SCP-9841 — SCP-9841 | Cost Breakdown

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SCP-9841 Thaumiel ~ medium confidence

SCP-9841

Expected annual

$15.6M

One-time setup

$2.3M

Annual recurring

$15.4M

Personnel

One-time integration and program setup are modest (~$2.3M) while ongoing annual costs are substantial (~$15.37M/yr), driven chiefly by staff wages, retention/replacement impacts, legal/cover infrastructure, and sustained research/monitoring.

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $2.3M

Program Setup Veil Integration $625K

[#1] Program setup — Veil integration, SOP development, legal drafting, stakeholder workshops (note #1).

Secure Cover Records It Infrastructure $500K

[#2] One-time design and deployment of hardened cover-records DB/CMS, servers, encryption, backups (note #2).

Initial Research And Lab Setup $300K

[#22] One-time laboratory equipment and research instruments for memetic testing and human-subject platforms (note #22).

Shell Company Setup $300K

[#4] Initial creation/incorporation costs for shell companies/legal entities to seed cover narratives (note #4).

Secure Communications Procurement $300K

[#18] One-time procurement and integration of secure communications/filtering tools (note #18).

Strategic Modeling Contracts $150K

[#25] One-time strategic/opportunity-cost modeling and multi-decade social-impact studies (note #25).

Training Content Production $125K

[#11] One-time production of training modules and initial briefing materials (note #11).

Facilities $0

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Equipment $0

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🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $15.4M/yr

Staff Wages $3.0M/yr

[#6, #8, #9, #10, #21, #23] Aggregated salaries for program staff: family liaison team, research personnel/data scientists, memetic/narrative staff, accounting payroll wages, and IRB/staff costs (notes #6, #8, #9, #10, #21, #23).

Retention Replacement $2.5M/yr

[#12] Replacement/recruiting/onboarding and lost-productivity costs due to increased attrition (note #12).

Research And Monitoring $2.4M/yr

[#8, #9] Non-wage research program and monitoring budgets (controlled experiments, memetic safety labs, tooling, long-term social/network analytics excluding staff wages) (notes #8, #9).

Contingency Reserve $2.0M/yr

[#24] Liquid reserve for sudden leaks, hostile investigations or scaling needs; set at 15% of annual operating subtotal (note #24).

Legal Counsel $1.2M/yr

[#15] Retained attorneys and litigation/incident-response reserves (note #15).

Terminal Stage Costs $1.1M/yr

[#14] Per-event terminal-stage/death-cover costs (funerary logistics, backdated records, buyouts); modeled at midpoint per-event × estimated events (note #14).

Psychological Services $650K/yr

[#7] On-call therapists, grief counselors, and counseling services for affected employees/families (note #7).

Stipends Families $500K/yr

[#13] Quiet stipends, benefits or transition payments to families to reduce probing and preserve cover narratives (note #13).

Public Records Pr $300K/yr

[#16] Low-profile PR, FOIA/records handling, limited buys to keep public narratives plausible (note #16).

Memetic Engineering $250K/yr

[#10] Non-wage costs for narrative production, testing, dissemination tooling, injectors and materials (note #10).

Travel Field Ops $200K/yr

[#19] In-person liaison visits, deliveries, condolence visits and travel-related operational costs (note #19).

Shell Company Maintenance $175K/yr

[#5] Annual filings, nominee/agent fees, minimal audits and discrete financial activity to preserve shell plausibility (note #5).

Auditing Compliance $175K/yr

[#17] Periodic internal audits and forensic review teams to respond to external audit attempts (note #17).

Secure Cover Records Hosting $150K/yr

[#3] Ongoing hosting, patching, backups, redundancy and small ops team to run cover-records system (note #3).

Supplies And Consumables $125K/yr

[#22] Recurring consumables for lab work, assays, psychometric platforms, subject compensation components not counted in staff/research budgets (note #22).

Training Delivery $125K/yr

[#11] Ongoing delivery and updates to training/refresher courses (note #11).

Secure Communications Licensing $125K/yr

[#18] Licensing and ongoing support for secure communications and filtering tools (note #18).

Accounting Payroll $100K/yr

[#21] Non-salary recurring costs for discreet disbursement channels, escrow management and external audits (note #21).

Irb Committee $100K/yr

[#23] Recurring panel and oversight costs for IRB/memetic safety committee excluding salaried staff (note #23).

Records Archive $60K/yr

[#20] Long-term immutable archival and storage of fabricated documentation and memetic artifacts (note #20).

Family Liaison Non Wage $50K/yr

[#6] Non-salary operating costs for liaison/case-management (travel, materials, admin support) (note #6).

Strategic Updates $50K/yr

[#25] Annual updates to long-term social-impact models and commissioned follow-ups (note #25).

Facilities Maintenance $0/yr

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Logistics And Transport $0/yr

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Cover Story And Legal $0/yr

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⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $15.4M/yr

90.0% probability / year

Normal year with no major incidents; routine operation of all programs and reserves.

routine_operations planned_research standard_family_support

🚨 Minor Incident $16.9M/yr

8.0% probability / year +$1.5M vs baseline

Targeted hostile discovery, subpoena, or localized leak requiring legal/forensic response and short-term scaling of liaison/PR.

subpoena_or_hostile_discovery small_leak targeted_investigation

🚨 Major Breach $23.4M/yr

2.0% probability / year +$8.0M vs baseline

Large-scale public exposure, multi-jurisdiction litigation, or systemic audit requiring buyouts, major legal settlements and program reconstitution.

major_public_exposure large_scale_breach mass_litigation

👥 Personnel 31 total

Role	Count	Notes
Research Scientist	6	Includes PI and postdocs supporting the dedicated research program (mapped to staff wages and research notes #9).
Technician / Maintenance	6	Lab technicians and technical support for memetic testing and archives (mapped to staff wages and #22).
Data Scientist / Analyst	4	Social-network and analytics staff supporting monitoring programs (mapped to staff wages and #8).
Memeticist / Narrative Engineer	4	Personnel producing and testing cover narratives and memetic content (mapped to staff wages and #10).
Family Liaison / Social Worker	5	Primary points-of-contact for SCP-9841-B families (mapped to staff wages and #6).
Accounting / Payroll / Financial Controls	3	Dedicated accounting staff for cover disbursements and escrow management (wages mapped to staff_wages and #21).
IRB / Ethics Staff	2	Personnel supporting ethical oversight and memetic safety committees (mapped to staff_wages and #23).
Security Officer / MTF Agent	1	Limited security/escort capacity for sensitive family visits and high-risk operations (wages mapped to staff_wages and operations notes).

📋 Confidence Notes

Estimates use midpoints of wide analyst ranges and multiple policy choices (e.g., stipend policy, research intensity) materially alter totals; mapping from notes is complete but inherent uncertainty in behavioral/memetic programs keeps confidence at medium.

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