Shizuka held on for dear life.
The Doctor rushed around the Tardis console haphazardly while screaming at the Tardis to calm down. Every time the Doctor moved one control another would switch. Finally, he moved the take-off lever it back into the off position, causing a rough landing. He shook his head and went down the stairs underneath the console and checked the Fault Detector.
He came back up scratching his head. He looked round the console looking at each switch, dial and lever until his eyes focused on one. He faced palmed "Silly me, the Randomiser was still on", he flicked the switch off and opened the scanner "Well Miss Grey, I did have plans on which planet I wanted you show you first, that'll have to wait, let see where we are"
The scanners revealed a lush jungle paradise. People of several different alien races walked past dressed in monk like robes.
Shizuka smiled "It's like something sensei taught me"
"According to this we're in the Metasaran Galaxy, a couple of centuries before your time, very far from anything you've ever seen"
"Can we explore?"
"I believe we can", the two walked to the doors, the Doctor grabbed his umbrella as they left.
Exiting the Tardis, the Doctor looked up at the single moon, similar to Earth's moon, but the surface didn't seem right, he narrowed his eyes.
One of the monks walked up to them and bowed "Greetings follow citizens of the universe, have you come to join our communion?"
"Oh no," the Doctor said rubbing his umbrella hand on the side of his head "we're just travellers, landed here by mistake"
"Nothing is a mistake to our Gods, you came here for a reason, I will not question it. Come, obverse us, I will be your guide, I am Brother Odatus and welcome the Cinxiva"
"Very charmed. Cinxiva? Interesting name"
"It is named for our great leader and prophet, Cinx"
"Ah" the Doctor nodded, he turned to Shizuka, he whispered to her "Well Miss Grey you wished to know about other cultures, why not start with a theocracy?"
"A what?"
"A government based on religion, such as the leaders having a connection to the divine, in this case Cinx is a prophet and a leader"
"Right," she turned to Odatus "Forgive me if this offends you but what is your religion about?"
"You have made no offence, in fact you have asked the question all newcomers ask, come I will show you"
They walked towards the massive building, a mix of several architectural styles, however the uniformity stood out the most, not only this but also its resemblance to a fortress. The Doctor leaned into Shizuka and questioned this, she however responded "Sorry Doctor but I don't know military architecture looks like, excuse me Brother Odatus?"
"Yes?" the monk said looking back.
"The Doctor's questioning why your temple looks like a fortress"
"I do not know, nor do I question, Cinx as his masters, our Gods the Great Marshalls made it this way, I believe it is to keep the evil ones from entering, the prophet will read you more of this," he stopped at the door and got onto his knees, he circled his arms around, made his right hand into a fist and smack it into his open palm when they in the middle. The Doctor narrowed his eyes.
The door opened and Odatus got up and walked in, the time travellers followed.
They walked into a massive room filled with creature of all shapes and sizes all sat in uniform ranks and columns looking straight at a man sitting on a plinth dressed in the same grab as the other monks.
Someone painted a large symbol onto the wall behind the man on the plinth. A circle with a pair of curved lines inside it. Again the Doctor frowned his eyebrows. However instead on dwelling on the small things he decided to focus on the man he presumed to be the prophet Cinx.
The prophet read out from a scroll "…and I said to the Marshalls of the Universe, if you have chosen me then I shall follow, what must I do? And they said, teach to all the words we shall give you, for the universe is lost if they don't know this…" he went on to explain the duties of all creation to defy the deceitful shape changing monsters of evil, to the Marshalls there is no better glory then to die defending creation from them. The Doctor frowned but didn't speak, he heard of crazier religions in his time. Next came a sermon which the Doctor ignored by thinking of several other things, he leaned into Shizuka and told her to ignore this. Only one thing made the Doctor curious, Cinx did not blink, at all 'He'd be very good against a Weeping Angel'.
Eventually the congregation stood up and left leaving the prophet, Brother Odatus, the Doctor and Shizuka. Odatus walked up and did the odd hand salute which Cinx nodded before looking to the time travellers. Once again he stared unblinking at them. The Doctor felt an odd pull in his mind, but blocked it, he turned to Shizuka who constantly blinked.
