I knew better...

I opened the mod manager. I'm not up to date, I'm one version behind (pre-B&B, no DLCs) and I opened the mod manager. I was looking to add a mod (anything that might give the ability to mine without colonists) and stopped thinking for a moment.

One mod got removed (Silva's Essentials) and now my game is in limbo. The manager can't actually remove the mod and the save can't load because of the mod.

Ideally, I'd like to put it back but I assume that's not possible. Is there a way to force the mod out so the save can load?

Edit: Manually replacing the offending mod removed the errors but the game would no longer load. A new game would load up just fine though (tried repeatedly). Assumed the old one was just lost (with over 1100 sols in it!) and started over. Landed a rocket, started terraforming and suddenly the terrain is uneven and I can't land any more rockets (but I can place all the depots I want and even create a launchpad that I can't complete because the terrain is too uneven to place a concrete extractor). Even on the exact same spot where the first rocket landed. Finally returned to the main menu and reloaded, no change. Completely closed out and restarted: oh, ok, dozens more mods are suddenly no good and that brand new game can't load. Since I primarily use QOL mods for options that really should be in the game already, this renders the game back to the barely-playable state it was originally in. Since I did not realize the game masqueraded as a trojan horse allowing remote write access to my computer, I was unable to prevent the loss of mods that made this game playable.

I'm currently allowing the game to update. Since it's unplayable as is, it won't be a loss for me if the update breaks it. Maybe those surprise-unloadable mods have simply been updated and I can play again but this is likely my swan song.

Edit 2: Mods won't load in any version (the version they're designed for, the version they worked in two days ago or the version they are shown in) "You have to update your game! Mods are incompatible! Oh... You updated? Guess what version they don't work in now?". Version protection is fucked up. I'm done. I'll come back in a few months, maybe it'll be fixed then.