Disclaimer: I do not own ThunderCats 2011. The Oliphaunts of Tolkien don't belong to me, either.
A/N: In ThunderCats 2011, the Elephant species was a spiritual race, and they seemed to be based on the Hindu philosophers of India, even speaking with an Indian accent. My understanding of Hinduism is rather general and basic, but I've tried my best to make the Elephants live up to their implied traits here. All the OC Elephants here have Sanskrit names, and their roles in Elephant society are mostly the same as the meanings of those names.
Animal History: The Elephants
Many of the Animal species of the galaxy were known to have a balanced number of spiritual and pragmatic members, and the Birds were mostly pragmatic due to their affinity for science and progress, though there were occasionally spiritual Birds, too. But one species that, as a whole, was wholly spiritual, was a race of gentle giants called the Elephants. They lived on a planet somewhere in the center of the galaxy and saw themselves as the messengers of the Gods to the other people around them. Their strength and might was technically greater than even that of the Monkeys, but unlike some of the Monkeys, the Elephants were wholly peaceful, save in times of great emergencies, and they preferred not to harm anybody if it could be helped.
The Elephants were said by some to be among the oldest of the Animal races in the galaxy. Their origins may have dated back to as early as before the creation of Mumm-Ra, who despised the Elephant race for their peaceful spirituality and feared them as a whole race more than any other species, save for the ThunderCats in much later ages, believing their Gods to be even greater in power than the Ancient Spirits of Evil (which the Ancient Spirits thought was blasphemy on Mumm-Ra's part). An Elephant was even said to be the shape of the mightiest God of their kind, a great, bipedal being with arms as his front legs, named Anish. The first sentients in the galaxy were also Elephants, a great male called Dinesh, and his female wife, Ila. Dinesh was the oldest Elephant in the Elephant world, and the largest as well, reaching the size of a whole castle, literally. He was also the Lord of the Elephant race and completely loyal to Anish. Ila was the mother of all the Elephants of the earth, and it was her that taught the power of speech to her descendants for many generations. For this Elephant Lord and Lady were ancient beings, extremely long-lived, but in the end, they died, just like anybody else. But one of the spiritual beliefs of the Elephants was that a deceased being was reincarnated at some point after his/her death as another Animal, ready to play another role in the history of the Elephant people, until the galaxy came to an end, and all the spirits of the Animals were brought to the realm of Moksha, where the Elephants would lead the other races in the Great Music of the Animal Kingdom.
These Elephants had other beliefs besides reincarnation. Although they were willing to fight for a good cause if truly necessary, or to defend themselves, they were overall a peaceful species, preferring reading, studying, and meditation to conflict and quarrels. They liked it better if they didn't have to bring harm, especially not deliberate harm, to any living thing besides the plants they ate. Curiously enough, however, the old saying, "Elephants never forget," was ambiguous with these people, for their memories were not as perfect as they were wont to be. Elephants tended to forget the things that were less important to them, as well as things that they hadn't had to worry about for a long time, although they could easily remember their own friends, families, identities, Gods, and anything else that they deemed to be of importance at the time.
The homes and villages of the Elephants were very simple. They made their homes and small businesses and bazaars out of bamboo, clay and dried mud, for the most part, disdaining the steel and iron of the Birds, and even the stone and wood of the Dogs, though they didn't live quite as primitively as the Monkeys. They never built large towns or cities, considering them to be too modern. But they did build countless temples to worship and sacrifice to Anish, as well as their pantheon of other Gods, like Jagjit, the God of Conquest, Indira, the Goddess of Beauty, Kama, the God of Love, and Lochana, the Goddess of the All-Seeing Eye, among several others. There was a balance between patriarchal and matriarchal rule on the Elephant planet, for the Elephants didn't sense any feeling of superiority or special destiny between the genders. Sanskrit was the native tongue of the Elephants, though in later generations, off-worlders visited and taught them a few other languages, including English.
In the earlier ages of the Elephant race's existence, the Elephants were very large beings, just like their earliest forebears, though not quite as large as Dinesh and Ila. They ruled, but with a feeling of humility that even the Dog race couldn't match. Technically, they ruled, but they preferred to think that they were servants of their Gods, and of a greater good. Elephants like those of Africa and India were among the most common Elephants, though they were somewhat smaller than the others. There also existed Elephants called Woolly Mammoths that lived in the cold regions of their world; they were much greater in size than their more common neighbors, and were well insulated against the cold, while the other Elephants usually preferred warmer climates than that. A particularly unique race of Elephants lived on this world, too, primarily in the warmer regions, though some of them adapted to the cold. These were the Oliphaunts, mighty Elephants of vast size, though still not as large as the largest Elephants ever, multiple pairs of tusks, and easily provoked into bloodthirsty battle. Because of their easily provoked nature, they were the only members of the Elephant species that were not so peaceful as the others. Nonetheless, they did still do many of the same practices as their more peaceful cousins, like temple worship and living simple.
