My geek sense is tingling, I have to joint the discussion now. Let's assume that it takes two things to achieve type 3. Time and intelligence. Time, meaning a civilization probably would have to survive for many times the amount of time we've been around. And as Darwin says survival means adaptability. Meaning the civilization we would encounter would probably be very tough, and have specialized into different species who would be better at doing different things. Just as the cells in our body have specialized to do certain things, and just as different species on earth have specialized to deal with different things(and to a lesser extent, how people specialize to solve very large problems). As a relatively young civilization, we commonly use dogs, bacteria, mice, insects, etc.. to make our life easier and increase our chance of survival. Not to mention the fact that we've been enhancing ourselves with computers for the past half century. Just as computers help us survive and be more efficient, I expect any lifeform to do the very same thing. Meaning we wouldn't face ONE genetical or mechanical strain, but probably a variety of them, some fast, some slow, some the size of a mountain, some smaller than a dust particle. So OP, sorry but I don't think the analogy works as scifi, it does make for a very fun script though.