Well, they've lost their masters and a war to defeat the human race.
So if you can't beat them, join them. (OK, being radical here) Cooperation? Already humans know, how to build nomad ships and use their weapons and equipment.
A new, nomad "house", a few Nomad-only systems, where there would be no trade lanes, only jumpgates like that one in omi minor. Nomads could own all omicron majors and the pink unknown. Delta and the robot/monkey unknown being borderworlds between them and humans.
Whew, even had a nidea to make them critters have dockable bases. Snatching that ugly, blue thing, which crawled out of the chancellor from a cutscene and turning it into a base NPC. THAT would be progress.
And again I bet it's all hardcoded, impossible to implement and that it's all a bunch of baloney.