Ahoy!
As a recent forum user suggested I turn this idea into a full post instead of just a comment, so here it is!
Warframe has these regular events called "Razorback Armadas" (there's also a second event for the other type of enemy you fight, but I forgot the name of the event) and when they first released the Razorback armada event everyone thought they were just getting their leg pulled when they said that a Relay (Warframe's version of outposts for trading and company levels basically) would be destroyed if the community didn't complete the event in time, which lasted 2-3 days. The community would then over time have to "rebuild" parts of the Relay using their hard-earned resources. To this day there are still 2-3 destroyed relays due to these events.
I feel Rare could definitely do something interesting with a system like that. Whole community efforts are really cool and having the risk of losing something quite vital to EVERYONE'S gameplay would really push the community to work together. Of course there will be trolls trying to prevent people from working on fixing the events, but that goes for literally anything Rare adds into the game, so at some point we gotta just suck it up.
Perhaps Flameheart could launch attacks on different outposts between the new Adventures, where endless ghost ships will spawn and surround an outpost. The ships won't be hostile until engaged, so that outpost is still a viable spot to sell if required. After the 2 weeks or whatever is up and the community goal hasn't been reached; the ghost ships open fire on the outpost, disabling that outpost permanently until the players can put their gold towards rebuilding the outpost (which could also be a way to introduce new features and QoL changes (looking at you Dagger Tooth dock)). This also adds a gold sink for the already destroyed Golden Sands, where the community could come together to rebuild sections of it for gold or doubloons, for example; the total cost of rebuilding the entire outpost could come to 250-500 million gold (worldwide, not per person ofc), with no time limit, so players with spare gold and nothing to spend it on can help the community.
Of course, the events would also need really cool cosmetic rewards so people have something more than just saving an outpost because I feel like the goal wouldn't be met if there was no "reward" for it more than the outpost.
Let me know what you think about this as a commonly reoccurring even until Flameheart is stopped or the story changes to a degree that this can't work.
