← SCP Cost Explorer Read on SCP Wiki ↗
SCP-5896 Keter ~ medium confidence
SCP-5896
Expected annual
$21.5M
One-time setup
$27.4M
Annual recurring
$20.4M
Personnel
44
One-time capital costs are roughly $27.35M driven by cryogenic buildout, secure forensic/data hardware and a large incident response fund; recurring operations are roughly $20.38M/yr driven primarily by staff wages, cover-story/legal, data operations, incident readiness and disposal contracts.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $27.4M
Incident Response Fund $12.5M
[#20] One-time contingency set-aside for catastrophic breach/major remediation ($5M–$20M range; midpoint used).
Initial Research And Lab Setup $7.0M
[#11, #13] Secure forensic lab buildout and initial instrumentation (#11) plus large air-gapped storage/forensic compute procurement for controlled analysis (#13 hardware).
Facilities $6.0M
[#1] Custom construction of walk-in cryogenic rooms, racks, HVAC integration and security upgrades for storing 500 humanoid instances at ≤−47°C.
Equipment $1.2M
[#2, #4, #12] Redundant spare freezers/dewars and initial LN2 handling (#2), temperature/alarms/video systems (#4 systems), and specialized interfacing hardware/prototypes (#12).
Secure Transport Vehicles $450K
[#19] Two armored/secure refrigerated vans with cryo racks (capital purchase).
Training Development $150K
[#18] One-time development of SOPs and training materials specific to SCP-5896 handling.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $20.4M/yr
Staff Wages $5.4M/yr
[#6, #7, #8, #9, #10] 24/7 guard force and security staffing (#6), medical staff and site physician coordinator (#7), research staff and administrative support (#8), embedded field agents for interception/cover (#9), and SOC/cyber analysts (staff portion) (#10).
Cover Story And Legal $3.5M/yr
[#10, #16] Legal/PR retainers and takedown budget for digital remediation and cover story 34‑Zeta operations (#10 legal), plus ongoing reputation management and legal contingency (#16).
Program Overhead $2.7M/yr
[#25] Program-level administrative overhead (estimated at ~15% of direct recurring costs as ongoing management, audits and HR).
Incident Readiness $2.0M/yr
[#20] Annual readiness funding for rapid remediation, decontamination, equipment replacement and small‑scale incident exercises.
Settlements And Compensation $1.8M/yr
[#17] Reserve for family/next-of-kin compensation, off-book settlements and hush payments as needed.
Research And Monitoring $1.7M/yr
[#4, #13, #22] 24/7 monitoring contracts and telemetry response (#4 monitoring), data storage/compute operations for safe analysis (#13 ops), and long-term data containment/sanitization R&D (#22).
Disposal And Hazard Waste $1.2M/yr
[#14] Recurring contracts and per-unit disposal/transport for excised SCP-5896-2 (biohazard & data hazard) as contingency.
Insurance And Compliance $650K/yr
[#21] Insurance premiums, compliance consultants and regulatory overhead for deniable fronts and medical/biohazard operations.
Facilities Maintenance $550K/yr
[#3] Continuous power, ULT refrigeration, HVAC and generator fuel/service contracts and increased maintenance for cold‑room operations.
Logistics And Transport $350K/yr
[#5, #19] Standing retainer for cryogenic transport/transfer logistics (#5) plus drivers/maintenance for internal secure transport vehicles (#19 recurring).
Training And Ethics $250K/yr
[#18, #8] Recurring training, SOP refreshes and Ethics Committee retainer/meeting costs (development was one-time; execution is recurring).
Psychological Support $200K/yr
[#24] Counseling, rotation programs and debriefing to manage moral injury and reduce risk of misconduct.
Supplies And Consumables $100K/yr
[#23] PPE, sterilization and routine consumables for handling biological tissue and sampling.
Neurosurgery Program $0/yr
[#15] Surgical removal program is currently prohibited; literal enforcement would produce extremely large recurring costs (see scenario). Set to $0 in baseline recurring.
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $20.4M/yr
85.9% probability / year
Normal operational year with no major containment incidents; regular monitoring, maintenance, staff wages and contingency readiness only.
routine_operations scheduled_maintenance
🚨 Minor Incident $20.8M/yr
10.0% probability / year +$400K vs baseline
Single freezer outage or equipment failure requiring emergency transfers, repairs and per-incident logistics activation.
freezer_failure short_power_outage equipment_fault
🚨 Major Breach $25.4M/yr
4.0% probability / year +$5.0M vs baseline
Data exfiltration or public exposure event requiring large legal/PR response, settlements and major incident remediation.
public_exposure data_leak failed_containment
🚨 Surgical Policy Enforced $930.4M/yr
0.1% probability / year +$910.0M vs baseline
Policy reversal requires bi-weekly surgical removals of SCP-5896-2 from all hosts, producing extremely large recurring surgical and disposal costs.
policy_change ethics_override mass_surgical_program
👥 Personnel 44 total
Role Count Notes
Security Officer / MTF Agent 10 [#6] 24/7 armed/unarmed guards across 3 shifts (9–12 estimated; 10 used here).
Research Scientist 5 [#8] Researchers and administrative support (4–6 researchers + admin).
Medical Officer 3 [#7] 2 FTE medical technicians + 1 site physician coordinator for continuous monitoring and on-call specialists.
Embedded Field Agent 20 [#9] Agents embedded in retirement homes for interception and cover (20–50 regionally; practical minimum used).
Cybersecurity Analyst / SOC Analyst 6 [#10] Digital monitoring/takedown team analysts (6 analysts as estimated).
📋 Confidence Notes
Analyst notes provide detailed line items and ranges, allowing a reasoned mid-range estimate; significant uncertainty remains due to regional cost variation, incident frequencies, and low-probability high-cost policy/breach outcomes.
← SCP-5895 ↑ All SCPs SCP-5897 →