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"Looking back through history, I see no evidence for humanity making the best of things, and I think it's a pretty safe bet that's an on-going trend."
- Richard Morgan

Command-Disk  
  A device that sends out audible tones to control flesh-monsters.  

Yes, flesh monsters!

They were simply masses of white flesh, each one several feet across. They moved by gliding over the ground as amebas glide, and like amebas could project pseudopod-like arms of flesh out of their body-mass. Their glide or flow took them over the ground with incredible speed and their muscular power was apparently enormous.

Edmond Hamilton at his macabre best for Weird Tales.

Kirk and Madden saw one of the creatures raise a small instrument like a handled disk, pressing one of the dozen studs along its handle. From the disk a sharp note sounded, high in pitch, and in obedience to it the flesh-monsters ranged themselves in a watchful circle about the humans, apparently to prevent the escape of any of them during the rest-period. The two metal men themselves were just passing the tree behind which Kirk and Madden crouched, stopping a few steps beyond it.

"Kirk, they’re the masters!” whispered Madden. "Those metal creatures — they control the flesh-monsters by the soundnotes, and the humans are their captives!”

. . .

Kirk reached to pick up the command-disks that lay near them. Curiously he examined the studs on their handles that produced the different sound-note orders, then thrust them into his pocket.

Technovelgy from Creatures of the Comet, by Edmond Hamilton.
Published by Weird Tales in 1931
Additional resources -

Compare to the control helmet from Easy Money, by Edmond Hamilton, published by Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1938.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Creatures of the Comet
  More Ideas and Technology by Edmond Hamilton
  Tech news articles related to Creatures of the Comet
  Tech news articles related to works by Edmond Hamilton

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