SCP-8637 — SCP-8637 | Cost Breakdown

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SCP-8637 Decommissioned ~ medium confidence

SCP-8637

Expected annual

$19K

One-time setup

$275K

Annual recurring

$14K

One-time decommissioning and analysis costs are estimated at $274,550 (driven primarily by potential physical body handling, contingency, R&D and specialist analyses). Recurring baseline costs are modest at $14,000/year, driven by monitoring, evidence storage, training and insurance.

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $275K

Physical Body Handling $100K

[#12] Locate, dismantle, sanitize, store or destroy artificial body (advanced humanoid-grade handling & hazardous disposal).

Contingency Fund $50K

[#19] Reserve fund for emergent response (MTF mobilization, emergency isolation).

R And D Follow On $40K

[#20] Budget for potential controlled R&D if safe algorithms/components are salvaged.

Ml Researcher Ai Code Review $20K

[#4] ML researcher/engineer time for code/model/weights review and sandboxed dynamic analysis.

External Contractor Escalation $20K

[#24] External forensics/contractor escalation if analysis becomes complex or evasive code is present.

Backup Replica Purge $8K

[#8] Discovery and purge of backups/replicas across servers/cloud/offsite tapes.

Legal Cover And Pr $8K

[#17] Legal review and cover-story/PR coordination, including external counsel if engaged.

Digital Forensics Labor $6K

[#3] Senior digital forensics specialist labor to image and analyze the drive.

Initial Research And Lab Setup $3K

[#2] Air-gapped forensic lab reservation and room security for analysis duration.

Records Redaction And Deletion Admin $3K

[#9] Administrative work to remove/redact records, ensure legal sign-off and destroy exported copies.

Memetic Safety Review $3K

[#10] Memetic / safety specialist consultation on deletion steps and cover text.

Sandbox And Tooling $2K

[#5] Ephemeral instrumented sandbox build/compute hours and malware-analysis tooling licenses.

Verification Audit $2K

[#7] Independent verification that wiping/destruction removed all recoverable remnants.

Facilities $2K

[#14] Initial cost for securing evidence vault/space and any site modifications for retained artifacts.

Admin Coordination Overtime $2K

[#11] Overtime/coordination costs for time-sensitive deletion across IT, security, legal and archives.

Mental Health Ethics Debrief $2K

[#18] Counseling for staff and ethics committee debriefing/record handling.

Audit Log Initial $2K

[#21] Initial immutable audit log retention and compliance costs to prove deletion and chain-of-custody.

Hazardous Material Disposal $1K

[#13] E-waste, battery and chemical actuator hazardous disposal in accordance with regs.

Data Sanitization $700

[#6] Secure wiping, degaussing or physical destruction and certificate of destruction.

Transport And Chain Of Custody $650

[#1] Secure pickup and transport of the flash drive (vehicle, PPE, evidence-tech time).

Consumables And Minor Hardware $200

[#22] Replacement flash drive, write-blockers, anti-static bags, evidence envelopes and lab consumables.

Equipment $0

[]

🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $14K/yr

Research And Monitoring $7K/yr

[#15] Ongoing network/endpoint monitoring, SIEM/IDS subscriptions and triage tools (tools portion).

Cover Story And Legal $3K/yr

[#23] Insurance/institutional risk allocation and recurring legal/OPSEC overhead.

Facilities Maintenance $2K/yr

[#14] Annual evidence vault/evidence storage fees (monthly storage for retained artifacts).

Policy And Training Refresher $1K/yr

[#16] Annual SOP updates and staff refresher training for handling decommissioned AIs.

Audit Log Retention $600/yr

[#21] Ongoing costs to maintain immutable logs for compliance/audit.

Staff Wages $0/yr

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Supplies And Consumables $0/yr

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Logistics And Transport $0/yr

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⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $14K/yr

90.0% probability / year

Normal year with no major incidents; only recurring monitoring, storage, training, audit and insurance expenses.

no_incident standard_maintenance

🚨 Minor Incident $34K/yr

8.0% probability / year +$20K vs baseline

Discovery of distributed replicas or backups requiring extended purge, verification audit and limited external support.

replica_discovery cloud_snapshot_presence partial_purge_needed

🚨 Major Incident $201K/yr

2.0% probability / year +$187K vs baseline

Re-activation or hazardous hardware incident requiring full dismantling, hazardous disposal, external contractors and contingency response.

hardware_reactivation hazardous_disposal emergency_response

📋 Confidence Notes

Analyst notes provide granular line-item ranges for all actions; however many large items are conditional (body handling, deep backups, R&D, contingency use) which creates uncertainty in one-time totals and scenario probabilities.

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