"Who are you, travellers?" Cinx finally said. The Doctor raised an eyebrow at the pause in the prophet's question before speaking, he didn't want to reveal himself as the Doctor, something about this did not sit with him, and he thought John Smith could lead to him because of his work with UNIT, going through his memories he found an alias he only used once, and in truth he didn't come up with it "I'm Doctor Galloway and this is my assistant"
"I'm, Clover"
"Greetings, the Marshalls welcome all" he turned to Odatus "The Doctor is to be give equal rights to the Brothers"
"And Clover?"
"She will be allowed to follow Doctor Galloway, as long as she is in his presence the Brothers will see her as his assistant, a guest and not to be harmed"
The Doctor raised an eyebrow "And if she not in my presence?"
"Let me just say that the Marshall wish people to be in their army against the King of Darkness, usually women are more caring and less incline to aggressive behaviour"
"That still answer my question of what will happen to her if I not within six feet of her" the Prophet remained silent but Odatus spoke "If it does happen I will escort her to the Stewards, they are a separate order who handle the menial labour, both men and women as allowed to join them", the Doctor nodded but turned to the Prophet "So why didn't you answer?"
"I do not acknowledge the Stewards, I lead this order devote to pray and spiritual growth, they are as susceptible to temptations of the Dark as much as a non-Brother"
"I see" the Doctor said, he turned to Shizuka "Come on Miss Clover" and the two walked away.
=x=
Once outside the Doctor looked to Shizuka "Where'd Clover come from?"
"Clover the Clever, she was one of the Unicorns who founded Equestria, she was a student of Starswirl the Breaded"
"The Breaded?"
"If you saw images of him then you'd understand"
"Oh like how me and friends in Academy nicknamed Rassilon "Mutton chops"
"Doctor, something's odd about that prophet, it was like his eyes were commanding you to follow him"
"Hypnotism most likely, dealt with it before, never really works on time travellers as the brain gets effected by it" she quickly looked at him "Don't worry Miss Grey nothing serious, just means you'll remember things differently"
=x=
Back in the Tardis Shizuka wrote things down on a large piece of paper.
The Doctor sat next to the Doctor shelf reading through his old diaries his foot became twitchy. Finally, he sighed and shut the book 'You know bowtie would be thrilled at the unknown'
He got up and went to the door "I'm going to do some exploring; do you want to come?"
"Sorry Doctor but I want to learn about the Stewards, could you send Brother Odatus here"
"Alright, see you later"
=x=
"So," the Doctor said to a group of Brothers by a fountain "what is Cinx to you?"
"He's our leader," one said "sent by the Marshalls to guide us" the other nodded.
"How was he sent?"
"The Marshalls choose him from their ranks as the best being to teach us"
"No," another said "the Marshalls gave him the knowledge and told him to teach, they talk through his message, given by someone we can comprehend, someone of the material world"
"He's right," a third said "but the Marshalls adopted him into their ranks and gave him his great powers as a bridge between our state of being and theirs, through him we can achieve greatness"
"We're not supposed to desire," the first one said "we are meant to be meet a standard and remain in it and we aren't meant to think for ourselves we have to follow orders, and we can't work as a force for good if we're divided in mind"
"What happens if your given wrong orders?" the Doctor asked. Most of them turned to him, the first one spoke again "We won't get wrong orders, they will be given by the Marshalls, whatever they order will be good"
"How do you know if those orders are actually from the King of Darkness posing as a Marshall?"
"They will through Cinx" the first answered, to which everyone nodded.
"What happens if Cinx dies? Some of you think he's mortal" a couple of the Brothers looked at each other, the third one to speak answered "We do not know, nor will we question the ways of the Marshall" the Doctor sighed.
Presently another Brother walked up and gave the odd salute, to which all the other Brothers gave, the Doctor flinched.
The Brother who came looked to the first and third Brothers "Great Cinx wishes to speak with you two", they nodded, stood up and walked away.
