SCP-5183 — SCP-5183 | Cost Breakdown

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SCP-5183 Unknown ? low confidence

SCP-5183

Expected annual

$2.5M

One-time setup

$5.6M

Annual recurring

$2.5M

Personnel

Estimated one-time capital costs of $5,566,000 driven primarily by contingency, decommissioning program funding, redundant containment and robotics/equipment; recurring costs ~ $2,455,500/yr driven by staff wages (research, thaumaturgy, security), research budgets, and incident/transport readiness.

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $5.6M

Decommissioning Program $2.8M

[#28] Long-term neutralization/decommissioning program budget (multi-year program capital).

Contingency Reserve $1.2M

[#27] Initial reserve fund for catastrophic events, recovery operations, and emergency interventions.

Facilities $760K

[#1, #20, #26] Vault-grade locker construction, redundant containment mirror site setup, and UPS/generator/infra structure one-time capital.

Equipment $662K

[#2, #3, #4, #6, #15, #17] Locker environmental controls, non-visual sensor suite, robotic manipulators, air-gapped archival hardware, dedicated secure transport unit, and initial data-security hardware/setup.

Imaging Approval Setup $50K

[#5] Setup of formal imaging-approval pipeline, secure capture hardware (if/when approved), legal review and secure transfer workflows.

Additional Instance Unit $38K

[#21] Per-instance additional locker/unit cost, including incremental sensors/handling for each new recovered instance.

Initial Research And Lab Setup $30K

[#7] Initial thaumaturgical containment materials, ritual spaces and initial ritual/setup materials.

Training Setup $25K

[#11] Initial staff training program development and simulation/drill setup for non-visual protocols and emergency procedures.

🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $2.5M/yr

Staff Wages $1.1M/yr

[#8, #9, #10, #25] Salaries/benefits/hazard pay for research team (~1 lead + 3 assistants), thaumaturge/occult specialist, security staffing (6 guards), and administrative oversight personnel.

Logistics And Transport $335K/yr

[#14, #15] Incident response readiness (on-call rapid team, decontamination, travel) plus per-transfer secure transport recurring costs (average per-year transfers).

Research And Monitoring $300K/yr

[#19] Research & characterization budget for permitted experiments using non-visual methods and contracted lab services.

Cover Story And Legal $238K/yr

[#16, #29] Media-control, OPSEC, legal/PR liaison and regulatory/compliance insurance/indemnity costs.

External Consultants $125K/yr

[#24] Retained external specialists (optical, cognitive, materials, legal/memetics advisors).

Data Security Maintenance $60K/yr

[#17] Ongoing IT security, audit logging, insider-threat monitoring and access log maintenance.

Miscellaneous Overhead $60K/yr

[#30] Facility overhead allocation, administrative supplies, travel and general program overhead.

Robotic And Sensor Maintenance $48K/yr

[#13] Maintenance, spares, calibration, and software updates for robots and sensors.

Media Destruction Capability $30K/yr

[#23] Standing capability for archive & secure destruction/forensic handling of unauthorized imagery incidents.

Facilities Maintenance $26K/yr

[#12, #26] Power/utilities for containment suite and fuel/maintenance for backup power/UPS.

Psychological Support $25K/yr

[#18] Psychological screening and ongoing support for staff working under visual-restriction protocols.

Imaging Compliance Admin $20K/yr

[#5] Annual compliance/admin costs for imaging approval pipeline and auditing.

Thaumaturgy Consumables $15K/yr

[#7] Ongoing ritual consumables and upkeep for thaumaturgical containment measures.

Training Refreshers $12K/yr

[#11] Annual refresher training and simulation/drill costs.

Supplies And Consumables $9K/yr

[#22] Consumables and PPE (gloves, seals, cleaning, single-use ritual items).

Archival Maintenance $3K/yr

[#6] Maintenance and redundancy costs for air-gapped archival storage and physical-photo vaulting.

⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $2.5M/yr

94.0% probability / year

Normal year with standard operations, scheduled research, maintenance, and no major incidents.

routine_operations scheduled_maintenance

🚨 Minor Incident $2.5M/yr

5.0% probability / year +$75K vs baseline

Limited unauthorized imagery or small containment lapse requiring targeted response, forensic analysis, and limited amnestic/medical support.

unauthorized_photo single_person_exposure

🚨 Major Breach $4.0M/yr

1.0% probability / year +$1.5M vs baseline

Significant containment breach or public exposure requiring large-scale rapid-response, transport, potential neutralization research and major PR/legal action.

full_breach public_exposure

👥 Personnel 12 total

Role	Count	Notes
Research Scientist / Lead Researcher	1	[#8] Lead overseeing experiments, approvals and containment research.
Research Assistant / Technician	3	[#8] Part-time/technical support for non-visual experiments and equipment operation.
Thaumaturge / Occult Specialist	1	[#9] In-house thaumaturgical containment specialist or retained consultant.
Security Officer / MTF Agent	6	[#10] 24/7 guard rotation to prevent unauthorized access/viewing (6–8 recommended; modeled at 6).
Administrative Staff	1	[#25] Oversight, audits, and administrative coordination for containment and cover operations.

📋 Confidence Notes

Estimates are based on analyst ranges with many anomalous/thaumaturgical items and speculative response costs; containment behavior and frequency of adverse events are uncertain, so confidence is low.

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