#i also imagine he tries to find out more information about the mcflys - particularly marty and what happened to him - because he

[doctorbrown]

I have a lot of thoughts about Doc & Marty and their time in the 1985A timeline tbh. We get to see a lot of Marty's time in that timeline (obviously) but almost none of Doc's besides when he shows up at Oak Park Cemetery and when he shows up again to save Marty on the roof of the Pleasure Paradise.

And despite the fact that Doc never shares what he saw during his own investigation nor his complete thoughts on the situation behind the obvious and pressing, we get told so much with so little, especially as they're preparing to leave Hell Valley for 1955 again.

In the DeLorean, when Marty asks what if we don't succeed, you can see it on Doc's face even before he says anything. Failure's not an option because he knows what's going to happen if they screw this up; this will be his reality when the time bubble bursts and they'll lose any and all chance of making things right if that happens.

"What if we don't succeed?"

"We must succeed."

And that's that. No consideration for the what-if, no room for doubt or misinterpretation. They might only get that one trip to the past to do it and there's no exact science behind how quickly the timeline will move to correct itself in situations like this. Marty had a week after nearly erasing himself from existence after screwing up his parents' meeting and they barely made it. They might only have a few hours. They could have three days. They just can't risk it.

Doc's normally a very expressive individual, but you don't often see or hear the genuine fear in his voice the same way you do in this interaction. Concern, sure, confusion and excitement and surprise and bewilderment, absolutely, but he's never visibly this rattled. He's clearly in a rush, more so than usual. He'd normally never leave behind someone in another time, certainly not Jen or Einie, but there's simply no time to waste and he's banking on that, their success.

Like, Biff's an idiot, sure, (at least when it comes to book smarts; he's clearly street smart) but we also know he's manipulative, vindictive, and self-serving and if he's got it in his head that Doc's going to be a threat to his empire and the ruse he's been keeping up for decades, he'll do whatever it takes.

So what did Doc actually see while in this timeline? I've got my own personal headcanons about this and I imagine everything he saw just got progressively worse and worse. This won't be an exhaustive list, just some of my thoughts particular to how I see the timeline and what I'd write as a sequence of events happening behind the scenes.

Doc's first order of business is a disguise—he doesn't yet know what's happened to him in this timeline or where he is and he's certain his name will be as well-known here as it was back home; he can't run the risk of someone finding out his identity and asking questions. He's not proud of it, but haste and urgency prompts him to steal the clothes.

He wants to go visit his own home, but without the assurance that his counterpart won't be there, he decides to make for the library instead, after spending a little time inspecting what Hill Valley has turned into. The degradation, vandalism, chaos, and obvious neglect causes the hair on his arms to stand on end and he's suddenly extremely worried about driving the time machine around so openly, hover conversion be damned. He stashes the DeLorean in the garage of an abandoned, dilapidated old home and shuts the door, believing it will be safer in there than him trying to drive it around and attract attention to himself.

Breaking into the library is easy enough. Windows are smashed, it has been boarded up and left to decay with a graffiti-laden sign proudly announcing this to be the newest location for another BiffCo addition; nobody's around to see him go in and so he helps himself. He's in the library a few hours sorting through all the disarray, but he finds several noteworthy articles: Biff's highly suspicious, meteoric rise to fame and fortune, his buying out of Hill Valley, reports of crime on the rise and the police abandoning the population, George McFly's death, Lorraine's marriage to Biff, the police having to close the case on the murder of George McFly several months later due to 'no leads', BiffCo purchasing Lone Pine Mall, the ongoing hunt for the group looking to topple the Tannen Empire, detailing the most recent siphoning of electricity and other resources, the list continues. Doc gets a clearer and clearer picture of what Biff has done to Hill Valley since his older self went back in time to give him the sports almanac.

Then he finds articles about himself—several—with the most recent and most damning being '83's front-page declaration that he has finally been committed indefinitely at the County Asylum and is filled with an icy dread. Now armed with the chilling knowledge that there's no possible way he can run into his alternate self, Doc retrieves the DeLorean and hurries off to 'his' home.

The lab is beyond saving and Doc spends a considerable amount of time rooting through all his upturned belongings, looking for any further clues or hints his alternate may have left behind, namely in the form of journals or audio recordings. Thinking where would I hide something if I was being targeted by a madman? Doc eventually manages to find some of the writings his alternate had left behind. Much of it was weather-damaged and heavily redacted, especially the parts detailing any of the specifics of time-travel, but Doc was able to glean enough of the story of the life his counterpart had lived.

The time machine was never completed due to power constraints, a shifted timeframe, and Biff and the authorities constantly hounding him. Alternate Doc had started growing suspicious of Biff after his third consecutive big sports win and began to suspect foul play via time-travel, thus fuelling his desire to complete his own research to do some investigation of his own. Something had always felt off. He'd been siphoning power on the down-low to keep his experiments going, never able to achieve the 1.21 gigawatts of power he needed for proper time travel. He could manage a few hours at best with this small amount of power, but that wouldn't do. He'd never gotten his hands on a DeLorean; his time travel device more closely resembles Doc's own early prototype for travelling through time, the TFC. The authorities began harassing him more and more, especially as protests against Biff began to pick up. He had secretly encouraged and even supported those with sense enough to stand up against Biff and his perverting corruption. His final unredacted entry was a short, cryptic line: It's safe.

Doc's an hour early to Oak Park Cemetery once he finally collects himself and he's waiting around with Einie, talking to him and trying to process everything he's just learned. What he'll tell Marty. He opts to keep everything but the most pertinent information a secret. It's only when he hears Marty screaming at George's grave that he knows he's there and makes his presence known.

When Marty goes back to the Pleasure Paradise to confront Biff, Doc uses the time to, against his better judgment drive to the County Asylum, where he's supposedly been locked up. Still in disguise and posing as a relative of his, he walks up to the check-in desk and inquires after himself, one Doctor Emmett L. Brown and receives news that he's in no shape to meet anyone, as he's currently in recovery. Doc hurries out.

Marty dies. He resolves never to speak of this to the boy so long as he lives, but the very first time, he's too late to be there to save him during his confrontation with Biff. Doc is frozen over the body of his friend while the world fades out around him and it takes a while for him to come to his senses enough to get back into the DeLorean and prevent this tragedy from ever happening. At that moment, he doesn't care that a crowd of people sees the time machine take off in flight; they won't remember in a minute anyway.

Anyway, long post over—these are some of the major thoughts I've got about this timeline.