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SCP-6524 Euclid ~ medium confidence
SCP-6524
Expected annual
$386.2M
One-time setup
$35.2B
Annual recurring
$361.2M
Personnel
115
One-time upfront costs for full physical containment and human missions dominate (tens of billions). Baseline ongoing operations (AI hosting, data suppression, life-support/resupply) run on the order of a few hundred million USD per year, with life-support/resupply and secrecy overhead as the largest recurring drivers.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $35.2B
Human Crewed Expedition $20.0B
[#13] One-time cost for a single human landing and return expedition (habitat, life support, ascent vehicle, training) if undertaken.
Facilities $11.0B
[#12, #14] Construction and site-preparation on Mars: robotic excavation/site preparation (#12) and permanent base/containment facility construction (#14).
Launch Program Initial $2.0B
[#11] Initial program-level launch procurement for establishing baseline Mars lift capability (multiple launches).
Equipment $1.3B
[#8, #10, #15] Space-rated hardware: robotic mission platforms/landers/rovers (#8), specialized communications relays/orbiters (#10), and on-site power hardware/RTG/reactor hardware (#15).
Contingency Reserve $500.0M
[#21] One-time planetary-scale emergency contingency reserve (fund set aside for extreme operations or surge missions).
Launch Per Launch $300.0M
[#11] Typical commercial launch acquisition cost per Foundation payload to Mars (per-launch).
Alter Planned Mission Per Mission $30.0M
[#7] Per-affected-mission diversion cost (covert hacking, bribery, or funding alternative payloads) — per-mission estimate.
Ppe Biomedical Deployment $30.0M
[#17] One-time design/deployment of specialized PPE, biomedical containment and quarantine hardware for Mars operations.
Initial Research And Lab Setup $20.0M
[#9] Secure Earth-side research & analysis infrastructure one-time setup (labs, secure servers, sealed archives, BSL wet-lab modifications).
Binary Star Development $20.0M
[#1] One-time development cost for Binary Star (design, malware, red-teaming, backdoors).
Covert Ground Access One Time $20.0M
[#3] One-time costs to establish covert access/contracts/bribes/purchases for non-Foundation ground stations/operators.
Mercy Development $5.0M
[#2] One-time development and initial hosting setup for Mercy AIC.
Legal Crisis Fund $5.0M
[#20] One-time contingency legal/diplomatic/crisis fund for major cases.
Archival Tooling $5.0M
[#22] One-time tooling and contracts for long-term archival redaction and data-sanitization tooling.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $361.2M/yr
Supplies And Consumables $200.0M/yr
[#16] Life-support consumables and resupply logistics (food, oxygen, medical supplies, launch resupply cadence) for any staffed presence; baseline resupply budget.
Strategic Secrecy Overhead $60.2M/yr
[#23] Strategic secrecy / cover organization overhead (20% applied to recurring program budget as administrative and covert funding overhead).
Staff Wages $25.0M/yr
[#4, #6, #9, #18, #19] Annual wages for research scientists, cyber/security staff, AIC operatives, analysts, and supporting personnel.
Cyber Operations $12.0M/yr
[#4] Offensive and defensive cyber tooling, infrastructure, and operations budgets (non-wage).
Facilities Maintenance $10.0M/yr
[#12, #14] Annual maintenance and sustainment for constructed Mars site and Earth-side secure facilities.
Logistics And Transport $10.0M/yr
[#11, #12] Annual logistics, launch support coordination, and transport ops (not counting per-launch procurement).
Specialized Comm Ops $10.0M/yr
[#10] Operations and bandwidth costs for specialized Mars comm relays/operational satellites.
Public Disinfo $8.0M/yr
[#5] Annual global content takedown, media buys, and disinformation operations (baseline).
Research And Monitoring $6.0M/yr
[#2, #9, #18] Ongoing research program costs and secure research operations, hosting of Mercy telemetry, and analysis budgets.
Power Operations $5.0M/yr
[#15] Operations and maintenance for on-site power systems (reactor/RTG arrays).
Covert Ground Access Ops $3.0M/yr
[#3] Ongoing relationship/contract fees or retainers with non-Foundation ground-station operators.
Cover Story And Legal $2.0M/yr
[#5, #20] Ongoing public information suppression, legal teams, and cover-story operations (baseline monitoring/takedowns/legal retainers).
Binary Star Ops $2.0M/yr
[#1] Ongoing Binary Star maintenance, opsec, updates, secure comms and operational monitoring (non-wage ops budget).
Medical Surveillance $2.0M/yr
[#17] Ongoing biomedical monitoring, quarantine upkeep, and medical surveillance for Mars operations.
Security Ops $2.0M/yr
[#19] Annual operations budget for security personnel and contingency response teams (excluding baseline wages captured in staff_wages).
Archival Ops $2.0M/yr
[#22] Ongoing archival monitoring, takedown operations, and tooling maintenance for record sanitization.
Mercy Hosting $1.0M/yr
[#2] Hosting, redundant compute, archival storage and secure uplink costs for Mercy.
Mission Monitoring $1.0M/yr
[#6] Monitoring incoming scientific proposals, mission planning, and liaison activities.
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $361.2M/yr
88.9% probability / year
Normal, uneventful year with routine monitoring, AI hosting, data suppression, and resupply operations.
routine monitoring regular resupply ongoing data suppression
🚨 Minor Incident $411.2M/yr
10.0% probability / year +$50.0M vs baseline
Localized exposure or media crisis requiring emergency takedowns, legal action, and limited technical response.
viral amateur image or publication small-scale breach of telemetry legal subpoena requiring response
🚨 Major Breach $861.2M/yr
1.0% probability / year +$500.0M vs baseline
Significant containment compromise or discovery requiring robotic intervention, large-scale covert mission diversion, or rapid orbital deployment.
high-profile mission targets SCP coordinates successful independent imaging loss of ground-station control
🚨 Catastrophic Breach Human Response $15.4B/yr
0.1% probability / year +$15.0B vs baseline
Full-scale exposure or change in containment posture requiring a human-crewed mission and base construction for direct containment.
widespread disclosure SCP requires physical human containment routine Mars access by civilians forces physical containment
👥 Personnel 115 total
Role Count Notes
Research Scientist 30 [#9,#18] Analysts, astrophysicists, xenobiologists and lab researchers supporting analysis and sample research.
Cyber Operations Specialist 20 [#1,#4] Offensive/defensive cyber team maintaining Binary Star, covert access, and counter-forensics.
Engineer / Maintenance 10 [#8,#10,#15] Engineers for spacecraft, communications, power, and remote hardware maintenance.
Security Officer / MTF Agent 15 [#19] Earth-side security and contingency response personnel; Mars security integrated into expedition staffing when required.
Administrative Staff 10 [#20,#22] Legal liaisons, cover-org administration, and archival/takedown coordinators.
AIC Operator / AI Engineer 8 [#1,#2] Operators and engineers maintaining Binary Star and Mercy AICs.
Medical Officer 4 [#17] Biomedical monitoring and quarantine protocol staff.
Site Director / Executive Staff 2 [#12,#14] Program leadership and executive coordination for Mars operations and strategic decisions.
Logistics / Launch Coordination 6 [#11,#16] Launch procurement, resupply and logistics planners.
Data / Archive Specialist 10 [#22,#5] Archival sanitization, monitoring, and takedown operations staff.
📋 Confidence Notes
Estimates combine concrete programmatic items (launchs, habitat) with highly uncertain cyber/covert costs; ranges were broad in source notes and many choices (hack vs purchase, per-mission frequency) materially affect totals.
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