Ik-Thorne tower above all the other common species in the known galaxy (except the odd Thevian). Solid as a rock, with limbs that can lift small vehicles, but also somewhat slow to react at times, they are sometimes compared (unfavorably) to various trees and plants. Nothing is further from the truth. Ik-Thorne think and act just as fast as humans, and often more surely. However, an Ik-Thorne usually thinks much deeper thoughts, taking longer to sort them out.
The Ik-Thorne as a society are profoundly philosophical, and many arts and sciences have reached heights unparalleled elsewhere. They mine the world of thoughts and imagination to its limits, often in debates, performances, lectures and forms of expression that have no names in our language. These can take many weeks or even months to complete, but the Ik-Thorne do not mind, for they have the time. In fact, they each have more time than most human societies. How long exactly is unknown, but the fact that the current Ik-Thorne ambassador to the Humans is the same who watched over their first steps into interstellar space is telling.

Where most living Ik-Thorne seem ancient to other species, their society is unimaginably old. Its basics have remained intact for several million years at least. How long exactly is unknown even to the Ik-Thorne, for they lost most of their elders 1.3 million years ago, when they had to relocate their entire society to another star system, because their own sun was about to die. Many of the elders chose to remain on their old home, and presumably died, taking their knowledge with them, for the Ik-Thorne to this very day have never used written records. Their memories, designed for thousands of years of service, are close to perfect, and their minds capable of following many concurrent threads to analyze a subject to its roots.

How they managed this continuous society is unsure, but probably the most important ingredient is their matriarchical focus.
Every world (of the handful they have colonized) or outpost has a single priestess, who is considered to become the personification of the nurturing Goddess and rules until her death, having appointed a new Goddess before that time. Only mothers are applicable (which already implies many hundreds of years of experience), and through year-long mystic ritual, the prospective Goddess not only learns everything there is to know about organization and ruling from the elders, she also has a personal meeting with every single member of the community, during which she hears all the wishes, dream, likes, dislikes and so on. Somehow, she incorporates ALL of it into her own personality, thus ensuring that she rules for the best of the community. Indeed, no Goddess has ever been known to fail and no change in hierarchy was ever needed.

Daily life for the Ik-Thorne is a curious blend of meditation-like rest and industrious action. Ik-Thorne prefer to think everything through completely. From the meaning of life to what outfit to wear, they will discover every aspect of it given the time. Once they make the decision, and one can be fairly sure it is the best one, the Ik-Thorne spring into action. They are tireless and skilled workers, and can construct buildings, stations and of course their famous mammoth spaceships in no time.

Upon reading this, one might draw the conclusion that Ik-Thorne like stability because they cannot cope with rapidly changing circumstances, and that they can be outwitted easily in this way. More than one has made this (fatal) mistake; Ik-Thorne can think very well on their feet, and are hard if not impossible to confuse with speedy tactics. But the superficial (for Ik-Thorne standards) thinking is unnatural, stressing and highly frustrating for them, and their creativity suffers drastically. A trapped Ik-Thorne will react instantly, but rather predictably. Smart pirates especially have used this to their advantage.

Nevertheless, the Ik-Thorne are dangerous in wars. They are often aware of all the implications of enemy manoeuvering, and go to great lengths to gain as much information about the enemy as possible. It is not uncommon for Ik-Thorne carriers to seed entire galaxies with scouts, allowing them to monitor every single movement. Once they have their information, Ik-Thorne generals hardly ever fail to draw the right conclusions. Unlucky is the opponent whose base is discovered, for rather than chasing him around the galaxy, the Ik-Thorne will launch one of their legendary planetary assaults to uproot their opponet completely.

The one area where Ik-Thorne do fall behind is that of the rapidly evolving hardware industry. Because there is no immediate threat, they often take many years to discuss a new weapon or cloaking design, so long that the design in question is obsolete by the time it is constructed. Realizing this, the Ik-Thorne have turned to others for cutting-edge technology. The only design widely adopted by other species is the jumpdrive, but the Ik-Thorne had it lying around long before they encountered the other species. They never used it much themselves, because they had no need to. When they saw how quick the other species lived and died, they acted out of pity and dusted the jumpdrive design off to share it with all other races, meaning to spare them the long voyages.
In the same line of thinking most of their ships are "interesting experiments" based on the ancient fleet ships that ferried their society to a new star system. Since most of those ships were built for carrying whole communities, they were huge, and Ik-Thorne have after much deliberation concluded that huge is still the best option. Amazing as it is that designs a million years old at heart can still compete with the most ships of other races, the important question is how long they will be able to keep up.