The Doctor turned to the second Brother, the Monk's face showed worry.
"What's the matter?" the Time Lord asked.
"I should not worry," the Monk said "those who speak to the prophet never return?"
"Where do they go?"
"Rumours from people like Brother Theozan, the one who spoke after me…"
"One of the two who just left?"
"Yes, they believe certain members of the order have found favour with the Marshalls and are going to ascend, I question why they thought Brother Corba found such favour"
Another Brother spoke "He said we was a former solider, and he's the current leader of the Sword Brothers"
"The who?" the Doctor asked.
"There a group who think we should fight evil in this life, it stems from the teaching of the prophet that the universe is a battleground between good and evil. I personally believe we fight evil simply by remaining good, by not giving into temptation, if we do suffer we must continue on the path that make us good"
Another monk scoffed "It's not like they'll listen the Sword are fanatics, I've heard their secretly arming the Stewards" the Doctor's eye widened 'Miss Grey' he stood up but kept his composer "Thank you for the talk gentlemen, have a good day"
=x=
With a basket full of vegetables on her back Shizuka walked into the kitchen, the head cook took the basket from her "Thank you Miss Clover" she said and put it on the counter.
"Your welcome" her eyes narrowed and a worried look crossed her face 'I forget to ask someone to look after my vegetable garden', her thoughts got broken by the sound of scraping metal, one of the men sharpened a knife slowly and methodically.
Shizuka turned back to the cook "What's the history of the Stewards?"
"A girl native of the planet wanted to meet Cinx, she did, disguised as a man. Nothing gets past the prophet, she was found out, she begged to stay, but they wouldn't let them into the order. They threw her out, however see started living food for the prophet, it was taken and distributed to the order. She did so for years, her family carried on the tradition, then more people came to give food to the Brothers. Soon we started doing other things, cleaning and repairing rooms, sewing the robes. We eventually called ourselves the Stewards and that's the history"
"How old is Cinx?" Shizuka said astonished.
"No one knows, he appeared out of nowhere and started preaching people liked his teaching and the Brothers formed, when he said the prophets and great religious figures of this galaxy were agents of the Marshalls it meant people of other religions started coming here as well and they became Brothers"
The man sharping the knife stopped "Not like we asked them to" he put the knife down "We didn't ask Cinx to come here, we didn't ask him to call our great Sun God a fake, we didn't ask him to bring foreigners here, we didn't ask him to put his name on our planet"
"Well," the cook said "Cinx is here, he's been here since before any of us were born and he will be here after we're died"
"Not if I have anything to do with it, when Brother Mushikei comes with the orders from Brother Corba we'll be ready"
"And there you go," the cook said "making yourself look a fool, listen Buster you talk about how the Brothers shouldn't be here, but without them you wouldn't be thinking this, you couldn't get even this far into this revolt your planning"
"Not in front of the horse, anyway, there's a lot more of us then there are Brothers"
"You know," a voice said from the doorway, the turned to see the Doctor there "I could tell Cinx this plan, what he does after that I don't know"
Buster grinned "But you're not"
"No, something about this whole set up doesn't seem right. Some of the monks speak in a stilted way, it's like there just reading something off a page, it's very unnerving, speaking of which Cinx's eyes they seemed lifeless, if he's as old as you say surely his eyes would show it" the cook turned to the Doctor and looked at him "Like your eyes?"
"Yes like mine" he looked at the cook's worried and confused face "Let me just say, I don't mind the religion's idea on good and evil, but this idea of literally fighting evil and dying in battle is a glorious thing, that's never a good thing, it encourages bad behaviour"
"You've got the experience Doctor," Shizuka asked "have you seen anything like this before?"
"I've got ideas, and I don't like them, but I usually right on these matters," he turned to her "if trouble starts get to the Tardis, understand?"
"Of course"
"Good girl" and the Doctor walked off. The Cook looked to her "Miss Clover you not supposed to move with through the temple grounds without a Brother or someone with equal rights to a Brother, like you Doctor friend"
"If this trouble happens, that will be the least of my concerns"
=x=
The Doctor looked up at the moon again and wondered 'Appears to be in geostationary orbit right above the temple'
"Admiring the moon?" a monk question.
