SCP-898 — SCP-898 | Cost Breakdown

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SCP-898 Safe ~ medium confidence

SCP-898

Expected annual

$4.4M

One-time setup

$1.7M

Annual recurring

$4.3M

Personnel

Initial capital and buildout are roughly $1.72M one-time, driven by specialized containment, IT/AV and security infrastructure; ongoing annual costs run about $4.10M driven by staff salaries, ongoing R&D, secure information operations, and contingency/reserve funding.

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $1.7M

Facilities $300K

[#1] Dedicated containment room (sensory-isolation suite) buildout and structural work.

Info Security Install $250K

[#11] Hardened vault/air-gapped server and physical/digital secure storage (one-time install).

It Av Development $200K

[#24] Development/deployment of memetic IT/AV filtering tools (one-time development cost).

Psychological Aftercare Seed Fund $200K

[#28] Seed fund for psychological aftercare, compensation and relocation (one-time seed).

Incident Response Setup $150K

[#17] Incident response team setup, equipment, transport vehicles and training (one-time setup & training).

Hvac And Scent Control $125K

[#2] High-grade HVAC, molecular filters and scent-control installation (one-time portion).

Equipment $80K

[#5] Specialized PPE kits and related experimental handling hardware.

Acoustic Isolation $80K

[#3] Soundproofing / anechoic treatment installation (one-time portion).

Initial Research And Lab Setup $75K

[#6] Neurophysiology monitoring equipment (EEG rigs, wearable monitors) initial purchase and lab workstations.

Generator And Backup Power Install $75K

[#25] UPS/backup generator and install (one-time capital).

Visual Containment Systems $60K

[#4] Faraday/blackout curtains, bonded glass and camera/filter hardware (one-time portion).

Initial Training Program $60K

[#18] Initial memetic-safety training and certification for access pool (one-time initial program costs).

Archiving Setup $50K

[#26] Long-term air-gapped archival setup / cold-storage (one-time).

Emergency Medical Kit $12K

[#16] Emergency medical supplies & pharmaceuticals initial kit (one-time).

🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $4.3M/yr

Staff Wages $1.8M/yr

[#8, #9, #10, #12] Salaries for research staff (3 senior researchers + 2 lab techs), psychiatric/medical coverage, security staffing and data-redaction/administrative personnel.

Research And Monitoring $1.1M/yr

[#6, #7, #20, #21, #26] Ongoing R&D and countermeasure maintenance, contracted neuroimaging scanner time, controlled testing programs, neuro-monitoring calibration and archival integrity checks.

Cover Story And Legal $200K/yr

[#13] Legal, cover-up, disinformation and counsel budget for sustained plausible cover and crisis PR.

Contingency Reserve $200K/yr

[#30] Reserve fund for catastrophic scenarios, legal payouts and large containment actions.

Info Security Maintenance $150K/yr

[#11] Recurring monitoring, patches, and personnel costs for secure servers and continuous leakage monitoring.

Opportunity Cost Restricted Personnel $112K/yr

[#29] Productivity and opportunity-cost premium for restricting experiments to Level-3+ staff (approx. 15% of project staff cost).

Oversight And Compliance $100K/yr

[#14] Containment protocol development, compliance audits, overseer-level review and interdepartmental coordination costs.

Incident Response Operational $100K/yr

[#17] Standby operational costs for rapid-extraction/response team (vehicles, consumables, readiness).

Liability And Insurance $100K/yr

[#19] Institutional liability, IRB-style oversight and insurance costs.

Containment Breach Simulation $100K/yr

[#27] Annual full-scale containment-breach simulation and audit exercises.

Media And Black Site Logistics $60K/yr

[#22] Travel, per diem, and logistics costs to maintain plausible off-site cover locations.

It Av Maintenance $50K/yr

[#24] Ongoing maintenance and updates for memetic filtering software and AV tools.

Energy And Utilities $50K/yr

[#25] Increased power/utility costs for HVAC, monitoring and imaging; fuel/UPS support.

Psychological Aftercare Replenishment $50K/yr

[#28] Yearly replenishment for aftercare, therapy and compensation reserves.

Facilities Maintenance $40K/yr

[#1] General maintenance, decontamination, and upkeep of containment suite and physical plant.

Annual Training Recerts $30K/yr

[#18] Annual recertification, simulation drills and required training refreshers.

Secure Disposal $20K/yr

[#23] Incineration, certified destruction and disposal of contaminated media.

Supplies And Consumables $15K/yr

[#15] Filters, gloves, gowns, single-use items and other consumables.

Archiving Maintenance $15K/yr

[#26] Integrity checks and recurring storage costs for long-term archival copies.

Hvac Maintenance $12K/yr

[#2] Maintenance and filter replacement for HVAC/scent-control systems.

Emergency Medical Replenishment $6K/yr

[#16] Replenishment of emergency medical supplies and pharmaceuticals.

Ppe Replacement $5K/yr

[#5] Consumables/replacement parts for specialized PPE kits.

Acoustic Maintenance $3K/yr

[#3] Maintenance/calibration for acoustic suppression systems.

Visual Maintenance $3K/yr

[#4] Maintenance for visual containment systems and memetic-safe displays.

Logistics And Transport $0/yr

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Countermeasure R And D $0/yr

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Controlled Testing Program $0/yr

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⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $4.3M/yr

83.0% probability / year

Uneventful year with standard operations, scheduled research and normal maintenance.

routine_operations scheduled_research no_incidents

🚨 Minor Incident $4.4M/yr

15.0% probability / year +$85K vs baseline

Limited memetic activation affecting a small number of staff or isolated leakage requiring rapid-response, medical care and modest legal/PR mobilization.

partial_memetic_activation single_staff_exposure local_leak

🚨 Major Breach $5.9M/yr

2.0% probability / year +$1.6M vs baseline

Significant auto-activation or multi-person exposure requiring major containment overhaul, large legal payouts, public-disinformation effort and elevated R&D.

auto-activation_loop simultaneous_multiple_exposures public_exposure

👥 Personnel 22 total

Role	Count	Notes
Research Scientist	3	Senior neuroscientists / memetics specialists (level-3+); part of research staff budget. [#8]
Lab Technician	2	Laboratory technicians for monitoring and experiments. [#8]
Psychiatric/Medical Staff	2	On-call psychiatrists, trauma counselors and medics covered by medical staff budget. [#9]
Security Officer / MTF Agent	12	Cleared guards for 24/7 security and access control (rotational staffing). [#10]
Administrative Staff	2	Data redaction, records control and administrative/legal staff controlling memetic documentation. [#12]
Site Director / Executive Staff	1	Oversight-level approvals and coordination; included in containment oversight budget. [#14]

📋 Confidence Notes

Analyst notes provide detailed line-item ranges allowing informed point estimates, but memetic unpredictability, incident frequency and research intensity introduce substantial uncertainty in recurring costs and contingency sizing.

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