Hey, what about roving bands of pirates and/or nomads stealing resources and scaring people and stuff?
How about a corruption scandal event?
Spontaneous combustion of citizens?
Ummm...Ghost ships attacking and damaging a ship? Some sort of space monster event.
Industrial accidents destroying the value of a planet?
Accidental misfiring of planetary defenses (destroy a building or kill people)?
Accidental misfiring of planetary defenses deflects/destroys an undetected incoming asteroid making people
very happy.
A swarm of space creatures crashes into your planet by accident, and boosts the organic value?
A very popular holoprogram about one of your ships causes them to become legendary in your empire?
A foreign dignitary is blackmailed by one of your citizens and you collect 20% in taxes?
A convention of evil geniuses results in (something really bad happening)
(I'm out of ideas
)