Reading the Rogue One novelization for the first time after having seen Andor is very interesting because they both end up having to answer the question of "How did the rebellion start getting the information about the Death Star in order to be looking for Jyn in the first place?" and they came up with extremely different answers.
The Rogue One novelization comes at it from the theme of "Several people made selfless, brave choices that allowed the baton to continue to move forward from one person to the next and the next and that's what ultimately causes the Empire to fall."
Andor chose to come at it from the opposite perspective and went more for a theme of "Several people made selfish, greedy, ambitious choices that started an avalanche of consequences that the Rebellion were able to take advantage of and that's what ultimately causes the Empire to fall."
In the Rogue One novelization, the rebellion has SOME inkling that there's an Imperial project out there that could be an issue and they're looking into it as much as they can, but they don't TRULY know what they're up against until Bodhi and Galen make the choice to be brave and to trust each other enough to send a message. It's Bodhi and Galen's selfless choices, no matter the cost to themselves, that ultimately allow the rebellion the opportunity to act.
In Andor, the rebellion has NO inkling of anything the Empire is doing. The first time they hear anything about the Death Star at all is when Dedra fucks up and Lonni gets access to files he shouldn't have had access to and then gets desperate enough to tell Luthen about it in the hopes that he can use it as a bargaining chip for his freedom. The rebellion only gains the opportunity to act because Dedra gets ambitious and sloppy and Lonni is selfish enough to use the information to his own benefit. (Obviously there is an element of selfless sacrifice that does happen after this with Luthen and Kleya and Cassian all working to get the information off of Coruscant and back to Yavin, but it STARTS with Dedra and Lonni making their own choices, so I'm focusing more on that.)
While I think the Rogue One novelization version makes a little more sense logistically and I think it matches better with the themes in the film, I do like having both versions as contrasting and complementary narratives. I like that having both together is a story about how it's not JUST the Empire getting overconfident and screwing up enough for the rebellion to win or JUST the rebellion being noble and selfless enough to punch their way through, but BOTH things coming together. The Empire IS getting overconfident and losing its grip on the galaxy, but that wouldn't mean anything if there weren't people willing to stand up and DO something about it, even at the cost of their own lives.
