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SCP-838 Safe ~ medium confidence
SCP-838
Expected annual
$4.4M
One-time setup
$1.8M
Annual recurring
$4.3M
Personnel
16
Initial setup costs are approximately $1.77M driven by research lab setup, identity establishment, software and equipment purchases; recurring annual costs are approximately $4.30M driven primarily by staff wages, newspaper retainers, medical/amnestic expenses, and monitoring/rapid-response operations.
🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $1.8M
Long Term Research Fund $1.0M
[#26] Initial discretionary multi-year research fund to investigate origin/agency and develop countermeasures.
Initial Research And Lab Setup $300K
[#13] Sleep-lab equipment (EEG, polysomnography, MRI/fMRI access arrangements).
Public Relations Campaign $100K
[#11] One-time PR/cover campaign contingency budget.
Cover Identities $90K
[#2] Creation of legal paperwork, forged employment history, identity support and initial lawyer fees for 6 agents.
Monitoring Software Development $80K
[#5] One-time development of automated classifieds monitoring platform (scraping, OCR, pattern-matching).
Equipment $70K
[#9] Vehicles and field equipment purchase (2 cars, comms, portable scanners, peripherals).
Legal Escrow $50K
[#10] Emergency escrow fund for takedown settlements / fines.
Relocation And Integration $30K
[#3] Moving expenses, temporary housing, local networking, wardrobe and tech for 6 agents.
Safehouse Furnishing $15K
[#17] Furnishing for safehouse(s) (first-year furnishing costs).
Training Content $10K
[#19] One-time development of detection/training materials for newspaper staff.
Secure Storage Setup $10K
[#21] Initial secure server/setup for encrypted storage and backups.
Background Checks Initial $10K
[#22] Initial background-check/investigation setup costs for program (20 people at ~$500 each).
Facilities $0
[]
🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $4.3M/yr
Staff Wages $1.4M/yr
[#1, #7, #8, #14, #20] Salaries and benefits for operational staff: 6undercover agents, 2 moderators, 4 rapid-response operatives, 3 sleep-research staff, 1 online-monitoring analyst.
Newspaper Retainer $1.2M/yr
[#4] Optional/alternative monthly retainers to newspapers to pre-filter/block SCP-838 ad templates (estimate for 10 papers).
Contingency Reserve $561K/yr
[#25] Operational contingency/emergency reserve (≈15% of recurring operational spend).
Amnestics And Medical $500K/yr
[#15] Estimated amnestic/medical treatment & monitoring costs (assumes ~100 subjects/year at ~$5k average).
Research And Monitoring $302K/yr
[#6, #12, #21, #19, #22, #27, #18] Monitoring platform hosting/ops, forensic/investigative ops, secure storage hosting, training refreshers, recurring background reinvestigations, annual audits, and printed-material destruction.
Cover Story And Legal $175K/yr
[#10, #11] Legal retainer for NDAs/takedowns/litigation and ongoing PR/cover-story budget.
Welfare Transition Assistance $120K/yr
[#16] Short-term housing/stipends/job placement for affected individuals to avoid downstream public incidents.
Logistics And Transport $45K/yr
[#9, #24] Vehicle maintenance/fuel and travel/lodging/per-diem for outreach and takedowns.
Facilities Maintenance $36K/yr
[#17] Safehouse rent, utilities, and basic upkeep.
Supplies And Consumables $10K/yr
[#23] Consumables, office supplies, PPE, small hardware refresh.
⚡ Cost Scenarios
📊 Baseline (baseline) $4.3M/yr
85.0% probability / year
Normal year with routine monitoring, maintenance, and occasional takedown activity but no large-scale incidents.
routine_monitoring periodic_takedowns no_mass_publication
🚨 Minor Incident $4.6M/yr
12.0% probability / year +$300K vs baseline
Localized unauthorized publication requiring multiple emergency takedowns, increased legal fees and additional amnestic treatments.
single_mass_print_run unexpected_spike_in_respondents
🚨 Major Breach $5.8M/yr
3.0% probability / year +$1.5M vs baseline
Large-scale, multi-paper publication or coordinated online amplification causing mass respondent surge, significant legal exposure and major emergency response.
coordinated_mass_publication major_media_exposure
👥 Personnel 16 total
Role Count Notes
Undercover Agent / Classified-Section Manager 6 [#1] Agents placed in newspaper classified sections.
Human Moderator / Content Analyst 2 [#7] Analysts to triage automated flags and coordinate takedowns.
Rapid-Response Operative / Field Agent 4 [#8] Field team for physical removals and urgent takedowns (on-call).
Research Scientist / Technician 3 [#14] Sleep-research staff for diagnostics and studies.
Online Monitoring Analyst 1 [#20] Analyst to monitor online classifieds and social media.
📋 Confidence Notes
Estimates draw directly from analyst-provided ranges and midpoints; many items (newspaper retainers, subject counts, and contingency scaling) have wide ranges and an alternate containment strategy (agent insertion vs retainer) materially changes totals, so confidence is medium.
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