which explains why i think the hw2 story isnt very good. the vaygr completely surprised the hiigarans at tanis in the great wastelands (background, huge cylindrical shape pieces of ship hull! from the looks of it stand it against the pride of hiigara and it makes the hiigaran mothership look like an insect). the vaygr followed the hiigarans progress because of something which has been in the hiigarans prosession since the mass exodus to kharak serveral hundred years previous.
The wreckages you see in the Great Wasteland are derelicts. The Homeworld series is littered with wreckage like that, hints of races capable of building ships so massive and so advanced.
The Progenitors are an example of this. One mission takes place in debris that is merely a single section of an entire Progenitor ship.
The Vaygr attacked the Hiigarans for their empire. The Hiigaran empire occupies much of the inner galactic core, which comprises some of the most resource rich planets in their continuity, resources the Vaygr wanted. Makaan wanted the hyperspace core in the Pride of Hiigara, and the Vaygr invasion only started after Makaan found the Third Core and united the Vaygr into a single warband, which is why the Vaygrs didn't invade until now.
And the Second Core might have been in the Exiles' posession, but they never knew about it until the scanning accident, and they never knew its significance till about a hundred years later.
the death of the bentusi race which i didn't like, they had fighters that could own anything i suspect, shame about that.
Actually, the Bentusi were already dying out. They were primarily traders, and had no real combat capapbility by HW2, or refused to use it. And the Bentus Harborship actually self destructed to save the Pride of Hiigara.