SCP-5094 — SCP-5094 | Cost Breakdown

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SCP-5094 Unknown ~ medium confidence

SCP-5094

Expected annual

$1.3M

One-time setup

$460K

Annual recurring

$1.2M

Personnel

One-time setup costs (lab build, tooling, imaging, legal/front-company) are roughly $460,000; recurring annual costs dominated by personnel, monitoring, and mitigation run about $1,250,000/yr, driven mainly by research staff wages and ongoing monitoring/takedown and influence operations.

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $460K

Facilities $250K

[#1] Secure containment / research lab build-out (air-gapped workspace, Faraday shielding, physical locks, separate HVAC, decontamination passthrough).

Webcrawler Development $75K

[#9] Development/tuning of the keyword-monitoring crawler (ETA-15-NATALYA) and alerting pipeline (one-time development cost).

Legal Retainer Setup $50K

[#13] Initial legal/IP negotiation/retainer for DMCA takedowns, rights negotiation, and civil exposure management.

Initial Research And Lab Setup $30K

[#3, #4, #15] Air-gapped virtualization/emulator development ($20,000), digital preservation/imaging of discs ($2,000), reverse-engineering & analysis tool licenses ($8,000).

Equipment $25K

[#2, #8] Legacy hardware initial procurement ($10,000) and electronic security systems & monitoring installation ($15,000).

Sop Creation $15K

[#17] Containment SOP creation and initial staff training materials development.

Archival Media Setup $5K

[#5] Purchase of archival media (LTO/M-DISC) and initial off-site backup setup.

Front Company Setup $5K

[#12] Front company / cover identity initial setup costs (registration, website, accounts).

Documentation Setup $5K

[#23] Documentation, chain-of-custody logging equipment and secure record storage initial purchase.

🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $1.2M/yr

Staff Wages $880K/yr

[#7, #9, #14] Research team salaries (~$730,000/yr) + 2 onsite guards (~$80,000/yr) + 1 webcrawler analyst (~$70,000/yr).

Research And Monitoring $162K/yr

[#3, #10, #16, #17, #18, #23] Ongoing emulator/virtualization maintenance ($5,000/yr), web monitoring & takedown operations ($40,000/yr estimate), experimentation/ethics & participant compensation ($100,000/yr), SOP refresher training ($5,000/yr), mental-health support ($10,000/yr), documentation & periodic audits ($2,000/yr).

Cover Story And Legal $92K/yr

[#12, #13, #21] Ongoing cover identity maintenance (~$2,000/yr), legal/IP retainer ($30,000/yr), and public influence / PR ops ($60,000/yr).

Incident Response Fund $50K/yr

[#22] Rapid-response pool for emergency seizures, buyouts, litigation, or emergency storage/destruction.

Webcrawler Hosting $24K/yr

[#9] Hosting, alerting pipeline costs for the monitoring crawler (ETA-15-NATALYA).

Facilities Maintenance $16K/yr

[#6, #8, #20] Climate-controlled storage monitoring ($5,000/yr), electronic security monitoring & maintenance ($10,000/yr), and isolated lab utilities ($1,000/yr).

Logistics And Transport $10K/yr

[#11] Covert procurement / field ops budget for purchasing copies and agent travel.

Insurance Coverage $10K/yr

[#25] Insurance/liability coverage for accidental leaks or civil suits.

Legacy Hardware Maintenance $2K/yr

[#2] Periodic maintenance and spare parts for vintage/retro PCs and optical drives.

Physical Destruction $2K/yr

[#24] Contingency for secure destruction/disposition of civilian copies if required.

Supplies And Consumables $1K/yr

[#19] Consumables and legacy media upkeep (cleaning kits, replacement cases, blank archival discs, labels).

Archival Offsite Storage $1K/yr

[#5] Off-site encrypted storage vaulting and periodic integrity checks.

⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $1.2M/yr

87.8% probability / year

Normal, uneventful year with ongoing monitoring, research, takedowns, and routine operations.

no_major_incidents routine_monitoring_and_takedowns

🚨 Minor Incident $1.3M/yr

10.0% probability / year +$50K vs baseline

Small public leak or unplanned sale leading to emergency takedown, modest procurement, or legal actions.

small_online_leak unplanned_auction_or_sale

🚨 Auction Spike $1.4M/yr

2.0% probability / year +$200K vs baseline

High-value auction or bidding war for a rare copy requires substantial buyout funds.

rare_copy_auction collector_bidding_war

🚨 Major Digital Outbreak $6.2M/yr

0.2% probability / year +$5.0M vs baseline

SCP becomes network-capable or widely distributed, requiring large-scale digital containment, mass takedowns, emergency legal actions, and rapid procurement/destruction.

network_capability mass_distribution

👥 Personnel 9 total

Role	Count	Notes
Research Scientist / Lead Researcher	1	[#14] Lead Researcher (salary included in research team total).
Software / Reverse-Engineering Engineer	2	[#14] Two engineers (salaries included in research team total).
Cognitive / Psychologist	1	[#14] One cognitive/psychologist (salary included in research team total).
Containment Technician	2	[#14] Two containment technicians (salaries included in research team total).
Security Officer / MTF Agent	2	[#7] Two dedicated onsite guards for the containment lab/storage.
Analyst (webcrawler / takedown triage)	1	[#9] One analyst to triage crawler alerts and coordinate takedowns (salary listed separately).

📋 Confidence Notes

Many line items are reasonably specified (lab build, salaries, monitoring) but several estimates are coarse ranges (takedowns, auction spikes, outbreak scenarios) and the anomaly's future behavior (network capability, information hazards) is uncertain, so overall confidence is medium.

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