"Just looking"
"It's magnificent, it's ratio combined with the planet numbers the Golden Ratio, the number of perfection, my fellow brothers say the Marshalls put it there to help us achieve the high levels of being" the Doctor just stared at the Monk walking away 'Mental that one'.
As he walked towards the main temple building he thought about his situation, usually have will side with the oppressed because if a society is being oppressed then the government is bad, here however everyone seems to have made a free will choice, some of them better than others but it still stands, the only person complaining Buster would be the type of chap if in power he would usually overthrow, ready to commit violence for a bad reason, these people did no harm to the planet, they lived as hermits having to live of the generosity of those who chose to be Stewards, similar to Buddhists or perhaps more closely the Cistercian Order of Monk during the Middle Ages of Europe on Earth, as opposed to the moon Europa, or the Earth colony of Europe.
Long story short the Doctor couldn't really pick a side, because no struggle existed at the moment, the Steward rebellion seemed highly unlikely, so no conflict in the foreseeable future. Even if a fight did happen with all the different alien races here at least one group would be able to defend themselves, and possibly fight back, regrettably the Sword Brother most likely.
The Time Lord wondered about getting Miss Grey and just leave in the Tardis, but still something didn't seem right to him.
He reached the doors into the inner sanctum of the temple. He could tell locked doors after having opened so many. He examined the lock closely, an electric lock, technology, he took out the sonic screwdriver and opened the lock.
He walked into the inner sanctum and up to Cinx, who sat on his plinth motionless. Slowly the Doctor walked up and looked at the prophet very closely. The motionlessness of Cinx made the Doctor come to one conclusion "An android, non AI, vocabulary house in separate computer to the machine itself" he used the sonic screwdriver to scan it, he looked at the reading "A hypnotic field, almost too weak to detect, but just enough to make people think Cinx has some special power over them", he checked the readings again "A teleportation device built in as well, let see where it goes" he pressed the device and the teleporter enveloped him.
=x=
The energy ended and the Doctor stepped out, viewing room that made him turn angry "Just as I thought".
A door opened and out walked a short stocky humanoid in black body armour and a dome helmet, it spoke "You are not a Brother, why did the android bring you here?"
"What's a Sontaran doing here in a different galaxy?"
"You know of our species?"
"Unfortunately yes, I've had several hostile run-ins with your kind before"
"Then this will be your last" he brought his gun up and fired. The Doctor dodge, the beam hit the wall. The Sontaran looked for the intruder before feeling a sharp pain in the back of his neck and collapsing.
The Doctor checked his umbrella for any damage after hitting the probic vent "Only stunt him, got to get moving" he rushed down the corridor, not before shutting the door and using the sonic screwdriver to mess up the lock.
He reached the control room and sat at the computer, full of large keys and long switches "Let's see what Mister Potato Head and company are up to", the switched the computer on, a panel flashed, it needed a card to identify the user, the Doctor brought out the psychic paper, he once fooled an Oster Card reader, given the Sontaran's compliancy throughout the many centuries, if not millennia he should be able to figure out a usable card.
The computer complied and the Doctor got access to the data.
At this current point in time the Rutan Host, the enemy of the Sontaran Empire controlled the vast majority of the Milky Way Galaxy, or the Mutter Spiral as he called it. The Rutans, a race of amorphous green blobs, like giant green jellyfish. Individual Rutans could also shapeshift into other forms, thus the shape changing monsters who served the King of Darkness.
Sontar, the home world of the Sontarans used to be within captured territory of the Mutter Spiral, however the Sontaran's somehow moved the planet to the Metasaran Galaxy to establish a new empire, and reclaim the resources lost in both the war and the planetary move. The records show the move was only doable once.
