Prison ship ( The God Complex ) A prison ship was built to hold and feed a captured Minotaur . Features . The interior of the prison ship modified itself to take advantage of the fear of its subjects , creating rooms holding their worst fears . The entrances would be blocked off and the interior would warp in on itself to get people lost . The ship could also transport people of great faith into itself . ( TV : " The God Complex " ) History . A civilisation captured a Minotaur which was masquerading as a god . They built the ship to contain it and set up the system to feed it faith . People would be shown their fears and rely on their faith to fight it . The Minotaur would replace the faith in whatever they believed with a faith in the Minotaur . The Minotaur would then feed on this faith , killing the subject . Over time , the ship started to break down and developed a glitch . It was trapped in the shape of a 1980s Earth hotel and the rooms of the previous victims remained after their deaths . The Minotaur lost its will to live and wished to die , but the ship continued to feed it and it lacked the will to commit suicide . The ship had captured faithful people from across time and space , creating rooms to prey on their fear . These included Commander Halke , who was afraid of defeat ; Paige Barnes , who was afraid of other people ' s socks ; Novice Prin , who was afraid of sabrewolves ; Lady Silver Tear , who was afraid of Dalek s ; Royston Luke Gold , who was afraid of Plymouth ; Tim Heath , who was afraid of having his picture taken and Tim Nelson , who was afraid of balloon s , as well as a Silurian , a Judoon , a Tritovore and a Hoix . Two other rooms had a PE teacher and a clown . One group of people was brought in and killed . Luke was the first of the group to die . Lucy Hayward was the last survivor . She became a victim of the Minotaur after seeing a gorilla she saw in a book . The next group consisted of Joe Buchanan , Howie Spragg , Rita and Gibbis . The Eleventh Doctor , Amy Pond and Rory Williams were brought to the ship two days later . The Doctor , not knowing what they were facing , told them to fight their fears , which only made them more vulnerable . Joe , who was afraid of ventriloquist dummies , was the first to be targeted and killed ; while trying to avoid the Minotaur and save Joe , Howie , Rita and Gibbis were all possessed ; Howie after finding a room where he was ridiculed for his stutters , Rita when she saw her father in one of the rooms and Gibbis after finding a room with a Weeping Angel inside . When Howie was targeted , the Doctor tried to save him and contact the Minotaur , but Gibbis let Howie go to try to save himself and Howie was killed . Amy and the Doctor were both possessed soon after ; Amy after seeing a room containing her childhood self shortly after the Doctor abandoned her , ( TV : " The God Complex " ) and the Doctor after seeing the cracks in time and space he thought had been closed in his room . ( TV : " The Time of the Doctor " ) Rory was unique in that he had no overwhelming fear or fundamental faith ; he was a victim of proximity to Amy and the Doctor , and as a result , the " hotel " kept showing him emergency exit doors which only he could see . When Rita realised she was next , she separated herself from the others and gave herself to the Minotaur . When Amy was targeted , the Doctor finally figured out what the Minotaur fed on . He saved her by showing that her faith in him was misplaced , depriving the Minotaur of its food and allowing it to die . The ship shut down shortly after . By going through the ship ' s in - flight recorder , the Doctor was able to figure out its history and the history of the Minotaur . ( TV : " The God Complex " ) Behind the scenes . The prison is not directly referred to as a spaceship or a prison ship in dialogue , only as a " prison " . The closest the episode comes is when Rory mentions after noticing he ' s in space when he looks outside a window , that the people that imprisoned the Minotaur built " prisons in space " , and the Eleventh Doctor describes the prison as " all automated " and " drift [ ing ] through space " .