That sufficiently greater intelligence without hands could succeed is a supposition that seems questionable unless one makes sufficiently greater to be so large as to see no plausible reason it would evolve.
Well, I expect educated humans could pull this off (that is, assuming development of science/rationality).
And a scientific community is very difficult to develop unless one already has certain technologies that seem to require some form of tools.
An oral tradition of scholarship seems sufficient for all practical purposes, on this level of necessary detail, if reliable education is sustained, and there is a systematic process that increases quality of knowledge over time (i.e. science and/or sufficient rationality).
On the whole, we have a pretty decent estimate for the intelligence levels produced by evolution, There are some potential observer bias issues (if there were another, more highly intelligent species we'd probably be them.) but even taking that into account the distribution seems clear.
There's a tendency to underestimate how intelligent other species are compared to humans. This is a general problem that is even reflected in our language (look at the verbs "parrot" and "ape" compared to what controlled studies show that they can do.) W...
Discuss things here if they don't deserve a post in Main or Discussion.
If a topic is worthy and receives much discussion, make a new thread for it.