Some Elephants distinguished themselves as historical figures, in spite of their innate humility and desire to live without fame. Mani was a male Elephant that built one of the few majestic temples to Anish on the planet; it was large and expansive, and the clay and mud it was made out of was encrusted with jewels and gems of brilliant color. He had to convince his people that it was made for Anish's glory, and not for that of the Elephants. Madhukar, an Elephant with a flair for good cooking and was also a beekeeper, made some of the most delectable dishes that were flavored with sweet honey. Parvati, a female Woolly Mammoth, lived a solitary life in the mountains and wrote many books about the beauty of her world and how it complimented the spirituality and humility of the Elephant race. She gathered much support from various sources to help write her books, and she insisted that they deserved credit for the books just as much as she did, in some cases, even more, once again demonstrating the humility of an Elephant. A female Oliphaunt named Lina, whose self-control was a little better than that of the average Oliphaunt, united many of her race to fight off terrible threats to their people, for the Elephant planet was sometimes invaded and ravaged by some of the less peaceful Animal races in the Animal Confederation, like the Lizards and the Rats. She was a stern-willed leader with courage and determination, and she saved the Elephant world from conquest numerous times, considering that she lived a very long life.
Sadly, however, her life was not to last forever, and neither was the seemingly permanent bliss of the Elephants as a whole. A cataclysm in the colder regions of the planets turned the area uncharacteristically hot, and the Woolly Mammoths died out because they couldn't stand the heat, but there was no way out of the kitchen. The other Elephants mourned them until they forgot them. Then, towards the end of Lina's life, Mumm-Ra, the Ever-Living demon lord, invaded every Animal planet in the Animal Confederacy, and like all the others, the Elephants were taken into captivity. Lina and her Oliphaunts fought valiantly to defend their home, but Mumm-Ra and the Ancient Spirits of Evil proved too mighty for them, and Lina and the entire Oliphaunt race were wiped out of existence, with Lina being one of the last to go, never giving up the fight until death.
The Elephants were taken into Mumm-Ra's spaceship, the Black Pyramid, and for many long years, they had to obey his evil commands, no matter how much they didn't want to. But when heroes of other enslaved races, like the Lizards, the Jackals, and the Cats, emerged to save the Animals from captivity, the Elephants were finally free, even though, just like all the other species, they crash-landed on the world called Third Earth before they could find their way back to their own planets. After some initial problems with their latest situation, the Elephants, like the other races, began to rebuild their colonies on Third Earth. By this time, the size of the Elephants had shrunken significantly, and they could no longer remember when they used to have much larger ancestors that could make any smaller sentient cringe in fear, although they were still comparatively larger than most of the other species. They also were the possessors of one of the Power Stones taken from Mumm-Ra during his defeat, the Spirit Stone, which could protect the wielder from harm with a powerful energy shield, and could even bring the dead back to life. But they hid it in a place where, they forgot its location soon enough, as they didn't think anyone would need it that badly.
After many more generations of living in simple villages and worshiping their Gods, which they continued even on Third Earth, one day, the ThunderCats of Thundera came to one of the colonies and encountered a spiritual leader named Anet, who instructed Lion-O in the use of "Sight Beyond Sight." The ThunderCats also learned that Anet was able to see visions of the future, like a moment when Tygra would betray Lion-O. He couldn't remember where the Spirit Stone was, but his involvement with the ThunderCats got him in trouble with Grune, the traitor ThunderCat, and Mumm-Ra's Lizard army. Again, the Lizards opposed the Elephants, but Lion-O and his friends were able to repel them. The Elephants even helped them, with Anet meditating on the matter and deciding this was an occasion when they had to temporarily put aside their pacifistic ways. They also helped the Cats defend Avista city, the capital city of the Bird species on Third Earth, and joined them in the fight against Mumm-Ra.
Third Earth surely was lucky to have such figures as the Elephant race living on it, not just because of the diversity, but because they also brought some local color to the planet, too, as demonstrated when Aburn the Elephant danced to WilyKit's tune on her flute. But can it survive the onslaught of the returned Mumm-Ra? Maybe. Maybe not. Decide for yourself.