Battle Ethos
A Battle Ethos is the design framework around which each nation or race's military builds its own individual and unique offensive and defensive systems that are each uniquely designed with each one's individaul tactical, strategic, cultural and practical considerations in mind. While many of the different militaries around the galaxy share some things in common, each is also distinctly unique from all the others in their application of each aspect of their people's defense, and offense as well in times when such things are required.
Gayik'Von
The Gayik'Von follow a very utilitarian ethos, focusing first and foremost on usefulness and practicality above all other things, including esthetics. As such, the designs of their ships, their buildings, and even their clothing is extremely practical in nature, and is very spartan in "curb appeal", unlike other races. However, this practicality also makes their ships, strategies, and weapons the most fearsome in the galaxy as no effort is wasted on anything except ensuring that they build reaches its maximum technological and engineering potential. The Gayik'Von also prefer strategies that favor large area, and large group tactics, huge, sweeping fleets, and massive engagements between equally massive fleets that rely very heavily on powerful capital and supporting ships, but tend to shy away from small ships and small squad tactics that rely heavily on specialized, highly trained, but very limited special forces. In a sense, their tactical mindset is "go big or go home."
Varnok
Being an aquatic race, the Varnok's battle ethos is centered are a blend of both the practical and the esthetic, as color, appearance, and physical design play a major role in their race's daily lives. However, unlike the Gayik'Von, the Varnok find great value in the whole range of both ship and infantry structures ranging from the tiniest stunt fighter, all the way up to the largest super dreadnoughts. The Varnok are also big fans of large scale, multi-armada tactics, although their battle formations and strategies tend to be more diversified and nuanced whereas the Gayik'Von's strategies are more hammer and anvil in nature.
Tragarians
Unlike the Gayik'Von and the Varnok, the Tragarians prefer more sleek, fast, powerful, and often stealthy designs that fit well with their feline nature, and their preference for using "stalk and ambush" tactics. That does not preclude the Tragarians from using large scale, multi-armada tactics when necessary. However, ambush style "hit and run" tactics are more their preference, and their forte. However, while this can be a disadvantage in some situations, it works well to help divide up their enemies into much smaller groups that can be more easily overwhelmed and destroyed using their preferred and highly polished ambush tactics.
Yandians
Yandians tend to be very strategical and hands off in their approach to military doctrine, preferring to employ long range, hands off, long range tactics rather than close in, ship to ship combat as the other races do. The Yandians are also very information focused in their military doctrine, meaning that they will attempt to learn all they can about you before they will ever fire a shot, save only in emergencies, and even then they are heavily information focused, giving them a tactical, and a strategic superiority over their enemies. However, being "information nerds", with a cultural focus on the acquisition of knowledge (ie, the curious cat), the Yandians are not generally imperial, or conquest driven in nature (although there's always those one or two exceptions in every society, even though the majority do not feel this way). This is how, despite lagging behind the Angalorians and Varnok during the great war of the nine, the Yandians easily held their own, and regularly drove back or defeated both the Varnok, and the Angalorians in nearly every engagement, ultimately forcing a peace treaty between the three races that favored the Yandians and their quest for knowledge.
Angalorians
The Angalorians are very war like, almost Romanesque in their thirst for battle and conquest. Being wolf like, the Angalorian combat ethos is centered around the "Wolfpack" style of combat, shunning large scale battle groups in favor of smaller, faster, more agile wolfpacks that operate in teams of no more than 30-50 ships at a time, although groups of up to 2000 ships were occasionally deployed during the great war. However, even then, these didn't act as one, large scale, cohesive group, but rather as a loosely organized collection of smaller tactical groups that worked together, yet separately, to achieve a common goal. As such, while the Angalorian military fields an impressive number of lesser and greater capital ships in its vast, sweeping navy, that same navy does not hold to the tight, structured framework of organization and hierarchy as that seen by the other members of the Nine Ancient Races.
Gadal
The Gadal, being a rabbit like species, focuses centers their design philosophy around speed and numbers, building lots of small, lightly armored, yet very fast, and highly maneuverable capital ships, primarily in the corvette, frigate and light destroyer classes. However, the combat vessels of the Gadal navy make up for their lack of armor by employing a powerful, unique, multi-layered, "floating grid" based shield design, the concept of which was borrowed by Earthfleet and greatly improved on. However, whereas Earthfleet's individual shield layers are merged together and single, cohesive, seamless shield, the Gadal prefer to leave their individual grids disconnected, and thus able to float back and forth, or be re-positioned wherever they are most needed. However, due to this flexibility, Gadal shields are less able to dissipate and spread out large volumes of energy that are directed at them, making them less able to deflect bolts of high concentration energy that are fired at them. This, however, is offset by the flexibility of the shield, allowing additional shield grids to be moved into place to help better absorb and neutralize such blasts without jeopardizing the integrity of the entire shield layer in general as a result.
Also, due to the small size, and significant numbers of Gadal combat ships, the Gadal navy prefers to use swarm tactics, with large, decentralized fleets, descending upon and isolating small groups of enemy ships, and then overwhelming them with incredible numbers of small capital ships that can quickly scatter and disperse if the battle begins to turn against them in any particular area of the engagement. The Gadal are also strong allies with the Yettish, and often blend their individual militaries together to ensure the mutual defense of the two republics, with the Gadal focusing on light, fast attack strategies, and the Yettish focusing instead of the heavier "Tank" or "Hammer and Anvil" style doctrines. This symbiotic relationship, in turn, creates a joint military force that is one to be both greatly feared, and respected.
Trepedor
The Trepedor, being an avian species, operate with no overarching upper level command structure or admiralty, preferring instead to operate in large, flock like battle groups that operate loosely as a combat unit allow the Trepedor great flexibility in battle, and easily make up for their much smaller numbers. Also, like the Gadal, the Trepedor focus on small, light, fast attack ships that apply a "wolf pack" style combat doctrine with an avian twist. Being that the Trepedor do not field any large, powerful capital ships, they instead focus more on hit and run, peck at the edges, divide and conquer strategy to slowly pick apart the enemy until their battle lines crumble, after which they rush in for the kill, breaking up and isolating small pockets of enemy resistance, and systematically destroying each one until the enemy either retreats, or is exterminated.
Pront
The Pront tend to be very visually focused in their doctrines, focusing more on "gleam and glitter" than real combat practicality. However, given how isolationist they are, very little else is known of them beyond this. However, history does record that the Pront, being more show than sword, were easily able to hold their own against the Angalorians during the great war by using their skills of extravagance and deception to trick the Angalorians, on many occasions, into calling off their attacks, thinking that they were facing a much larger, far more superior force, when in reality the opposite was true.
Yettish
The Yettish, being an almost "Yeti/Bigfoot" like race are very "Tribe" or "Pack" focused, and are the counterbalance to the Gadal's "fast, light and agile." The Yettish and the Gadal, despite being members of the Nine, are both close neighbors, and even closer allies. This allows the Yettish to focus on powerful "heavy" battleships, cruisers, dreadnoughts and other super ships, whereas the Gadal focus on the smaller, lighter combat and support vessels, creating a symbiotic relationship between the two militaries that is then deployed jointly in their mutual defense. Also, the Yettish prefer to fight in large, sweeping battle groups, taking advantage of the considerable size, and overwhelming firepower of their individual battleships to create a protective canopy of overlapping fire that makes their fleets nearly impenetrable to enemy navies, forcing them to instead fight at arm's length, giving the advantage thus, in turn, to the Yettish by stripping away the enemies ability to both maneuver, and also penetrate their formations.
