That's far from the first incarnation of this sort of idea, Cordwainer Smith was writing about starships controlled by "laminated mouse brains" grown into chips

That's far from the first incarnation of this sort of idea, Cordwainer Smith was writing about starships controlled by "laminated mouse brains" grown into chips back in 1962. I would be very surprised of the Strogg weren't inspired in particular by the Cybermen from Doctor Who, who first showed up in 1966 with a similar "reproduce by forcibly cyberizing their conquests" narrative. There's probably earlier "what if we grew a bunch of neurons and hooked them up to electronics" stories; Cordwainer Smith's work is just the earliest examples I can think of. Very few of them end well for the neurons, or the people who grew them.