The Doctor moved on to the actual plan, this cult. To build a loyal army, the writings and message secretly made the Rutans the evil forces and the Sontarans the Marshalls, due to the loss of resources the Sontaran's needed time to rebuild their cloning facilities. The moon, a space station in truth contained an entire clone batch, the one of the last surviving, but due to the limited resources and the length of time needed to assemble and train a loyal army of non-Sontarans, only one clone would be allowed control at a time, the other all kept in suspended animation until the operating clone died out and a replacement took over. When the army meet a set sufficient size they would be deployed to the Mutter Spiral and attack the Rutan, leave sufficient evidence to lead them to the Metasaran Galaxy, by the time they would enter said galaxy the Sontaran themselves would be rebuilt and ready to combat their enemies.
Trouble however arose from the execution of the plan; none of the Brother brought to the ship, those who mental states, as enhanced by the hypnotism, closely match a Sontaran, matched the physical requirement of a Sontaran solider. Thankfully unlike the Daleks the Sontarans simple sent the individual Brothers back to their original home worlds to act as missionaries to get more people to come to Cinxiva.
"So," the Doctor said already sensing the Sontaran behind him "you lot are sacrificing an entire clone batch on this, I thought you preferred to die in battle"
"To die in battle is the greatest honour a Sontaran can make, but this is a sacrifice my clone batch and I decided to take for the greater good of the Sontaran Empire. Get up from the computer so I can shoot you"
"What if I say no?", the Sontaran rushed forward, the Doctor jump up grabbed his head, turned him around and push him down driving one of the switched straight through the probic vent.
After making sure the Sontaran was died he pulled the corpse off and checked the computer. It seemed the Sontaran also carried a level of red tape. The dying operator needed to report his death before activating another clone. He made a command to keep them frozen, and made it so the order couldn't be repealed, using the psychic paper to make it appear a Marshall gave the order.
Siting at the control the Doctor thought about the situation. He knew he couldn't blow up a space station set in orbit above a habitable and inhabited planet, otherwise the Endor Holocaust would happen on Cinxiva.
He used to computer to figure out the stability of the orbit. "I can shut down everything but the engines and the navigation computers, before that though, what to do with the hypnotising android? No brainer, can't have his hypnotic stare affecting more people" he typed out a command shut down Cinx.
After this he shut the unnecessary systems down and went to the teleporter. Know he shut it down he opened a side panel with the sonic screwdriver and began jury-rigging it to work once last time, setting the destination to the inside of the Tardis. When it started up he quickly rushed inside and the teleporter sent him into the Tardis.
=x=
Once inside he made a note in the Tardis data banks and log books 'Be careful of the Metasaran Galaxy, for it is now the home of the Sontaran Empire'.
Just as he finished knocking came from the doors. The Time Lord checked the scanners and found Shizuka trying to get in. He opened the doors and the grey Earth Pony rushed in "It's gone mad Doctor"
"Let me guess, Cinx died?"
"Yes"
"The different factions are in chaos"
"Yes"
"The more military groups are causing a revolt"
"Beginning to yes. How did you know?"
He began explaining. Having to go into the history of the Sontarans and their war.
Shizuka blinked "This has been a lie?"
"It may have started out like that but it could become an actual religion, sometime belief and faith can out way actual fact. Tell you what, let go forward a few hundred years and see who come out victorious" he began setting the coordinates.
"Can we do something about it now?"
"I'm a scientist not a priest, and why would they listen to me?"
"Randomiser off?"
"Yes. Now hold tight", he pulled the lever.
=x=
Author's Note
I'm going to leave the outcome of this religious revolt ambiguous, because this is not what the story is about. This is a commentary on religious interpretation, with some Doctor Who mixed in.
Original this came story out of the writing style of Robert Holmes, one of the greatest writer Doctor Who has ever known, some of his more successful creations, including the Sontarans were reactions to things he hated. I tried to tone the hate down and just write a story that include parallels to Pre-Nicene Christianity.
For those who complain about this Doctor brutally killing a Sontaran, have you watched Classic Doctor Who, if not watch Diamanda Hagan's A Quick Guide to Classic Who, however it does involve a lot of swearing.