So after I met Cotton again and got the Loke clone from him, I took him back to the den, Kanta broke the deal as she has the other forty times I played the campaign this far, I spaced the clone, and fought the mercenary fleets. Now my standard campaign story goes, I fight the mercenary fleets, then fight the Den itself, then I raid the Den until there's nothing left worth stealing, then I raid it until all the infrastructure is disabled for a year or more, then I precision bomb it. But this time, the game wouldn't let me fight the Den, it said so much heat has been generated by my actions I can't do any business there. I just want to trade a bunch of missiles and bullets for a bunch of experience points and a bit of satisfaction, but I can't even attack the Den. A nearby Independent fleet was able to throw themselves suicidally at the battlestation, but I couldn't. I even Transverse Jumped out of the system and came back in, but it still wouldn't let me fight the Den.
So I went to the Academy with Elissa Zal to finish the story, and Baird showed me a video of something that didn't happen.
https://i.imgur.com/Agk6U3V.jpgI mean, that's how it would have gone, if I had been able to demolish the Den, I would have went to the Gate afterwards. But I was thinking I need to turn in Zal at the Academy and maybe I will be able to interact with the Den again. I didn't get the chance, because the Den decivilized while I was en route to the Academy. I didn't even get to give my Judge Dredd speech.
Maybe this happened because I had raided the Den for drugs and luxury goods a month before and there was a lingering stability penalty left over, which took effect when the Den was no longer plot-protected from being decivilized? I'd still like to have got the final whack in on them after Kanta betrayed me like the Darth Vader-wannabe version of Ma-Ma scorpion-in-the-shape-of-a-cyborg that she is (I mean that as a compliment if you read this, Jorien). I gave my word to Brother Livewell.
Then when I went back to the ruins of the Den, there's only two inhabitants, the traffic control officer that likes half red and half green fry, and a somewhat impolite portboss who is not even courteous enough to have a defined identity.
https://i.imgur.com/eqS6V3I.jpgThis is the same campaign I've been talking about the past few days, started in .96 hotfix 9, moved my save over to hotfix 10 this morning, modded only in that my max character level is 30 and my max battle size is 500 and a custom faction flag.