I saw one page hand-outs and other such ads for it first at The Citadel in Groton, CT and at a now defunct FLGS near Danielson, CT. No one in either store, from the owners to the clerks to the hobbyists, believed Traveller:2300 was "OTU pre-ISW/pre-Vilani-Contact" and that despite GDW's poorly chosen original name and not having access to all the Challenges, AMs, and other publications either.
I then saw the game itself at The Compleat Strategist in Boston, MA and again no one was claiming it belonged to the OTU.
In both the handouts, ads, and physical copies I saw, the description of the game was simply too different and the game's links to the Twilight:2000 setting and mechanics were explicit for anyone to presume the game had any link to the OTU.
If a distributor solicited it as an "OTU pre-ISW/pre-Vilani-Contact" than that was the distributor's problem. GDW never meant it be an "OTU pre-ISW/pre-Vilani-Contact" game and even changed the game's poorly chosen original name to prevent any further confusion.
Leaving the confusion of the 1986 release period aside, I simply cannot believe that 26 years later, with the internet available, and with a 2300AD forum present on this very site, someone would still think Traveller:2300, stutterwarp, the Kafers, the Pentapods, and all the rest are somehow part of the OTU
(1) You grossly overestimate the intelligence of the average person, as well as the ability of same to notice details.
(2)There is little indication in the period 86-88 period that it wasn't part of the OTU (until after release) and plenty of indication (in the explanation of the name change) that the confusion about that was rampant in the 1986-1988 period.
(3) only one other game line prior had a different official setting between editions, and in that case (D&D), the official line had two already (Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms) before the Known World (aka Mystara) setting was added.
(3a) Traveller 2300 looked like an edition change, not a new game entirely. Even after reading it, back in 1986, nothing lept out and said "This ain't the OTU"... (And in reskimming it today, it STILL doesn't say "This ain't the OTU."
(3b) nothing really said "This is the future of the T2K setting," either, in that early period... T2300 didn't even use the term "Twilight War"... the history in T2300 doesn't match that of T2K1E. (I reskimmed it. It has a paragraph on the end of WWIII in the history chapter, and a few scattered paragraphs in the nations chapters.)
The Name change was essential to creating its own identity... but 2 years after release was too late.
It didn't help that the two commercial 'zines covering 2300 game also covered CT and MT... Challenge and Traveller's Digest.
You find that most of the names of the authors for 2300AD are noted for Traveller, as well. And not just the design team. Rob Dean, Andy Slack, and several others were prolific for both Traveller and 2300.
The confusion lasted through the early 90's for many - the damage was done by the 1st edition title, and the association in Challenge and TD.
And now, with the 2300 setting port to MGT, that confusion is now enhanced again by both the name "Traveller: 2300AD" and the shared mechanics, as well as requiring the use of the Traveller core rules. Expect more people to confound the two, and many will use it in hybrid, even as it is explicitly an alternate setting. (In exactly the same way that many people indiscriminately used Greyhawk, FR, and Mystara bits in games set in the other two settings.)
(Aramis then proceeds to point in Cryton's direction with a nudge to Whipsnade. "As I said, some will combine them.")
In any case, the answer to HRLMT's question is "Officially, they never existed in the OTU, because 2300 was a separate TU."
But don't presume that people won't leap to the wrong conclusion,
especially since the new "2300" is actually a Traveller milieux book for MGT, not T:2300 3rd Ed.
