← SCP Cost Explorer Read on SCP Wiki ↗
SCP-5737 Explained ~ medium confidence
SCP-5737
Expected annual
$96.1M
One-time setup
$318.9M
Annual recurring
$93.9M
Personnel
29
One-time setup and strategic reserves are large (≈$319M), while annual operating costs are dominated by a sustained global "humanistic politics" program and influence operations (~$94M/yr). Major drivers: ongoing influence budgets, liaison/intelligence operations, amnestic programs, and an emergency contingency reserve.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $318.9M
Emergency Reserve $300.0M
[#11] Emergency rapid-response reserve / contingency fund for MK-Class escalation (strategic one-time allocation).
Equipment $10.1M
[#3, #10, #21, #24] Secure data infrastructure hardware/build ($#3), HPC/modeling platform hardware ($#10), document-destruction equipment ($#21), communications/hardening hardware ($#24).
Facilities $4.0M
[#4] Hardened secure facility construction/fit-out and initial installation.
Initial Research And Lab Setup $3.5M
[#13] Initial amnestic pharmaceuticals procurement, secure pharmacy setup, and one-time research into safer/cheaper amnestic protocols.
Decommissioning $1.0M
[#28] Decommissioning and legacy data migration plan (one-time controlled archiving/sanitization costs).
Vetting Setup $250K
[#23] One-time vetting program setup (polygraph/psych infrastructure, CI tooling).
Baseline Consolidation $0
[#29] Consolidation/illustrative summary only; no additional one-time cost allocated here.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $93.9M/yr
Humanistic Politics Program $50.0M/yr
[#6] Principal sustained grants/NGO/think-tank/cultural-program budget to bias political culture (baseline operational funding).
Covert Influence Budget $10.0M/yr
[#7] Covert influence and strategic communications (media buys, digital ops, micro-targeting) baseline.
Liaison And Containment $7.0M/yr
[#8] Regional liaison teams for identified GOIs (salaries, travel, safehouses, retainers).
Staff Wages $4.0M/yr
[#1, #2] Dedicated senior research team (6 specialists) and extended interdisciplinary staff (20 staff) salaries, benefits, and overhead.
Supplies And Consumables $3.1M/yr
[#5, #13, #21] Targeted amnesticization per-case program baseline, recurring pharmaceuticals procurement/QA, and annual document-destruction contracts.
Cover Story And Legal $3.0M/yr
[#12] Legal teams, government liaisons, cover-story management, litigation defense (baseline retainer).
Intelligence Collection $3.0M/yr
[#9] OSINT tooling, data licenses, HUMINT tasking reserves and analyst support (baseline).
Grants And Incentives $3.0M/yr
[#20] Grants to academic institutions for cover research and narrative seeding (baseline).
Physical Security $2.0M/yr
[#16] Guards, patrols, CCTV maintenance, intrusion detection for sites and regional safehouses.
Research And Monitoring $1.1M/yr
[#10, #19] Recurring HPC/compute/licensing costs for modeling and monitoring of cultural indicators/polling.
Data Infrastructure Ops $1.0M/yr
[#3] Recurring secure data infrastructure operations: cloud subscriptions, SIEM, key management, backups.
Public Relations $1.0M/yr
[#18] PR / counter-disinformation rapid-response team baseline.
Insurance And Reserves $1.0M/yr
[#22] Annual insurance premiums, indemnity pools, and small recurring reserve contributions.
Cultural Teams $1.0M/yr
[#26] Regional cultural/linguistic teams and advisors (travel, stipends) baseline.
Vetting And Counterintelligence $800K/yr
[#23] Recurring vetting, CI team operations, continuous personnel screening.
Facilities Maintenance $500K/yr
[#27] Site utilities and routine facilities maintenance (baseline).
Logistics And Transport $500K/yr
[#17] Safe transportation & secure logistics baseline (armored transport, couriers, vetted vendors).
Aftercare Program $500K/yr
[#14] Medical & psychiatric aftercare program for amnesticized individuals (baseline infrastructure and follow-up care).
Training Program $500K/yr
[#15] Recurring training delivery, exercises, and continuing education for operatives and medical staff.
Annual Audit $500K/yr
[#25] Annual ethics oversight, controlled external review panels and audits.
Communications Redundancy $400K/yr
[#24] Recurring satellite/leasing and redundancy services for EMP/blackout hardening.
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $93.9M/yr
88.5% probability / year
Normal operational year with ongoing mitigation, monitoring, and no major public exposures or MK-Class escalations.
no_major_exposure steady_program_operations
🚨 Minor Incident $98.9M/yr
8.0% probability / year +$5.0M vs baseline
Localized leak, small public exposure, or limited spike in expression requiring targeted response and extra amnestic/PR/legal costs.
targeted_leak localized_public_outcry whistleblower
🚨 Political Exposure $118.9M/yr
2.0% probability / year +$25.0M vs baseline
Significant political or diplomatic exposure requiring major cover-up payments, settlements, and expanded diplomatic/legal operations.
high_profile_exposure litigation_or_international_scandal
🚨 Major Breach $243.9M/yr
0.5% probability / year +$150.0M vs baseline
Large-scale escalation (widespread expression or coordinated events) forcing partial activation of the emergency reserve and global surge operations.
global_spike MK-class_escalation
🚨 Research Breakthrough Requiring Scale Up $143.9M/yr
1.0% probability / year +$50.0M vs baseline
Operational decision to rapidly scale influence and research programs due to a discovered high-risk vector or opportunity, increasing annual program spend.
new_high-risk_vector strategic_decision_to_scale
👥 Personnel 29 total
Role Count Notes
Research Scientist / Senior Research Team 6 [#1] Core senior scientists, sociologists, political scientists, and project managers (Level 4+ access).
Administrative Staff 3 [#1] Administrative and support staff included in the 20% overhead estimate for the senior team.
Analysts / Junior Researchers / Field Operatives 20 [#2] Extended interdisciplinary staff: intelligence analysts, social-media analysts, junior researchers, and field operatives.
📋 Confidence Notes
Estimates are based on analyst-provided ranges and a deliberate baseline selection; major uncertainties remain around the chosen scale of global influence programs, the true frequency of adverse exposures, and the preferred size of the emergency reserve, so figures are order-of-magnitude with moderate confidence.
← SCP-5736 ↑ All SCPs SCP-5738 →