Starting a Force and Destiny game. One player is Human Jedi. He would like to train his Lightsaber skill up to 2 ranks during char-gen. The entry under Human in the species chapter specifies a non-career skill for the bonus rank. I take it that this must be selected after one has chosen a career and spec.Meaning that Lightsaber could not be chosen (as he is a Shii-Cho Knight and has chosen Lightsaber as a career skill). Therefore Humans still must spend XP to get Lightsaber to rank 2. Is this correct?

That's right - you'll be paying for the second rank of Lightsaber from your pool of starting XP (assuming you used a rank from your Specialization on the first rank). You won't be able to use a free rank for the second rank, and you can't use a human free rank on Lightsaber at all (because it is a career skill from your starting Specialization).

Yup, if it's not a career skill, free rank. If not, then it isn't.

So the most free ranks you will get to non-career skills is just one rank to two skills; the equivalent of 20 exp spent.

It is worth pointing out that this makes humans a great choice if you pick a non-Lightsaber form starting Specialization, but you want to start with some Lightsaber proficiency. It can be nice for a Protector or Aggressor.

he is a Shii-Cho Knight and has chosen Lightsaber as a career skill

Just to clarify: As a Shii-Cho Knight, Lightsaber is always a career skill, whether he invests in it or not. I realize you may have meant that he chose to put a free point in it, but the wording was a little ambiguous.

I was under the same mistaken impression as your player when I first conceptilized my Niman Disciple as human. But yes, as people have said career skills are established before you pick what your race gives you.

I was under the same mistaken impression as your player when I first conceptilized my Niman Disciple as human. But yes, as people have said career skills are established before you pick what your race gives you.

But after added Career Skills from holocrons, bases, and/or homesteads.

I was under the same mistaken impression as your player when I first conceptilized my Niman Disciple as human. But yes, as people have said career skills are established before you pick what your race gives you.

But after added Career Skills from holocrons, bases, and/or homesteads.

That might be a point of contention for some.

Holocrons, bases, and homesteads as a group resource are the last step in character creation, so any skills they change to career skills do so after all the other steps in character creation (including spending the bonus XP that each PC gets). The holocron one was specifically addressed by Sam on the Order 66 podcast when he was fielding questions about the FaD core book, and noted that given how specific they were about how the mentor XP discount didn't apply at chargen they should have done the same for holocrons (as that was the intent) and lack of such wording was an oversight on their part. Similar logic would carry over to bases (Desperate Allies) and homesteads/businesses (Far Horizons) since those are the party's group resource and is the last thing selected.