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SCP-6947 Archon ~ medium confidence
SCP-6947
Expected annual
$2.2M
One-time setup
$16.5M
Annual recurring
$1.9M
Personnel
11
One-time setup and contingency reserves total approximately $16.53M, dominated by disclosure-response reserves, contingency facility and research project setup. Baseline recurring operations are estimated at $1.91M/year driven by research personnel, continuous monitoring (web/dark-web/IT), covert human assets, influence/PR operations, and off-books slush funds.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $16.5M
Facilities $5.1M
[#6, #14] Safehouse setup and optional crisis containment facility (isolation/hardening).
Disclosure Response Reserve $5.0M
[#23] Large fast-access reserve to mobilize emergency PR, legal action, asset seizures, and global misinformation push in case of major disclosure.
Initial Research And Lab Setup $3.6M
[#10, #18] Instrumentation/simulation costs for specialist research team and multi-year specialized monitoring R&D project.
Legal Settlement Reserve $1.0M
[#7] One-time contingency reserve for large legal settlements/fees if necessary.
Web Crawler Development $375K
[#1] One-time development of web crawlers, dark-web monitors, NLP models, and integration.
Assets Recruitment Setup $300K
[#4] Recruitment, false identities and placement fees for planted human assets (program-level setup).
Decommissioning And Data Sanitization $300K
[#25] One-time costs to archive/destroy sensitive data, reassign assets, and settle liabilities on project termination.
Financial Setup And Offbooks $275K
[#19] Legal/financial infrastructure, offshore accounts, and setup to enable covert payments.
Equipment $205K
[#5, #15] Vehicle/equipment for field team and secure communications hardware.
Vetting Infrastructure $125K
[#16] One-time vetting infrastructure and counter-insider technology setup.
Front Organization Setup $112K
[#17] One-time setup costs for front NGO/medical program/school registration and initial plausibility setup.
Mortuary Preparation Contracts $60K
[#13] Setup/contracts for emergency mortuary/biohazard teams and secure transport containers.
Records Fabrication And Identity Management $55K
[#8] Initial creation of plausible school/medical/civil records and any bribes/third-party placement fees.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $1.9M/yr
Staff Wages $980K/yr
[#4, #5, #10] Ongoing compensation for planted assets (stipends), field operatives (surveillance), and specialist research personnel.
Cover Story And Legal $250K/yr
[#3, #7, #17] Running costs for influence/disinformation programs, legal retainer for FOIA/subpoena response, and front-organization operating expenses.
Offbooks Slush Fund $200K/yr
[#19] Annual operational slush fund for covert payments, ad buys, and small rapid-response expenditures.
Research And Monitoring $195K/yr
[#2, #11, #24] Ongoing web-crawler/model operations, HPC/simulation time, and ethics/oversight support for research activities.
Facilities Maintenance $100K/yr
[#12] Proportional upkeep and maintenance for sites, safehouse readiness, and facility overhead.
Logistics And Transport $50K/yr
[#20] Travel, emergency extractions, couriers, and incident-related transport/accommodation.
Personnel Vetting Recurring $50K/yr
[#16] Recurring polygraph/psych evals, counterintelligence monitoring to mitigate insider risk.
Records Upkeep $25K/yr
[#8] Annual upkeep per identity for fabricated/maintained records.
Mortuary Event Reserve $20K/yr
[#13] Annual reserve/expectation for per-event secure retrieval/handling if needed.
Records Archival Services $20K/yr
[#21] Secure archival, redaction, and deletion services for investigative logs and leaked material.
Secure Comms Maintenance $10K/yr
[#15] Ongoing costs for encrypted comms, burner phone rotation, and monitoring tooling.
Public Health Community Mitigation $10K/yr
[#22] Community outreach, counseling, and small local mitigations to prevent panic on leaks.
Supplies And Consumables $0/yr
[]
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $1.9M/yr
92.0% probability / year
Normal, uneventful year: continuous monitoring, asset stipends, limited research and modest influence/cover operations.
no major leaks routine monitoring standard research cadence
🚨 Minor Incident $2.6M/yr
5.0% probability / year +$700K vs baseline
Localized leak or small public disclosure requiring accelerated PR, additional legal responses, and targeted asset activation.
small-scale leak targeted legal threat localized social media spike
🚨 Major Disclosure $10.9M/yr
3.0% probability / year +$9.0M vs baseline
Large-scale public disclosure or coordinated leak requiring full mobilization of disclosure reserve, large legal settlements, 24/7 close protection and global misinformation/PR campaign.
major media exposé court-ordered disclosures coordinated international leaks
👥 Personnel 11 total
Role Count Notes
Research Scientist 4 [#10] Specialist physicists/cosmologists/theoretical researchers (personnel costs included in staff_wages).
Security Officer / Field Operative 2 [#5] Low-profile physical monitoring operatives (surveillance, vehicle-based monitoring).
Planted Human Asset (cover) 4 [#4] Teachers/neighbors/pediatricians/online assets compensated as planted human assets (stipends included in staff_wages).
Administrative Staff / Site Coordinator 1 [#12] Administrative/overhead support covered within inter-site overhead.
📋 Confidence Notes
Estimates are based on analyst ranges in the dossier; many line items have wide ranges and conditional/reserve elements (legal settlements, disclosure reserves, optional facility construction) that produce high variability. Baseline operational recurring costs are reasonably well-constrained, but major scenarios have low confidence in exact magnitudes.
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