So while an authoritarian xenophobe empire might be the optimal build for playing Starnet AI I found a strategy that does work with my Egalitarian-Xenophile-Militarist Democracy Syncretic Evolution build (yes, you can still play this mod as a filthy xenophile).

Basically, focus on alloy production to survive early game wars until you meet a friendly empire to form a defensive pact, do expansion traditions first and then go for the federation tradition to federate with allies ASAP. If an Empire is a potential threat but you have some advantage go to war with them as soon as you can while your advantage still exists, even if you don't win you can get some systems via status quo and have a truce to buy yourself some time (in a recent run I took care of some fanatical purifiers who spawned right next to me early game, took some systems/planets in an early war and then later crushed them in a joint war with allies).

Don't stress if you are not producing enough consumer goods or food and have bad admin cap or low amenities early game (just buy some food stocks when possible). Once you are federated with strong allies you can then shift your focus to pop happiness, food, and science. You will probably be behind everybody else for a while, but again don't stress, but once you are established and protected you can then start cranking out the science, do a bunch of migration treaties, and start terraforming worlds, complete events, and then rush ahead of everybody else.

Also trade stations are powerful early-mid game. Trade stations will negate the need for clerks (who then can then focus on mining and alloy production) and produce better trade value than clerks overall with good placement, use trade value to make up for your consumer goods deficit or to rush on unity until you are better established.

Once you are past early-mid game you are good to go!

Just my strategy for how to play as a filthy xenophile egalitarian militarist democracy on Captain difficulty in Starnet AI, hope it helps someone! :)

Another tip: Pick "Very Adaptable" for your species (or main species if syncretic), this will allow you to run more productive colonies on more worlds early game.