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SCP-7928 Ticonderoga1 ~ medium confidence
SCP-7928
Expected annual
$27.3M
One-time setup
$1.5B
Annual recurring
$21.6M
Personnel
35
Estimated initial capital expenditures ≈ $1.49B driven primarily by probe construction/launch, emergency/retrieval capability, and Tau‑Rho exclusion readiness; ongoing annual operations ≈ $21.6M driven by mission/research staffing, standby launch retainer, AI/telemetry maintenance, and secure archives/cybersecurity.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $1.5B
Emergency Retrieval Mission $500.0M
[#22] Cost to design/build/launch a dedicated retrieval mission if required (per-mission design/launch event cost estimated here as a one-time contingency item).
Equipment $406.0M
[#1, #3, #4, #9, #23, #24] Beholder-15 probe platform hardware ($300M), on-board power system ($50M), on-board spare parts & fabrication suite ($15M), AI hardware redundancies one-time hardware ($8M), monitoring redundancy mechanical observers ($30M), and specialized non-memetic sensors ($3M).
Tau Rho Exclusion Protocol $250.0M
[#18] One-time development/fielding of a low-to-moderate-cost Tau‑Rho Exclusion capability (modify existing launchers / small interceptor baseline option).
Launch And Delivery $150.0M
[#2] Heavy-lift launch and mission integration to place Beholder-15 on observing trajectory (single or multi-launch architecture).
Facilities $121.0M
[#5, #12, #21] Ground-segment construction ($20M), initial physical security/hardened control centers ($1M), and containment/escalation facility buildout ($100M).
Initial Research And Lab Setup $66.0M
[#8, #10, #11, #28] Binary_Star.aic development and formal verification ($60M), memetic/cognitohazard R&D lab setup ($5M), secure/physical archival initial setup ($0.5M), and long-term data integrity/key escrow initial setup ($0.5M).
Legal And Diplomatic Setup $250K
[#16] One-time legal/classification setup and contracts for international coordination and cover frameworks.
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $21.6M/yr
Staff Wages $5.5M/yr
[#7, #14, #12] Mission operations, engineering personnel and research team salaries (24/7 operations, memetics researchers, redundancy and rotation; includes some security staffing load).
Standby Launch Retainer $5.0M/yr
[#19] Contractual retainer to secure near-term heavy-lift launch availability on short notice (baseline retainer option chosen here).
Binary Star Maintenance $2.0M/yr
[#8] Ongoing maintenance, updates, verified-copy management and secure hardware refreshes for Binary_Star.aic instances and backups.
Cover Story And Legal $1.5M/yr
[#16, #17] Ongoing legal retainers, diplomatic coordination, crisis PR and disinformation/public narrative budgets for rapid response.
Research And Monitoring $1.4M/yr
[#10, #25] Ongoing memetic/cognitohazard research, testbeds, red-team simulations and protocol validation exercises.
Logistics And Transport $1.0M/yr
[#20] Interagency exercises, liaison operations and routine transport/logistics for coordination with military and partner agencies.
Contingency Reserve $1.0M/yr
[#27] Annual allocation to a liquid contingency fund to cover emergency launches, replacement probes, amnestic campaigns or legal settlements.
Telemetry And Bandwidth $1.0M/yr
[#6] DSN or equivalent bandwidth/telemetry time, data processing and archival for continuous monitoring.
Cybersecurity And It $800K/yr
[#13] Penetration testing, secure build pipelines, air-gap audits and IT operations for AI and mission code.
Ai Hardware Recurring $800K/yr
[#9] Power, security, refresh and colocation costs for isolated AI server farms and cold storage refresh cycles.
Facilities Maintenance $700K/yr
[#5, #12] Ground-segment and control-center maintenance, vault/Faraday-room upkeep and non-staff facility maintenance costs.
Supplies And Consumables $300K/yr
[#26] Office overhead, utilities, HVAC for control centers, general consumables and routine facilities overhead.
Staff Healthcare And Amnestics $300K/yr
[#15] Routine healthcare, counseling, and amnestic manufacture/storage and related medical contingency support for personnel.
Instrumentation Upgrades $200K/yr
[#24] Periodic upgrades, calibration and modest replacement cycles for memetic-safe sensors and non-visual instrumentation.
Secure Archival Maintenance $100K/yr
[#11, #28] Maintenance and periodic replication of offline physical archives and key escrow custodianship.
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $21.6M/yr
98.9% probability / year
Normal year with steady-state monitoring, AI upkeep, research, ground ops, and contingency reserve contributions; no major incidents or launches.
steady telemetry routine maintenance no hardware loss no Tau-Rho activation
🚨 Major Hardware Loss $491.6M/yr
1.0% probability / year +$470.0M vs baseline
Loss or catastrophic damage to Beholder-15 (mechanical failure, impact, or destruction) requiring probe replacement and re-launch.
probe destruction critical systems failure irreparable AI/hardware loss
🚨 Tau Rho Exclusion Activation $1.0B/yr
0.1% probability / year +$1.0B vs baseline
Activation of Tau‑Rho Exclusion Protocol due to an assessed 0.1% annual chance of SCP-7928 threatening Earth, triggering rapid neutralization/kinetic option.
confirmed Earth-threatening behavior Tau-Rho threat assessment exceed threshold decision to employ interceptor/kinetic option
👥 Personnel 35 total
Role Count Notes
Mission Controller / Flight Engineer 12 [#7] 24/7 operations center staffing (shift coverage for mission control and flight software engineers).
Research Scientist 10 [#14, #10, #25] Memetics researchers, linguists, psychologists and astrophysicists conducting transcript analysis, R&D and drills; rotation to limit exposure.
Security Officer / MTF Agent 6 [#12] On-site 24/7 physical security and hardened facility staffing.
Engineer / Maintenance 4 [#9, #3] Hardware maintainers and robotic/AI system engineers for probe support and AI hardware redundancies.
Administrative Staff 3 [#16, #20] Administrative, legal liaison and coordination personnel for interagency and cover-story operations.
📋 Confidence Notes
Analyst notes provide detailed line-item ranges allowing mid-range estimates, but wide ranges on major capital items (probe, launch, Tau‑Rho protocol) and organizational posture (whether to maintain a launch retainer or weaponized readiness) reduce precision; probabilities for adverse events are inferred from qualitative text.
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