SCP-9320 — SCP-9320 | Cost Breakdown

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SCP-9320 Unknown ✓ high confidence

SCP-9320

Expected annual

$5.0M

One-time setup

$6.6M

Annual recurring

$4.9M

Personnel

Initial capitalization is approximately $6.56M driven primarily by outpost construction, bespoke sensors/compute, and contingency; ongoing annual operations are about $4.91M driven by staff salaries, ML/cloud costs, security, and travel/fieldwork.

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $6.6M

Facilities $2.0M

[#1] Outpost construction and hardening: site prep, building, HVAC, secure rooms, living quarters, guardhouse, garage, weatherization and limited secure storage.

Equipment $1.9M

[#7, #8, #10, #11, #13, #15] Specialized measurement hardware (#7), redundancy/spares (#8), data-acquisition hardware initial components (#10), initial compute servers (#11), cybersecurity hardware/locks (#13), and security equipment & training issue (#15).

Contingency One Time $855K

[#29] One-time contingency reserve (15% of one-time subtotal) for unforeseen technical failures, environmental events, or rapid scale-up.

Initial Research And Lab Setup $570K

[#5, #12, #20, #27] Initial annotation workforce and supervisors (#5), initial ML/software development effort (#12), sample processing lab kit (#20), and archival/specimen preservation startup costs (#27).

Power Generation And Ups $250K

[#17] Off-grid solar array, battery bank, diesel backup generator, fuel storage and initial installation.

Permits And Environmental Assessments $200K

[#2] Land access, permits, environmental assessments, NPS liaison and initial legal negotiation for operation inside a National Park.

Vehicles And Transport Capex $200K

[#16] Vehicle purchases (SUVs, ATVs, trailers) and acquisition of transport assets for field deployment.

Decommissioning Reserve $200K

[#28] Funds reserved for decommissioning the outpost and ecological remediation if operations end.

Legal And Classification Review Initial $150K

[#25] Initial legal counsel, classification review and cover/communications planning costs.

Publication And Portal Dev $100K

[#24] Initial legal review and development of a data portal / public-release preparations.

Communications Installation $80K

[#18] High-bandwidth satellite/microwave installation and redundant comms hardware.

Environmental Mitigation Initial $50K

[#21] Initial environmental mitigation, remediation actions and mitigation plan for National Park footprint.

🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $4.9M/yr

Staff Wages $1.4M/yr

[#4] On-site core research staff salaries (senior leads + supporting scientists), benefits and on-call premiums.

Contingency Recurring $640K/yr

[#29] Recurring contingency reserve (15% of recurring subtotal) for unexpected annual costs, wildfires, or rapid scaling.

Security Staff Wages $600K/yr

[#14] On-site 24/7 guard salaries, benefits, training, allowances (assumes ~8 guards rotating shifts).

Ml Training And Software Ops $500K/yr

[#12] Ongoing ML model training, software development, ops and data-science staffing.

Cloud Compute And Storage $250K/yr

[#11] Cloud storage, off-site backups, and cloud compute costs for continuous high-sample-rate recordings and archival.

Administration And Program Management $250K/yr

[#30] Program managers, finance, HR, procurement and administrative overhead to coordinate operations.

Annotation Ongoing $200K/yr

[#6] Ongoing annotation workforce and linguistic assistants for dialect expansion and continued translations.

Travel And Outreach $200K/yr

[#26] Field trips, inter-site dialect surveys, conferences, collaboration travel and shipping of equipment.

Logistics And Transport $150K/yr

[#16] Vehicle fuel, maintenance and occasional charters tied to vehicles/transport for field deployment.

Sensor Maintenance $100K/yr

[#9] Routine servicing, calibration and occasional replacement of field sensors exposed to environmental conditions.

Emergency Response And Medical $100K/yr

[#23] Medevac contracts, on-call medic arrangements, first-aid supplies and evacuation drills/contracting.

Cover Story And Legal $75K/yr

[#25] Ongoing legal counsel, classification review, FOIA/redaction handling and communications planning.

Supplies And Consumables $60K/yr

[#19] Laboratory and field consumables: PPE, reagents, replacement sensor parts, batteries, cleaning supplies.

Communications And Connectivity $60K/yr

[#18] Annual bandwidth/service fees for satellite/microwave links and redundant comms.

Insurance And Liability $60K/yr

[#22] Insurance, liability and workers' compensation coverage for remote operations.

Publication And Hosting $50K/yr

[#24] Annual data-portal hosting, PR and continued legal vetting for public-facing material.

Power And Fuel $40K/yr

[#17] Fuel, generator maintenance and battery upkeep for off-grid power reliability.

Sample Processing And Compliance $30K/yr

[#20] Annual costs for phytosanitary compliance, sterile processing, quarantine procedures and disposal.

Data Acquisition Maintenance $25K/yr

[#10] Annual maintenance of data loggers, ADCs, time-sync, rugged enclosures, cabling and trenching upkeep.

Cybersecurity And Access Control $25K/yr

[#13] Ongoing monitoring, audits, access-control management and infosec staff costs.

Archival Maintenance $20K/yr

[#27] Long-term digital and physical archive maintenance and controlled storage costs.

Environmental Mitigation Monitoring $15K/yr

[#21] Ongoing monitoring and minor remediation efforts to minimize National Park footprint.

Permit Renewals And Nps Compliance $10K/yr

[#3] Annual permit renewals, compliance reporting and renewal legal/accounting support for National Park operations.

Facilities Maintenance $0/yr

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Research And Monitoring $0/yr

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⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $4.9M/yr

82.0% probability / year

Normal operational year with no major incidents; routine maintenance, research, and scheduled activities.

no major incidents standard research cadence routine maintenance

🚨 Minor Incident $5.1M/yr

15.0% probability / year +$200K vs baseline

Localized equipment failure or sensor loss requiring expedited replacement and emergency field mobilization.

sensor failure localized storm damage emergency helicopter charter

🚨 Major Breach $6.4M/yr

2.0% probability / year +$1.5M vs baseline

Severe event (wildfire, flood, major structural damage) causing significant loss of infrastructure and extended outage.

wildfire major flooding catastrophic equipment loss

🚨 Political Exposure $5.4M/yr

1.0% probability / year +$500K vs baseline

Public disclosure or legal action following partial publication leading to elevated legal, PR and remediation costs.

media attention lawsuit or FOIA pressure NPS disputes

👥 Personnel 33 total

Role	Count	Notes
Research Scientist	12	[#4] Senior leads and supporting scientists (linguistics, biology, sophontology) and associated research staff.
Data Scientist / Engineer	3	[#12, #11] ML engineers and data scientists responsible for model training, pipelines and compute operations.
Annotation Workforce / Translators	5	[#5, #6] Human annotators and linguistic assistants (initial and ongoing annotation staffing).
Security Officer / MTF Agent	8	[#14, #15] On-site guards (rotating shifts) and related security staffing and equipment.
Engineer / Maintenance	2	[#9, #17] Technical maintenance staff for sensors, power systems and routine servicing.
Administrative Staff	2	[#25, #30] Program management, finance, HR and procurement support.
Site Director / Executive Staff	1	[#4] Site lead / research head responsible for oversight and approvals.

📋 Confidence Notes

Analyst notes provide line-item estimates for nearly every capital and operating expense, permitting a detailed cost build; remaining uncertainty is standard contingency for environmental risks and anomalous scaling.

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