Is there a way to create an instance from the command line? (Solaris)
I do not have permissions to start the Oracle Management Server.

yup.

create the db as follows
connect to sqlplus or svrmgr if you are still on 8i

connect SYS/change_on_install as SYSDBA
set echo on
spool /opt/oracle/9.0.1/assistants/dbca/logs/CreateDB.log
startup nomount pfile="/opt/oracle/9.0.1/admin/ORCL/scripts/init.ora";
CREATE DATABASE ORCL
MAXINSTANCES 1
MAXLOGHISTORY 1
MAXLOGFILES 5
MAXLOGMEMBERS 5
MAXDATAFILES 100
DATAFILE '/data/oracle/u02/ORCL/system01.dbf' SIZE 90M REUSE AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 10240K MAXSIZE UNLIMITED
UNDO TABLESPACE "UNDOTBS" DATAFILE '/data/oracle/u04/whyx/undotbs01.dbf' SIZE 60M REUSE AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 5120K MAXSIZE UNLIMITED
CHARACTER SET WE8ISO8859P1
NATIONAL CHARACTER SET UTF8
LOGFILE GROUP 1 ('/data/oracle/u02/ORCL/redo01.log') SIZE 5M,
GROUP 2 ('/data/oracle/u03/ORCL/redo02.log') SIZE 5M,
GROUP 3 ('/data/oracle/u04/ORCL/redo03.log') SIZE 5M;
spool off
exit;


then follow with all the other stuff ::

connect SYS/change_on_install as SYSDBA
set echo on
spool /opt/oracle/9.0.1/assistants/dbca/logs/CreateDBCatalog.log
@/opt/oracle/9.0.1/rdbms/admin/catalog.sql;
@/opt/oracle/9.0.1/rdbms/admin/catexp7.sql;
@/opt/oracle/9.0.1/rdbms/admin/catblock.sql;
@/opt/oracle/9.0.1/rdbms/admin/catproc.sql;
@/opt/oracle/9.0.1/rdbms/admin/catoctk.sql;
@/opt/oracle/9.0.1/rdbms/admin/catobtk.sql;
@/opt/oracle/9.0.1/rdbms/admin/caths.sql;
@/opt/oracle/9.0.1/rdbms/admin/owminst.plb;