SCP-5920 — SCP-5920 | Cost Breakdown

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SCP-5920 Safe ~ medium confidence

SCP-5920

Expected annual

$10.8M

One-time setup

$63.0M

Annual recurring

$10.6M

Personnel

Initial capital expenditure is large (primarily imaging, compute, custom anomalous hardware and contingency reserves) while annual operations are driven by specialized personnel, ongoing R&D, legal/cover operations and high-security monitoring. One-time capital estimated at ~$63.05M and recurring operating costs at ~$10.59M/yr.

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $63.0M

Worst Case Reserve $50.0M

[#30] Low-probability, high-cost reserve for full public-containment, large-scale legal settlements, and federal-level responses.

Equipment $6.7M

[#2, #3, #4, #5, #7, #14, #15] fMRI installation, electrophysiology/neurosurgical rigs, core replication hardware/transducers, HPC/storage racks, initial cybersecurity hardware rollout, AV playback room setup, and initial archival hardware.

Containment Breach Reserve $3.0M

[#20] One-time rapid-response / emergency reserve for quarantine, isolation, extra imaging and emergency staffing.

Facilities $1.3M

[#1, #6] Includes Suite 908A build-out (shielded lab, HVAC/UPS/generator top-up) and additional electrical/cooling infrastructure.

Decommissioning And Destruction $1.1M

[#27] Certified destruction, data erasure and structural remediation costs for end-of-life/project closure.

Vendor Control Initial $625K

[#26] Initial contracting, tooling and secure procurement setup for paratech components and black-budget vendors.

Initial Research And Lab Setup $300K

[#16, #17] Development of intensity-quotient measurement system and initial memetic-team tools/training.

🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $10.6M/yr

Research And Monitoring $1.9M/yr

[#22] Ongoing R&D to improve extraction fidelity, decode algorithms, software and wet-lab pilot studies.

Ancillary Public Health $1.8M/yr

[#28] Contingency line for public-health / PR liability mitigation (screening clinics, reimbursements) treated as recurring contingency.

Staff Wages $1.6M/yr

[#9] Core project research team salaries (project lead, neuroscientists, engineers, data scientists, lab technicians, admin).

Mtf Alpha1 Staffing $1.0M/yr

[#10] Salaries, hazard pay and specialized training costs for assigned MTF Alpha-1 operators/testers.

Security Personnel $850K/yr

[#11] Dedicated armed guards and access control staff for 24/7 coverage of Suite 908A.

Cover Story And Legal $625K/yr

[#18] Legal defense, cover stories, FOIA/PR budgets, vendor obfuscation and limited disinformation operations.

Medical Monitoring $625K/yr

[#12] Ongoing neuropsych screens, MRI follow-ups, psychiatric care and long-term monitoring costs for exposed personnel.

Supplies And Consumables $350K/yr

[#13] Per-test disposables (sterile kits, electrodes, reagents), replacement transducer parts and calibration consumables.

Cybersecurity Operations $350K/yr

[#8] 24/7 SOC, patching, audits, privileged-access management and incident response dedicated to Project AURUM SILKWORM.

Memetic Team $300K/yr

[#17] Ongoing memetic hazard mitigation staffing (memeticists, cognitive scientists) and content-review operations.

Personnel Retention And Hr $300K/yr

[#24] Retention bonuses, pension liabilities, reassignment/administrative overhead due to restricted transfers.

Facilities Maintenance $240K/yr

[#25, #29] Energy and utilities for 24/7 imaging/compute plus miscellaneous operational overhead (facility admin, janitorial, shipping, small tools).

Vendor Control Ongoing $200K/yr

[#26] Ongoing secure procurement premiums, vetted contractors and black-budget overhead.

Training And Certification $150K/yr

[#23] Initial and periodic retraining, simulated exposures, emergency drills and required certifications.

Logistics And Transport $125K/yr

[#19] Secure transport, armored couriers, tamper-evident containers and internal movement teams.

Decontamination And Waste Disposal $85K/yr

[#21] Hazardous and biohazard waste disposal for implants, tissue, contaminated disposables and reagents.

Audiovisual Ops And Licenses $65K/yr

[#14] Operational costs and software licenses for media conversion, redaction tools and secure playback workflows.

Archival Maintenance $50K/yr

[#15] Maintenance, rotation and integrity verification for air-gapped archives and off-site vaults.

Intensity Measurement Calibration $50K/yr

[#16] Annual calibration, QA and protocol validation for the intensity-quotient measurement system.

⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $10.6M/yr

87.9% probability / year

Normal operational year with no major incidents; recurring costs only.

routine_research scheduled_tests no_breach

🚨 Minor Incident $11.1M/yr

10.0% probability / year +$500K vs baseline

Limited equipment failure, small data leak, or localized medical incident requiring replacements and extra medical/legal resources.

equipment_malfunction limited_data_exfiltration localized_medical_treatment

🚨 Major Breach $15.6M/yr

2.0% probability / year +$5.0M vs baseline

Containment breach or significant information leak requiring emergency response, larger legal action, staff replacements and scaled remediation.

containment_breach widespread_data_leak multi-staff_exposure

🚨 Catastrophic Public Exposure $110.6M/yr

0.1% probability / year +$100.0M vs baseline

Large-scale public leak or duplicative-media release causing mass psychological effects and requiring federal-level containment and massive remediation.

public_media_leak mass_memetic_incidents major_litigation_and_quarantine

👥 Personnel 51 total

Role	Count	Notes
Project Lead	1	[#9] Senior project lead overseeing AURUM SILKWORM.
Research Scientist	3	[#9] Senior neuroscientists for experimental design and analysis.
Software/ML Engineer	3	[#9] Engineers for neural decoding, media synthesis and tool development.
Data Scientist	2	[#9] Data scientists supporting model training and validation.
Lab Technician	3	[#9] Technical staff for procedures, instrumentation and sample handling.
Project Manager / Administrative Staff	1	[#9] Administrative and project coordination roles.
MTF Alpha-1 Operator / MTF Agent	12	[#10] Assigned operators/testers drawn from MTF Alpha-1; participation codified as membership requirement.
Security Officer / Armed Guard	20	[#11] Dedicated guards for 24/7 coverage of Suite 908A (18–24 typical).
Memeticist / Content Reviewer	4	[#17] Specialists to pre-screen media and administer memetic mitigation protocols.
Medical Officer	2	[#12] Medical staff for monitoring, screenings and acute care for exposed personnel.

📋 Confidence Notes

Detailed line-item ranges provided in analyst notes allow mid-point estimates for most categories, but anomalous/paratech procurement, memetic hazard severity and worst-case tail risks carry significant uncertainty.

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