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SCP-7738 Uncontained ? low confidence
SCP-7738
Expected annual
$41.7M
One-time setup
$171.5M
Annual recurring
$37.2M
Personnel
59
Initial one-time investments (secure vaults, research setup, equipment and large contingency reserves) drive a very large up-front cost (~$171.5M). Recurring annual operations (monitoring, psychiatric care/quarantine, research, legal/PR, and rapid-response capabilities) are expected to be tens of millions per year (~$37.2M), with major outbreaks able to push costs into the hundreds of millions.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $171.5M
Outbreak Economic Contingency $100.0M
[#18] Contingency capital set aside for large metropolitan outbreak interventions and economic mitigation (planning-level figure; actual could be much higher).
Initial Research And Lab Setup $31.4M
[#3, #18, #22] Curriculum/simulation dev plus modeling/planning and initial tranche for long-term pharmacological/prophylactic R&D (highly uncertain multi-year program).
Reserve Fund $25.0M
[#30] Recommended flexible emergency reserve for rapid containment, acquisitions, and unpredictable expenditures.
Public Compensation Reserve $5.0M
[#17] One-time seed fund for high-profile compensation/resettlement if required.
Equipment $4.0M
[#1, #5, #14, #16] Hardened storage hardware and destruction equipment, memetic-countermeasure development (dev tooling), field fleet/equipment, and digital forensics tooling.
Facilities $2.6M
[#1, #6, #7, #28] Midpoint buildout costs for two regional secure archival vaults, two briefing/observation suites, quarantine conversion and physical security upgrades.
Legal Covert Payments Reserve $2.5M
[#13] One-time reserve for unpredictable covert/governmental payments as noted (midpoint of recommended contingency range).
Mass Fatality Initial Fund $1.0M
[#25] Initial planning/response fund for secure mortuary handling and immediate mass-fatality logistics.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $37.2M/yr
Staff Wages $6.1M/yr
[#2, #4, #7, #8, #13, #14, #16, #19, #21, #23, #24, #28] Salaries for psychiatrists, core memetics/analysis staff, field teams, legal staff, security, forensics, auditors and supporting operations.
Cover Story And Legal $4.4M/yr
[#12, #13, #29] PR/cover-story campaigns, legal liaison retainers, and funded influence/communications efforts (includes paid media and liaison activity).
Quarantine Care $4.0M/yr
[#7] Recurring cost for secure psychiatric quarantine beds and intensive 24/7 care for symptomatic patients (scale example: 20concurrent patients).
Research And Monitoring $3.0M/yr
[#4, #5, #10, #22] Ongoing memetics research program operating costs (lab/computation/IRB), countermeasure maintenance, and tooling for monitoring research.
Communications Black Ops $2.8M/yr
[#29] Targeted influence operations, covert personas and long-term narrative shaping (high-risk, contingent/incremental).
Opportunity Costs $2.5M/yr
[#26] Estimated productivity drag on institution (example: 5% loss on $50M R&D workforce).
Public Education Campaign $2.5M/yr
[#27] Carefully calibrated public messaging and behavioral testing if a controlled inoculation/education approach is chosen.
Insurance $1.8M/yr
[#20] Specialized policies and captive insurance premiums for operational and legal exposures where available.
Field Operations $1.4M/yr
[#14] Ongoing staffing and operational costs for mobile rapid-response containment teams (travel, equipment refresh, training).
Public Health Surveillance $1.2M/yr
[#11] Hotline, epidemiologist liaisons, and reporting mechanisms for detecting clusters and potential outbreaks.
Reserve Premium Key Staff $1.0M/yr
[#19] Premium/retainers to maintain redundancy of critical psych/memetics/ops personnel (~20% premium on a core specialist pool).
Active Internet Monitoring $925K/yr
[#10] OSINT tooling, automated scraping, NLP filtering and associated analyst costs for 24/7 external monitoring.
Rapid Takedown Retainer $725K/yr
[#9] Retainers and emergency takedown campaign budget for platform relations and incident response.
Classified Briefings $600K/yr
[#23] Secure interagency briefings, travel, and classified workshop costs.
Logistics And Transport $500K/yr
[#14, #15, #30] Secure courier operations, vehicle fuel/maintenance, rapid deployment logistics and transport readiness.
