SCP-5334 — SCP-5334 | Cost Breakdown

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SCP-5334 Euclid ~ medium confidence

SCP-5334

Expected annual

$11.0M

One-time setup

$21.4M

Annual recurring

$5.2M

Personnel

Baseline program requires a one-time startup of approximately $21.4M (dominated by a dedicated optical telescope purchase, equipment and contingency reserve) and recurring operating costs of ~$5.0M/yr driven by staffed monitoring, amnestic administration, legal/cover operations and ongoing monitoring infrastructure. Rare events (FTL sample missions or crisis escalations) can increase annual costs by orders of magnitude.

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $21.4M

Dedicated Optical Telescope $10.0M

[#7] Purchase/build/install of a dedicated 1–2m-class automated optical telescope and instrumentation for continuous monitoring of HD 44219 (chosen here for a moderate active program).

Backup Reserve For Escalation $5.0M

[#25] One-time reserve fund / initial standby pool to enable rapid scale-up in the event of behavioral escalation.

Equipment $3.2M

[#8, #10, #14, #15] Dedicated radio/analysis hardware, HPC cluster hardware, specialized analytical instruments (GC-MS, MS, NMR, robotics), and security systems.

Facilities $2.0M

[#6, #13] One-time build/upgrade of secure evidence/forensic suites, vaults and quarantine/curation facility for recovered bottles/samples.

Initial Research And Lab Setup $600K

[#4, #11, #14] Initial validation/stockpile testing for Class-G amnestics, lab buildout and baseline instrumentation for research team and analytical lab setup.

Webcrawler Development $400K

[#1] One-time development of dedicated internet counterintelligence/webcrawler, detection and takedown tooling, multilingual indexing and minimal human review UI.

Secure Comms Rollout $100K

[#18] One-time rollout of encrypted communications, secure phones and OPSEC infrastructure.

Backup Infrastructure $100K

[#19] One-time setup of geographically separated backups and redundant monitoring nodes.

Space Segment $0

[#9] Optional smallsat/space telescope segment not funded in this baseline (space-based monitoring would be funded only under a higher-cost scenario).

Ftl Ship Outfitting $0

[#12] Ship build/outfitting for FTL sample-retrieval missions not included in baseline (set to 0 here; missions would be budgeted per-expedition).

Ring Intervention Theoretical $0

[#26] Theoretical ring-wide intervention is prohibitively expensive; no practical one-time program cost is assigned.

🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $5.2M/yr

Staff Wages $2.5M/yr

[#2, #10, #11, #15] Salaries and benefits for analysts (monitoring), research scientists, HPC specialists, security staff and necessary medical/admin support.

Amnestic Administration $500K/yr

[#4] Recurring costs of Class-G amnestic administrations: medical staff, per-administration cost, follow-up monitoring for anticipated incidents.

Research And Monitoring $450K/yr

[#7, #8, #10, #11] Ongoing ops for optical/radio monitoring, cloud/HPC compute credits, and recurring research program support.

Cover Story And Legal $400K/yr

[#3, #22, #23] Legal/PR/covert-influence budget for publishers/institutions, archival access, and occasional misinformation/diversion campaigns.

Psychological Care $250K/yr

[#20] Long-term counseling, relocation/resettlement and deniable cover costs for handled/compromised persons.

Facilities Maintenance $200K/yr

[#6, #13, #24] Operational costs, HVAC, power and maintenance for monitoring centers, labs and vaults.

Webcrawler Hosting $175K/yr

[#1] Hosting, maintenance and feed updates for webcrawler and takedown integrations.

Supplies And Consumables $150K/yr

[#11, #14, #13] Laboratory consumables, calibration standards, and per-sample handling/test costs.

Oversight Audits $150K/yr

[#27] Internal auditors, ethics review, compliance monitoring and related admin oversight.

Diplomatic Contingency Fund $100K/yr

[#21] Modest baseline off-the-books reserve for higher-level incidents; can be scaled if needed.

Logistics And Transport $80K/yr

[#5] Field operations travel (covert travel, secure vehicles, flights, per-diem) for contacts, seizures and retrievals.

Crisis Exercises $75K/yr

[#17] Tabletop exercises, red-team engagements and periodic large simulations.

Covert Amateur Funding $50K/yr

[#16] Stipends, small donations and equipment grants to redirect or quiet amateur/community astronomers.

Archival Access $50K/yr

[#22] Purchase/maintenance of archived copies, embargoed access and publisher influence subscriptions.

Secure Comms $40K/yr

[#18] Subscriptions, audits, device replacements and refresher OPSEC trainings.

Backups Redundancy $30K/yr

[#19] Ongoing backup storage, geographically separated replication and DR testing.

⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $5.2M/yr

80.0% probability / year

Normal year with routine monitoring, takedowns, amnestic administrations and research work; no major breaches or FTL missions.

routine discovery reports small-scale academic publications regular disappearance events handled quietly

🚨 Minor Incident $5.2M/yr

15.0% probability / year +$25K vs baseline

Localized publicity or a single high-profile paper requiring expedited legal/amnestic response and extra field ops.

single major paper or viral social media thread dozens of individual observers requiring attention

🚨 Major Breach $15.0M/yr

3.0% probability / year +$9.8M vs baseline

Significant leak or coordinated exposure requiring large-scale legal, amnestic and cover operations.

large-scale media exposure institutional resistance or international incident

🚨 Ftl Sample Mission $505.0M/yr

1.0% probability / year +$499.8M vs baseline

An FTL-enabled sample retrieval or survey expedition is launched (ship/time/mission ops).

decision to recover bottle samples via FTL availability of FTL-capable assets

🚨 Escalation Response $55.0M/yr

1.0% probability / year +$49.8M vs baseline

Behavioral escalation at SCP-5334 triggers rapid-response mobilization, expanded monitoring and large-scale cover operations.

increased disappearance frequency observable emissions or public evidence radical change in orbital behavior

👥 Personnel 24 total

Role	Count	Notes
Research Scientist	6	[#11] Full-time astrophysics/astrochemistry research staff for modeling, spectral analysis and sample study.
Analyst (Internet / Academic Monitoring)	6	[#2] Human monitoring and analysis team to review crawler flags, monitor preprints and coordinate takedowns; 24/7 coverage.
HPC Specialist / Computational Researcher	3	[#10] Specialists for high-performance computing, simulations and cloud/HPC operations.
Security Officer / MTF Agent	6	[#15] Armed/security personnel for custody of seized data and samples and facility protection.
Medical Officer	2	[#4] Medical staff for safe administration of Class-G amnestics and sedation support during field ops.
Administrative Staff	1	[#27] Program admin, procurement and coordination support.

📋 Confidence Notes

Many cost ranges in source notes are wide and dependent on strategic choices (e.g., whether to fund space assets or FTL missions). Estimates above take a moderate program posture; largest uncertainties are optional space/FTL expenditures and incident frequency/severity.

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