It’s from ‘Life, the Universe and Everything’ and the planet is named Krikkit. They live on a planet surrounded by space dust and they never see anything of the outside universe. Then the evil computer Hactar creates a fake spaceship which he crashes onto the surface of the planet in order to make them realise there is a whole universe out there and they decide to destroy it, aided by Hactar, who was designed by another race to design a bomb which could annihilate the entire universe by connecting supernovas together.

The planet was tried for war crimes and the entire planet was sealed into a time-bubble type arrangement so no-one could ever escape. Krikkit managed to let a band of robots escape the planet before the bubble was sealed and they travelled around in ‘Life, the Universe and Everything’ seeking out the key to open the seal.

didn’t the krikkit robots commit war crimes that embedded racial memories that turned into the game cricket?

yes

I love the part in the book when describing the planet that all of their love songs are about falling in love and sitting on the grass – not looking at the stars because they couldn’t see them.

And the quote that, when they do leave the planet and see how beautiful the universe is they say something like “yep, it’ll have to go”.

Hilarious