← SCP Cost Explorer Read on SCP Wiki ↗
SCP-6098 Unknown ? low confidence
SCP-6098
Expected annual
$175.7M
One-time setup
$295.4M
Annual recurring
$75.0M
Personnel
87
Estimated upfront capital of roughly $295 million driven by site acquisition, lab/R&D setup, and a large contingency reserve; recurring annual costs are roughly $75 million, dominated by information-control (censorship/CI), specialized staff, monitoring, and rapid-response readiness.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $295.4M
Emergency Contingency Reserve $200.0M
[#16] Large reserved contingency fund intended for rapid global response / buyouts / government payments in worst-case leak scenarios (one-time reserve).
Initial Research And Lab Setup $58.8M
[#6, #8, #20, #23] Memetic-safe audiovisual/memetic quarantine suites and lab buildout, automated/safe-interaction R&D, environmental impact studies, and initial scientific exploitation program setup.
Facilities $30.0M
[#1] Site acquisition and initial construction for Secure Area-17: land purchase, earthworks to create/contain a lake, reinforced shoreline, perimeter fencing, guard towers, secure checkpoints, and hookups.
Equipment $5.6M
[#2, #5, #9] Hydrological fit-out (liner/pumps/etc.), unmanned monitoring platforms (buoys/ROVs/sonar/cameras), and secure media destruction hardware (shredders/incinerators).
Public Cover Setup $1.0M
[#13] One-time setup costs for shell organizations, registrations, PR and legal front identification for the public cover story.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $75.0M/yr
Global Information Control $20.0M/yr
[#14] Large-scale censorship and takedown program budget (monitoring, international takedowns, coordinated suppression to prevent knowledge proliferation).
Research And Monitoring $17.0M/yr
[#5, #6, #8, #17, #23] Ongoing costs for unmanned monitoring maintenance, memetics lab operations, automated interaction system upkeep, global freshwater monitoring programs, and operations for any scientific exploitation program.
Staff Wages $15.0M/yr
[#3, #4, #7, #15, #18] Fully loaded salaries & benefits for perimeter security guards, MTF/mobile response personnel, memetics/R&D specialists, cybersecurity/digital-forensics team, and protective detail/loyalty assessment staff.
Emergency Contingency Replenishment $10.0M/yr
[#16] Annual replenishment allocation to maintain the emergency contingency reserve after any drawdowns.
Cover Story And Legal $6.0M/yr
[#12, #13, #19, #20, #22] Annual costs for record/identity falsification, public-cover maintenance, compensation/indemnities for cooperating officials, environmental compliance fees, and insurance/legal defense funds.
Internal Opsec Counterintelligence $6.0M/yr
[#10] Continuous internal counterintelligence/OPSEC program: SIGINT monitoring, audits, insider-threat detection, honeypots and vetting.
Logistics And Transport $500K/yr
[#11, #24] Per-year expected spend on termination/MTF deployments, travel, on-site forensic cleanup and per-event media remediation (aggregated per-year estimate based on plausible incident frequency).
Facilities Maintenance $400K/yr
[#2, #21] Ongoing hydrological/site maintenance (water control, pumps, generator fuel and basic site upkeep).
Supplies And Consumables $150K/yr
[#9] Consumables for media handling and secure destruction (physical media disposal supply costs, consumable spares).
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $75.0M/yr
89.0% probability / year
Normal, uneventful year with ongoing monitoring, CI, and routine operations but no major leaks or containment incidents.
no public leaks routine staff turnover only regular monitoring/maintenance
🚨 Minor Incident $76.2M/yr
10.0% probability / year +$1.2M vs baseline
Localized breach or personnel interaction requiring termination, targeted remediation, and increased short-term CI activity.
single-site unauthorized interaction localized media leak small MTF deployment and remediation
🚨 Major Breach $125.0M/yr
1.0% probability / year +$50.0M vs baseline
Significant leak attracting national attention requiring large-scale MTF mobilization, heavy censorship, and major legal/cover expenditures.
high-profile public disclosure multiple copies of cognitohazardous media nation-scale remediation/censorship effort
🚨 Catastrophic Spread $1.0T/yr
0.0% probability / year +$999.9B vs baseline
Widespread public knowledge leads to appearance of instances globally in lakes; response would require national/multinational military, ecological interventions, and global censorship.
global public disclosure multiple simultaneous occurrences in many jurisdictions
👥 Personnel 87 total
Role Count Notes
Security Officer / MTF Agent 40 [#3] Perimeter security guards (24/7 coverage) — chosen number within analyst 25–50 range.
Mobile Response / MTF Detachment 20 [#4] Standby tactical response team (salaries/equipment included in staff_wages).
Research Scientist / Memeticist 15 [#7] Memetics/R&D specialists and cognitive hazard analysts (chosen within 10–30 range).
Cybersecurity / Digital-Forensics 8 [#15] Digital forensics and takedown specialists.
Protective Detail / O5 Security 4 [#18] Personal protective detail, medical/psych assessments for O5-level interlocutor.
📋 Confidence Notes
Estimates combine stated ranges from analyst notes and rough operational assumptions (incident rates, staff sizes, and how programs are partitioned). Many costs hinge on unknowns (incident frequency, political responses, and feasibility of censorship), so uncertainty is high and estimates are coarse.
← SCP-6097 ↑ All SCPs SCP-6099 →