Legal Contingency Reserve $500K/yr
[#13] Annual reserve for unpredictable legal/liaison costs or small covert payments (operational contingency).
Public Compensation $500K/yr
[#17] Routine payments/resettlement and NDAs for individuals impacted by containment actions (excludes large contingency payouts).
Communication Monitoring $450K/yr
[#8] Enterprise DLP tooling and analyst/legal oversight for internal staff communications monitoring.
Digital Forensics Analysts $400K/yr
[#16] Analysts and capacity for forensic recovery, controlled sanitization and device handling.
Internal Auditing $375K/yr
[#21] Regular compliance audits, ethics oversight, and containment protocol reviews.
Evidence Collection $350K/yr
[#15] Secure courier runs, tamper-evident packaging, and chain-of-custody handling aggregated annually.
Supplies And Consumables $300K/yr
[#7, #15, #16] Medical supplies, psychotropic medications, tamper-evident packaging, and consumables for evidence neutralization/sanitization.
Red Team $300K/yr
[#24] Adversarial testing and social-engineering exercises to find leak vectors.
Facilities Maintenance $200K/yr
[#1, #28] Ongoing maintenance, TEMPEST/Faraday upkeep, and replacement cycles for secure archival and facility upgrades.
Access Screening $160K/yr
[#2] Psychiatric pre/post exposure screenings at $300/screen and associated admin/audit overhead.
Briefing Observation $150K/yr
[#6] Cost of controlled briefing suites and short-term observation for exposed personnel (clinical staff/facility usage averaged annually).
Mass Fatality Planning $100K/yr
[#25] Ongoing planning and small annual allocations for mortuary handling contingencies (larger costs are contingent).
Memetic Training $40K/yr
[#3] Annual delivery cost for memetic-resistance training (excluding trainer salaries assumed in staff_wages).
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $37.2M/yr
90.0% probability / year
Normal operational year with no major public leaks or outbreaks; routine monitoring, training, and containment posture only.
no major leaks routine exposures only steady-state monitoring
🚨 Minor Incident $40.2M/yr
8.0% probability / year +$3.0M vs baseline
Localized leak or targeted spread requiring emergency takedown campaign, increased PR/legal spend, and short-term surge in quarantine/observation.
targeted leak to public/social media limited cluster of symptomatic individuals rapid takedown and localized containment required
🚨 Major Outbreak $250.0M/yr
2.0% probability / year +$212.8M vs baseline
Widespread public dissemination leading to mass exposures, emergency large-scale quarantines, economic interventions, accelerated R&D, and substantial legal/PR operations.
widespread internet propagation multiple regional clusters failure of early takedown/containment
👥 Personnel 59 total
Role Count Notes
Research Scientist / Memeticist 10 [#4] Multi-disciplinary memetics research team (neuroscience, memetics, cognitive psychology, computational staff).
Security Officer / MTF Agent 15 [#28, #14] Guards and site security personnel for facilities housing quarantined individuals and secure archives.
Field Containment Team / Rapid Response 10 [#14] Trained mobile units for in-situ leak interception and rapid deployments.
Psychiatrist / Medical Officer 3 [#2, #6, #7] Intake and follow-up psychiatric screening as well as inpatient psychiatric care oversight.
Operations / Incident Response Analyst 6 [#8, #9, #10, #16] Analysts for DLP, takedown coordination, OSINT, digital forensics and incident response.
Legal / Governmental Liaison 3 [#13] Legal team for cover agreements, subpoenas, and liaison with government partners.
Administrative Staff 5 [#2, #21] Scheduling, records, audits, and admin support for screenings and oversight.
Engineer / IT (Forensics, DLP) 4 [#1, #5, #16] Technical staff for secure archival systems, countermeasure tooling and forensic toolchains.
Red Team / Adversarial Testing 2 [#24] Offensive testing and social-engineering teams to probe leak vectors.
Site Director / Executive Oversight 1 [#21, #23] Executive-level oversight, ethics liaison and interagency coordination.
📋 Confidence Notes
Many line items have wide ranges and hinge on whether public dissemination occurs. Large one-time contingency and outbreak costs are highly uncertain and scenario-dependent; memetic/epidemiological dynamics are poorly quantifiable from available information.
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