Unfortunately, this is also a threat that very quickly gets sent back underground. The Snakes are not really what you'd call a big-ticket villain group; they skulk in the shadows and are very quickly supplanted by other villainous organizations. And with the revamp to Mercy Island, they're no longer even your first enemies off the boat. So it's probably for the best that we remember the Snakes now because there might be no more Snakes to remember tomorrow.
Group backgroundThe definitive part of the Snakes is that they were here when Arachnos first started taking over Mercy Island, and they made it very clear that they did not like intruders. Recluse has never led any sort of full extermination effort to eliminate the reptiles, either because he wants to research their origins, he has some use or another for them, or because he just likes watching new recruits get dragged underground by snake-people. Quite possibly it's all of the above. Recluse isn't exactly a charming guy.
As for where the Snakes originally come from, the closest anyone has in terms of a definite answer is that a woman named Stheno drank from the Well of the Furies, became an Incarnate, and traveled to Mercy Island to give birth to her brood deep beneath the Earth. Surprisingly, that's the most concrete answer. Other theories involve their being descendents of the original Mu cult that occupied the island (you remember those guys), their being the people who ate that cult, or possibly something involving a plane. The point is, no one is totally clear.
Group activities and powers
The Snakes want Mercy Island back. Yeah, that's it. They show up in a couple of other places, but their goal is to get back the one island and have it as their own once more -- a surprisingly humble goal, as half of the villains in the game want to rule the world, but at least it's the sort of thing that could actually be accomplished in theory. Unfortunately, since their plan revolves around attacking random citizens and Recluse's policy is "great, weed out the weak ones," this is not really working out so well.
Some Snakes seem to have hypnotic powers, but for the most part they rely on their speed and... well, a variety of pointy bits of metal. Not even all of them possess venom that can actually harm a human being. That being said, they can get absolutely vicious in swarms, especially since their speed allows them to turn a couple of snakes into a swarm before you can say "Special Agent Neville Flynn."
Notable membersThe most notable figure is Stheno, and sadly, even she winds up falling into the same murky mess as the rest of her people. You encounter her once, deep within the underground, after discovering her doing her best to push a more potent breed of snake toward the surface. Needless to say, she's unsuccessful, but she does have some rather shocking psychic powers that focus around hypnosis and control.
Unfortunately, she's disinclined to give interviews on where she or her people come from, and she may be either the original Stheno or a descendant of same. The former does seem plausible, since if the original Stheno was in fact a woman who drank from the Well of the Furies, she may well be immortal, but even that doesn't answer all of the many questions that her existence and the Snakes as a whole race.
Could I be one?
Not really. Leaving aside the fact that you have a distinct disadvantage of being bipedal in City of Heroes, you have the fact that the Snakes basically exist in one area with one goal. They don't care about heroics, and they don't care about villainy -- they just want their island all to themselves, and they want to get rid of every single human being cluttering up the place. Even if you could come up with a convincing explanation for your remarkable legs, you wouldn't really have any solid answers on your people as a whole, assuming that the Snakes even know where they come from in the first place.
Parting thoughts
The main problem I have with the Snakes isn't the fact that, in many ways, they're punching bags created specifically to be punching bags. That's a little annoying, sure, but you need a low-level group of enemies to deal with. The problem is that the Snakes raise a whole host of questions beyond their status as low-level punching bags, questions that never get answered because the answers just aren't that relevant.
The Hellions and the Skulls, for instance, are low-level punching bags. But both groups have that status because they're not well-led and they tend to shoot themselves in the foot. The Snakes, by contrast, have a clear leadership and goals, but their methodology is pointless and their sphere of influence is nil. You get the sense that they're not even trying.
Oh, well. At least they're not airborne.
As always, feedback can be sent along to eliot@massively.com or left in the comments below. Next week, prompted by an interesting comment on a news story, I'm going to talk about the ways that the endgame has changed CoH -- not universally for the better.
By day a mild-mannered reporter, Eliot Lefebvre unveils his secret identity in Paragon City and the Rogue Isles every Wednesday. Filled with all the news that's fit to analyze and all the muck that's fit to rake, this look at City of Heroes analyzes everything from the game's connection to its four-color roots to the latest changes in the game's mechanics.
