Well if he just conglutinates when you kill him and comes back later when it's safe again... it's probably worth it for him.

Here's an idea: make his life a living hell. Steal his pack, kill him, steal his armor, etc. Offer to return items when he promises to stay away.

I don't think the administration should change the way the nodes recharge or make them stay dormant -- as they say, this is a player problem that should be player-solvable. But it would be nice if they would provide some means of solving it that isn't as impossible and tedious as spending all your time up there.

Consider the role of city guards. Why do we have them? If we didn't, players would have to do that job, and that'd be endlessly tedious time spent sitting around doing nothing (heard that complaint lately?) instead of having some fun playing the game. So we have city guards, but they're only so powerful, so they don't do the whole job -- when there's a raid, players still have to respond -- they just do the endless tedium part. It's a nice balance and it works. Gives players something to do but without taking over their lives.

Along the same lines, why does the Herald shout when a shrine is being defiled? Same exact reason. Without the herald, shrine defense is nigh impossible (all ex-Aetolians can support this); but with the herald, you still have some work to do, just not the pointless tedium. It's the same again for why loyal denizens shout for help.

Protecting Astral as a player-done thing is the same as protecting Faethorn, and the same as a problem I used to have with trying to protect the adders. There's no way to do it that isn't endless tedium. We don't want the admin to give us an instant solution that doesn't require players to go do the fighting and planning and stuff. Just to meet in the middle. Make there be some way you can know that someone's linking in time to take action without spending your whole life monitoring them. For instance, imagine a quest that, when completed, gave you a shard from the node which would last one month, and any time the node is linked, the shard would make a sympathetic vibration you could feel if it was in your inventory at the time. Bam... a way to patrol Astral that doesn't consume your life but does still require players to take action to make it work.

I proposed something comparable for the adders, roleplayed tons of attempts to do it, even offered to pay for it as part of a pet, but no go. Thus, the adders were abandoned (and I fudged an IC reason for it). Seems like the Astral nodes are in the same situation. It doesn't help if the things people ask for are too far the other way, to where the nodes fix themselves without player activity. Just ask to make it feasible for you to do it, don't ask them to do it for you, and maybe you'll have some chance of getting what you ask for.

Or, perhaps, guardians could have a skill like that, to seal the node or attune to themselves...