At the end of the Phantom Menace, at the celebration on Naboo, Boss Nass (if memory serves), holds aloft a great, glowing orb. I remember reading at the time that Lucas had some great significance assigned to the orb, and that he would address it later in the trilogy. To my recollection, he never did.
Does anyone know, perhaps from the novelization or other extracinematic sources, what it was supposed to be or mean?