Traveller: 2300/ 2300/ 2300 AD went through a few changes, and tracking when they occurred can give information. I realised that ISBN's are sequential, and gave us a publication order (see table below). In four cases (in italics below) the publication date is known by the dates on the retained copies at GDW. Challenge magazines etc. give more information. Some dates are approximate, and may be a few months out, but publication order is correct.
Incidently, I have only just realised that the February-March 1990 issue of Challenge was never published. The following issue notes Tim Brown leaving (he moved to TSR) and a major shift in management.
During the run of 2300 AD, it had four logos (see appendix), but only two trademarks - Traveller: 2300 for the 1st edition and 2300 AD for the second. It had two major line managers, who roughly track with the original and the revision. When launched in late 1986, Tim B. Brown was the line manager, and he remained the line manager for about a year. Lester W. Smith took over during the publication of Mission Arcturus, and rules revisions started to be disseminated in books and Challenge articles, resulting in the new 2300 AD. I should note that Smith was still an undergraduate student at the time.
During Tim Smith's tenure they put out three adventure modules; Energy Curve (December 1986), Kafer Dawn (March 1987) and Beanstalk (May 1987), and was the sole writer of Traveller: 2300 articles for Challenge. Lester Smith has been interviewed about how he came to write Beanstalk and ended up line manager on the back of it. Nyotekundu SB was started during his tenure and finished during Smiths. Star Cruiser and Ships of the French Arm were published in August 1987, towards the end of Brown's tenure. Notably, SotFA has a lower ISBN and so precedes Star Cruiser, but I suspect they were published simulataneously. One more Tim Brown managed project would later come out, and the Tim Brown commissioned Pentapod adventure "Having Seen the Sky" would never appear, but it is useful to get the intention of the writers for the Pentapods.
The Colonial Atlas was not managed by either Tim Brown or Lester Smith. It was a Digest Publications Group authored book and had no strong oversight. Hence it has massive inconsistencies and ignores world generation rules etc. in places. It was, however, put out by GDW themselves. Lester Smith did his best to retcon away some of the mistakes they made, but bloody canon wars occurred on mailing lists etc. over this. I suspect it was published as no 2300 AD work had come out in a long time whilst the revision was being written. It only just preceded the new boxed set.
With the new boxed set out in the summer of 1998 there are many books in quick succession. The Kafer SB and Invasion are near simultaneous, and probably explains why the internal Kafer politics in the two books don't quite line up. Invasion was probably written first, as the adverts for Invasion featured the Traveller:2300 branding.
Bayern is hot on its' heels, but was probably started as a Tim Brown era module which had been delayed (since Tim Brown wrote the original Bayern writeups). It had 2300 AD trademarks, but the internal text and rules were Traveller:2300. Tim Brown is listed as the manager for it, and William Connors was a DGP man. I suspect there may have been a push to bring DGP in to write some stuff, and Bayern and the Colonial Atlas were the result.
It was quickly followed by the Ground Vehicle Guide (delayed considerably, it had been advertised as forthcoming for six months) and the Equipment Guide. We then have nothing for about six months.
In February 1989, the Earth/Cybertech Sourcebook comes out. This was rather disjointed, and the Earth part was started as a projected series of Challenge articles which would cover Earth, although only the overview and the North America articles came out. I suspect that although Lester Smith is listed as the main writer, he wrote the Cyberpunk bit of the book (24 pages of 96), and the Earth sections were written by the listed coauthors. We know the North American sections were written by Tim Brown. I also suspect that some parts of the Earth had not been written up, notably Europe - France, Britain and Germany all needed at least what Australia and Japan got (4 pages each). In my opinion there should have been a 96 page Earth book, and a separate Cybertech book of at least 48 pages which ideally would be partnered with Deathwatch Program.
In March 1989, Ranger is released, and there would be nothing more for over a year. A release schedule from mid-1989 said Deathwatch Program was stated to be a book of four small cyberpunk adventures (a la Kafer Dawn) and was due in February 1990, with Rotten to the Core due in September 1990. There appears to have been a bit of a crisis at GDW in early 1990, and Deathwatch Program wasn't released until the summer, and was not the four adventures described. It was the last book Lester Smith managed. Smith appears to have had problems juggling writing his MA, Dark Conspiracy and 2300 AD during this period. Who wouldn't?
Rotten to the Core wasn't as originally advertised either. It was supposed to be "the rocking adventures of the Soho Kid..." (Challenge issue 40) and appears to have been another Lester W. Smith project. However, it came out on time, but was instead a sourcebook for Libreville (35 pages) with an short adventure tacked on (22 pages) and the black market rule from Challenge reproduced (6 pages). Julia Martin was listed as both author and manager. She was not a writer, and it is her sole main writer credit. I suspect having advertised the forthcoming adventure, and needing to hit a deadline, GDW tasked her (an associate editor) and Loren Wiseman worked feverishly to generate the content, although I would like to be corrected if I am wrong. It was the last GDW 2300 AD product.
Appendix: The Four Logos
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