime, cyber analysts (2) salaries, and dedicated research staff (4) including benefits; reflects salary + benefits as noted.
Research And Monitoring $390K/yr
[#4, #7, #8, #21, #27] Remote-surveillance monitoring, cloud ingestion/webcrawler infrastructure, cyber-isolation lab maintenance/software subscriptions, recurring data/storage costs, and long-term civilian-populace monitoring/analytics.
Cover Story And Legal $270K/yr
[#17, #18, #28] Ongoing misinformation/PR campaign upkeep, recurring legal retainer/retainer fees, and periodic PR updates / editing of civilian narratives.
Logistics And Transport $130K/yr
[#5, #19] Weekly inspection travel/per-diem and ongoing covert acquisitions / buyback operative operational budget (field ops, travel, discrete purchases).
Supplies And Consumables $120K/yr
[#5, #9, #29] Field PPE and consumables for weekly inspections, laboratory consumables for research, and sample-analysis consumables/assay supplies.
Social Media Ops $120K/yr
[#20] Ongoing social-media account management, content creation, staffing, and ad buys to influence conversation and redirect SCP-4605-1 messaging.
Facilities Maintenance $90K/yr
[#2, #6, #12, #13, #24] Perimeter/fence maintenance, Faraday/replacement equipment upkeep, robotics preventative maintenance, vault climate control and power-system (solar/generator) upkeep.
Training And Doctrine $50K/yr
[#23] Annual training, SOP development, tabletop and field exercises for memetic/digital anomaly protocols.
Local Compensation $50K/yr
[#16] Ongoing compensation/payments to local stakeholders to maintain secrecy and mitigate impacts.
Jamming Operations $10K/yr
[#26] Minimal baseline recurring costs for RF countermeasure operational readiness, monitoring, and regulatory mitigation (if used at low scale).
Archival Maintenance $5K/yr
[#25] Ongoing conservation/maintenance costs for preserved exemplars and museumization items.
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $2.6M/yr
89.5% probability / year
Normal year with steady-state containment and no major incidents; routine inspections, monitoring, and cover operations only.
no excavation decision no public leak steady weekly inspections
🚨 Minor Incident $3.4M/yr
8.0% probability / year +$750K vs baseline
Localized containment incident or public-interest spike requiring emergency response, PR burst, and legal action.
limited leak or local excavation temporary public broadcast by SCP-4605-1
🚨 Major Excavation $12.6M/yr
2.0% probability / year +$10.0M vs baseline
Deliberate decision to excavate and recover significant portion of the cartridge mass requiring heavy excavation, disposal, and remediation.
policy decision to remove SCP-4605-1 successful excavation campaign is attempted
🚨 Catastrophic Breach $27.6M/yr
0.5% probability / year +$25.0M vs baseline
Mass broadcasting/sapience events that require regional quarantine, emergency containment, and large-scale info-control.
widespread civilian sapience events massive uncontrolled broadcasting
👥 Personnel 15 total
Role Count Notes
Security Officer / MTF Agent 8 [#3] Full-time guards for 24/7 coverage (8 guards as specified).
Site Manager / Executive Staff 1 [#3] On-site manager/supervisor.
Research Scientist 4 [#9] Dedicated research team (anomalous cognition, electronics, retro-hardware specialists).
Cybersecurity Analyst 2 [#7] Analysts operating webcrawlers, monitoring and threat analysis (2 analysts used in cost model).
📋 Confidence Notes
Estimates are medium confidence: the SCP article and analyst notes provide many explicit line-item ranges (security, cyber monitoring, research), but major drivers (excavation scope, regulatory fallout, catastrophic scenarios) remain highly uncertain which prevents a high confidence rating.
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