Roanoke is the name that Daedalus and Icarus give to an abandoned planet they discover within the Pan-Galactic Federation's wormhole network.
The name refers to the Roanoke colony, the first English settlement in North America, which was later found abandoned with no clues as to where the inhabitants had disappeared to.
Note: No details are given in Not Till We Are Lost about the planet itself, the star, or the solar system.
The planet is idyllic, showing no signs of overpopulation by the advanced civilization that had inhabited it. Cities have greenbelts and well-designed public transit consisting mainly of suspended monorails. Transportation lines between cities are designed for minimal ecological impact, following geographic contours.
The native civilization had abandoned the planet in an orderly manner, in the same way that Bob Johansson’s father would close the shutters and lock the doors of their Minnesota vacation cabin at the end of the summer. The Roanokians left maintenance bots behind, so the cities were clean and well-maintained, with no indication as to how long ago the planet had been abandoned.
The natives were humanoid, shorter on average than humans, but with very large arms and hands compared to their body size.
Not Till We Are Lost[]
After escaping the Federation's sentries with Gunther, Dae and Ick return to Roanoke and find a library in a mid-sized town. Using ROAMers to read all the books, they develop a working knowledge of the original inhabitants’ language. They use this knowledge to probe the Capital Planet’s archivist AMI to solve the mystery of the abandoned civilizations that are spread throughout the wormhole network.