There is something special about elephants. They have a certain majesty. There is no more massive a land animal on Earth, of course, but it’s more than their size.
And it isn’t the tusks, which just happen to be possibly the most sought after animal product, ivory. Nor is it that humanity’s thirst for destruction has led to the elephant being one of the species we’ve tried to make extinct, simply because of that ivory.
It is the calm demeanour (unless they’re threatened) that probably comes with being the biggest beast in any situation. Yes, we call the lion the ‘King of the Jungle’ (although you won’t find a lion in a jungle) but it is the elephant that rules.
And we love elephants. There are white ones that are not worth as much as you think. There are pink ones that only appear when you’ve got your beer goggles on. There are even some that sit in the corner of the room, that we pretend we can’t see (especially if they’re pink).
And elephants have their own place in fiction. Nellie went on a jaunt. Little Blue fell into a bath when he was a calf; for some reason the bath was full of blue ink, and it seemingly permanently dyed his skin. There’s Babar and Horton, and they’ve occasionally appeared as Oliphaunts and Heffalumps.
The Diplomacy ‘Elephant’
Elephants never forget, apparently. Well, this isn’t true but they do have an amazing memory. I guess you’d expect that when you consider that an elephant’s brain is four time the size of a human brain.
It is this aspect of the elephant that makes Diplomacy’s ‘Elephant’. In Diplomacy, an Elephant is a player who never forgets your actions in a prior meeting in a game.
If the player you stabbed is an Elephant, they’ll expect it every time they come up against you. If the player you upset in a game is an Elephant, they’ll treat you like a leper in every game they play against you again. If you happen to have been allied with an Elephant, they’ll happily ally with you again.
This is, of course, somewhat down to human nature. The saying: ‘Once bitten, twice shy,’ is allied to this attitude. If someone hurts you once, you’ll prevent it happening again.
And then there’s: ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.‘ In other words, I can’t be blamed for being tricked by someone once, but if I allow it to happen again, that’s all my fault.
In Diplomacy, however, there is something of an expectation that what happens in one game shouldn’t affect another, as far as possible. In the situations described above, it is difficult to erase human nature completely, and this isn’t expected. You’re going to be cautious with someone who fooled you, or find it easier to work with a player you’ve worked with before. What is expected, though, is that you shouldn’t use this past experience as the only reason to treat a player differently, either going on the out-and-out offensive or getting into bed with them.
Still, Elephants exist in Diplomacy. Watch out for them. They might be wrapping their trunk around you and lifting you onto their backs, but equally they might stamp you into the ground.
THE DIPLOMATICON 
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