Orson Krennic is a human Imperial officer, Director of the Advanced Weapons Research division, and the project manager of the battle station that opens and closes the original film. He was created for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), where Ben Mendelsohn played him, and introduced a month earlier in James Luceno's prequel novel Catalyst.
The novel is the character
Catalyst is where Krennic actually works. Luceno spends the book on a single relationship: Krennic and the scientist Galen Erso, friends from the Republic era, one of whom is being handled by the other for the entire length of their acquaintance. Krennic is not a fanatic and he is not a sadist. He is a careerist with an engineering problem, and the most chilling thing about him is how ordinary his motives are.
Rank without standing
The film makes his real predicament clear in about four minutes of screen time: he has delivered the largest weapon in history and he still cannot get a room with the Emperor without going through Grand Moff Tarkin, who has no intention of letting him keep it. Krennic's tragedy — if the word applies — is that he built the thing and never got to own it.
Where to read him
Catalyst first, then the Rogue One novelisation by Alexander Freed, which gives him considerably more interior life than the film has time for.
