SCP-6077 — SCP-6077 | Cost Breakdown

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SCP-6077 Explained ~ medium confidence

SCP-6077

Expected annual

$21.1M

One-time setup

$600.6M

Annual recurring

$20.6M

Personnel

One-time establishment and contingency reserves dominate costs (total ~$600.7M), driven primarily by tachyon R&D, monitoring-site capital, and large contingency funds for disclosure response; recurring annual operations are substantial (~$20.6M/year) and driven by monitoring, staff wages, and information-control/legal operations.

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $600.6M

Catastrophic Disclosure Contingency $500.0M

[#30] Very large contingency reserve for worst-case public disclosure/global-scale mitigation planning (heads-of-state coordination, large security/posturing programs).

Tachyon Research And Prototype $40.0M

[#4] Full R&D program and prototype tachyon-capable receiver array, theoretical work, custom cryogenics and novel sensor prototyping.

Monitoring Site Capital $20.0M

[#5] Capital deployment for 2–6 geographically dispersed receiving stations (antennas, site prep, digitizers, infrastructure).

Crisis Contingency Reserve $20.0M

[#17] On-hand reserve for rapid-response PR, injunctions, emergency legal actions and urgent mitigation measures.

Retroactive Record Remediation $10.0M

[#13] One-time program to remove/redact historical public records from print and scanned archives across jurisdictions.

International Cooperation Incentives $5.0M

[#23] One-time incentives/payments to foreign agencies, observatories or governments to secure cooperation or silence.

Facilities $1.0M

[#2] Construction/upgrade of air-gapped, TEMPEST-rated vaults, suppression systems, Faraday cages and secure safes; capital buildout for hardened storage.

Compute And Storage $1.0M

[#8] Initial high-performance compute and secure SAN purchase for signal processing and archival searches.

Archival Deep Scan $1.0M

[#9] Initial large-scale retrospective search of historical radio/observatory datasets.

Private Collection Compensation $1.0M

[#28] Compensation/replacement costs for acquired or surrendered private collections to avoid legal issues.

Cybersecurity Initial $500K

[#10] Initial hardened OS images, signed update mechanisms, code audits and bespoke secure toolchain setup.

Personnel Vetting Initial $500K

[#11] Initial deep background checks and reinvestigations for core team and relevant personnel pool.

Dataset Remediation Initial $500K

[#25] Initial forensic-grade edits/replacements of compromised datasets and publications where feasible.

Initial Research And Lab Setup $150K

[#1] Secure archival retrieval, forensic imaging, cataloging and initial metadata work for decades of media.

Equipment $0

[]

🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $20.6M/yr

Research And Monitoring $6.2M/yr

[#6, #9, #29] Ongoing 24/7 monitoring array operations (power, cryogenics, telescope time), continuous automated archival scanning, and long-term rapid-response/watch-team maintenance.

Staff Wages $3.0M/yr

[#7] Salaries for core scientific, engineering, cryptography/linguistics and technical staff to analyze messages, validate transmissions and produce reports.

Covert Influence $2.0M/yr

[#16] Sustained covert influence/misinformation efforts to seed mundane explanations and fund friendly research.

Journalist Engagement Pool $2.0M/yr

[#18] Pool for discreet payments, source management and selective briefings to shape coverage.

Media Monitoring $1.5M/yr

[#12] Continuous global digital monitoring, takedown operations and content-removal tools/staff.

Cover Story And Legal $1.0M/yr

[#14] Retainers and baseline legal/litigation management, FOIA/secret filings and cover-story documentation.

Physical Security $1.0M/yr

[#20] On-site guards, biometrics, CCTV, patrols and emergency response coordination at analysis facilities.

Public Pr Campaign $1.0M/yr

[#27] Public-facing PR to normalize mundane-radio-anomaly narratives, conferences and placements.

Government Liaison $500K/yr

[#15] Ongoing liaison, classified briefings, travel and MOUs with national agencies and observatories.

Insurance And Indemnities $500K/yr

[#26] Insurance and escrow/indemnity payments to participating third-party institutions.

Cybersecurity Ongoing $300K/yr

[#10] Ongoing IDS, code audits, signed updates, and secure-software maintenance.

Amateur Outreach $300K/yr

[#19] Outreach, monitoring, and occasional incentives for amateur astronomy and radio communities.

Personnel Vetting Annual $250K/yr

[#11] Periodic reinvestigation and continuous monitoring costs for vetted personnel.

Compute And Storage $200K/yr

[#8] Power, maintenance and minor upgrades for GPU/CPU clusters and secure storage systems.

Psych Support $200K/yr

[#22] Psychological counseling and secrecy-maintenance training for staff exposed to material.

Red Team Audits $200K/yr

[#24] Regular penetration testing, simulated leak exercises and operational security audits.

Dataset Remediation Ongoing $200K/yr

[#25] Ongoing forensic edits and subtle dataset/publication maintenance where required.

Facilities Maintenance $100K/yr

[#3] Climate control, tape rotation, secure courier ops and physical security maintenance for archival storage.

Logistics And Transport $100K/yr

[#21] Secure transport, armored courier and destruction logistics for physical media movement and disposal.

Supplies And Consumables $0/yr

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Archival Searches $0/yr

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⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $20.6M/yr

94.5% probability / year

Normal year with no major leaks or incidents; standard monitoring, research and information-control operations only.

no_leaks routine_operations

🚨 Minor Incident $22.6M/yr

5.0% probability / year +$2.0M vs baseline

Localized leak or small public mention requiring targeted takedowns, legal surge, and selective journalist/source payments.

small_leak viral_social_post targeted_media_coverage

🚨 Major Breach $70.6M/yr

0.5% probability / year +$50.0M vs baseline

Significant public breach with extensive historical records needing retroactive remediation and use of crisis reserve; sustained PR/legal response required.

widespread_media_exposure major_archive_resistance international_attention

🚨 Catastrophic Disclosure $1.0B/yr

0.0% probability / year +$1.0B vs baseline

Full public disclosure or global-scale awareness necessitating national-level mitigation, international coordination and major security/posturing programs.

public_whistleblowing leak_to_major_broadcasters international_diplomatic_crisis

👥 Personnel 15 total

Role	Count	Notes
Research Scientist	4	Core astronomers and senior analysts responsible for signal analysis and scientific oversight [#7].
Engineer / Maintenance	3	Instrument, array and cryogenics engineers for monitoring sites and prototype hardware [#4, #5, #6].
Cryptographer / Linguist	3	Cryptanalysis and translation specialists for decoding messages and validating content [#7].
Technician / Lab Tech	3	Hands-on staff for archive restoration, media imaging and compute operations [#1, #8, #9].
Administrative Staff	1	Program admin and coordination for inter-agency liaison and logistics [#15].
Site Director / Executive Staff	1	Program leadership and decision authority for containment and disclosure responses [#14, #17].

📋 Confidence Notes

Analyst notes provide detailed line-item ranges for infrastructure, operations, and information-control, enabling a mid-confidence estimate for budgeting; however large uncertainty remains around tachyon R&D feasibility and the scale/cost of retroactive record-removal and crisis responses, which could be orders of magnitude larger.

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