SCP-4686 — SCP-4686 | Cost Breakdown

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SCP-4686 Euclid ~ medium confidence

SCP-4686

Expected annual

$3.8M

One-time setup

$3.1M

Annual recurring

$3.7M

Personnel

One-time setup to secure lab, develop takedown tooling, and buy specialized equipment is substantial (~$3.12M); main recurring drivers are SOC staffing, legal/PR/takedown operations, and field/amnestic response (~$3.705M/yr).

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $3.1M

Contingency Reserve $1.0M

[#21] One-time emergency reserve sized for rapid large-scale response (relocation, mass amnestics, mass seizures, PR buyouts).

Equipment $510K

[#15, #16, #26, #8] Evidence lockers/Faraday bags and secure storage (#15); hardened forensic workstations/servers (#16); specialized display hardware and custom fabrication (#26); redundant recording & sensor suite initial purchase (#8).

Initial Research And Lab Setup $500K

[#10] Initial anomalous research program setup, specialized instruments and program startup costs.

Investigation Project $500K

[#28] Project-based investigation into origin/operator (OSINT, honeypots, bounties, covert ops).

Facilities $300K

[#7] Hardened secure electronics observation lab buildout, isolated power/ethernet, EM shielding, controlled access.

Web Crawler Development $200K

[#1] Development, testing and integration of automated crawlers, takedown automation and sinkhole redirect tooling.

Domain Sinkhole Infrastructure $60K

[#3] Register/purchase similar domains, authoritative DNS hardening, DDoS protection, SSL setup for sinkholes and secure redirect servers.

Training Sop Development $50K

[#18] Initial SOP/training development for device handling, amnesticization procedures and experimental protocols.

🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $3.7M/yr

Staff Wages $1.4M/yr

[#4, #12, #24] Salaries + benefits for 24/7 SOC team (6 analysts + 1 supervisor) and dedicated medical responders and on-site security guards.

Logistics And Transport $360K/yr

[#23, #14] Transportation and logistics fleet costs (#23) plus field response & retrieval team travel/equipment/staging costs (#14).

Cover Story And Legal $350K/yr

[#5, #19] Legal takedown/ISP coordination and international legal work (#5) combined with memetic/cover-up PR and misinformation operations (#19).

Administrative Overhead $250K/yr

[#30] Program management, accounting, procurement and HR overhead (15–30% of operational payroll estimate applied).

Human Subject Operations $200K/yr

[#11] Per-session costs for D-class/volunteer exposures (medical monitoring, PPE, sedation) estimated for routine experimental cadence.

Amnestic Treatment Program $200K/yr

[#13] Per-civilian amnestic drug/admin, counseling, aftercare and record falsification costs for exposures.

Liability Fund $200K/yr

[#20] Legal liability, settlements, payments to local authorities and contingency cooperation funds.

Content Removal Payments $150K/yr

[#6] Direct payments to webmasters/hosts, buyouts and domain purchases to remove mirrors.

Research And Monitoring $100K/yr

[#10] Ongoing research/experimentation budget after startup for test series, instruments and subject recruitment.

Web Crawler Operations $100K/yr

[#2] 24/7 upkeep, cloud hosting, API costs, signature/heuristic updates and mirror-chasing for crawler/takedown automation.

Cybersecurity Appliances $100K/yr

[#17] IDS/IPS, SIEM, endpoint protection, VPN/secure comms licenses and maintenance.

Insurance And Audit $75K/yr

[#22] Insurance premiums, third-party audits and compliance reviews for field ops and cyber coverage.

Supplies And Consumables $70K/yr

[#8, #9] Consumables for redundant recording/sensor suites (#8 recurring consumables) and replacement/consumables for corrupted recording equipment (#9).

Psychological Care $60K/yr

[#25] Staff counseling, memetic safety checks and post-exposure support to prevent leaks and fatigue.

It Maintenance $40K/yr

[#16] Licenses, updates and maintenance for forensic workstations, servers and forensic software.

Specialized Display Replacements $20K/yr

[#26] Annual replacements and firmware/support for custom displays and experimental device hardware.

Long Term Archival $20K/yr

[#27] Secure cold storage, encrypted retention and legal holds for logs, takedown records and chain-of-custody.

Training And Sops Refresher $20K/yr

[#18] Annual refresher training, SOP updates and certification upkeep.

Domain Sinkhole Maintenance $15K/yr

[#3] Annual DNS/DDoS protection, domain renewals and hosting for sinkhole/hardened redirect infrastructure.

Energy Costs $15K/yr

[#29] Power for dedicated servers, racks, HVAC and lab equipment.

Facilities Maintenance $10K/yr

[#15] Secure evidence storage maintenance and upkeep of physical containment room(s).

⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $3.7M/yr

83.0% probability / year

Normal year with regular monitoring, takedowns, routine experiments and no major public breach.

steady mirror activity routine experiments minor takedown workload

🚨 Minor Incident $4.2M/yr

15.0% probability / year +$500K vs baseline

Localized spike in public access or a small coordinated mirror campaign requiring extra takedowns, increased legal work, and extra field ops.

sudden mirror proliferation regional media attention increased takedown failures

🚨 Major Breach $6.2M/yr

2.0% probability / year +$2.5M vs baseline

Widespread international exposure requiring mass field retrievals, large-scale amnestic operations, emergency PR buyouts and extensive coordination.

major public/media leak cross-border propagation mass civilian exposures

👥 Personnel 14 total

Role	Count	Notes
SOC Analyst / Operator	6	[#4] 24/7 SOC monitoring analysts to operate crawlers and monitor darknet/paste sites.
SOC Supervisor	1	[#4] Supervisory oversight for SOC analysts and escalation coordination.
Medical Officer / EMT	2	[#12] Medical staff for tests and emergency response during physical interactions.
Security Officer / Guard	4	[#24] On-site security guards for lab and evidence storage access control.
Forensic Analyst / IT Specialist	1	[#16] Forensic workstation operator and IT support for hardened analysis environments.

📋 Confidence Notes

Estimates are built from wide ranges in analyst notes and depend heavily on uncertain exposure frequency, legal complexity across jurisdictions, and the anomalous behavior (corrupting recordings). Reasonable midpoints chosen but true costs could vary significantly.

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