Bad things happen.
It's not about to prevent them but how to deal with it.
Those quicktime events should offer an easy and simple way to simulate it.
A small window pops up with informations about what happened, where it happened and what damage it did.
For example by increasing the temperature on mars the ice sheets melt.
Now a small part of the colony enjoys a pool party at their roofs because the area is flooded.
What do you do?
-Rescue the colonists
-Prevent the water from doing more damage to your factories and infrastructure
Or just press cancel to ignore it.
So now let's what happens:
Case 1: You rescue them
This takes some wealth (those rescue teams also want to be paid) and destroys parts of the infrastructure or even a few factories since you didn't stop the water.
Case 2: You save the infrastructure
This needs even more wealth and time so your factories are disabled for some time. Unfortunately you couldn't save all the colonists because you didn't have enough personell for this and unrest is rising.
Case 3: You try both!
Split your forces and hope for the best. It should be random decided if you manage to save both, only one or if you mess everything up.
Case 4: Ignore
It won't cost you anything but you loose colonists and infrastructure.
That's how it should be like and of course noone tells you what consequences the actions have.
They should be both: random and connected to earlier actions.
Of course there should be some pure random events that don't require and actions since they happens always and everywhere.
I hope you like this idea since it's, I think, easy to implement and gives you even more the feeling about controlling an empire.
Btw sorry for any grammar mistakes you might find