So I'm doing the mission where you help liberate Adytum from the Regulators.

I got a holodisk from Razor, I used it, then I went to Zimmerman, told him the truth about his son- and normally he gets blown away here in a scripted event, but I activate combat as the conversation with him is closing and I blow away the nearby 1-2 Regulators first.

He seems to have actually shifted to being properly hostile towards them, as he runs up and tries to punch them (which is inadvisable for someone with 20 hp), so I get the impression that the conversation did work as intended, I just cut in before his scripted death.

Then I made my way through town, killing Regulators and preventing Jon from being killed, until I finished the last Regulator. (Razor agrees with me that I did indeed finish free the town.)

Now here's my problem: Even though all the Regulators are dead, I'm stuck in a permanent combat mode which automatically ends at the end of every turn, but then IMMEDIATELY restarts. I've tested it, and Jon Zimmerman is the reason. If I kill him, the perma-combat mode ceases. (I'm also certain I did not hit him once in the entire course of combat.)

Another oddity is that if I end combat after the first few Regulators are dead, but not completely wiped out, Jon runs up and attacks me.

Here's my ultimate question: Is it possible to save Jon Zimmerman, or is he fated to die in the course of this mission, no matter what?

EDIT: I should add, I tried two other methods to resolve this mission: I went through with arming the Blades, so that the townsfolk fight against the Regulators, but Jon Zimmerman gets executed immediately if this happens. I also tried just attacking the Regulators without talking to Zimmerman; he turns hostile and attacks me after I kill the last Regulator.

What, the existence of scripted death scene didn't give you any ideas?

I bypassed the scripted death.

What happened is you attacked the Regs which are considered allied with him. Maybe he turned hostile towards both you and them but decided to attack them instead.

what I mean is that the very existence of this script implies that he is not supposed to live. Or, in other words, he is fated to die.

That's the impression I get as well. I was hoping that maybe there was an alternative route to take in regards to this quest, but it looks like there is not. :(

Maybe Fixt does something about it... not sure.

I finally got around to testing this. This is not strictly correct, as he does not react at all if you just start killing Regulators. He DOES suddenly turn hostile when you end combat after you kill a bunch of them (possibly specifically Caleb, not sure).

He is considered enemy by Blades,so you need kill him anyway.

I managed to make Jan living by quickly, after the end of the dialog, getting into the fight mode and attacking the Regulator next to him