Although your AEP suit can protect you against acute hot water burns for a limited time, prolonged exposure will cook your tissue like a sous vide pork tenderloin (simile flagged for review). Human proteins are sensitive to high temperature and will swiftly unravel.

Organisms that live near thermal vents can survive water above 65 degrees Celsius. Temperature may change from near 0C to above 100C in seconds. (Because pressure delays boiling, some deep hydrothermal vents can reach hundred of degrees C.) Pompeii worms, still extant in Earth’s oceans, grow a coating or fleece of bacteria to survive exposure to hot water. These epsilonproteobacteria tolerate intense heat with heat shock proteins, which prevent and reverse the breakdown of cooked molecules.

Pioneer nanomachines will assist your body’s cells in producing these heat shock proteins and monitor long term health effects. Regular return to safe water temperatures is advised.

Additionally, a layer of protective bacterial fleece between your skin and AEP suit will protect you from skin burns. Your PDA will monitor this bacterial culture and adjust its odor and secretions to prevent irritation. These bacteria have been derived from existing skin cultures and may help build appreciation for the role of healthy bacteria in day to day life. Say “thanks, staphylococcus.”

At 100 meters below the surface, the pressure on your body is over ten times what it is on land—like an elephant standing on every square inch of you. Humans must breathe air under equal pressure or the lungs cannot inflate, but this carries severe risks:

—Below 40m, the nitrogen in air becomes narcotic, causing impaired judgment, delirium, and anesthesia

—As pressure increases, oxygen becomes toxic, causing tunnel vision, tinnitus, vertigo, and convulsions

Each additional 10m of depth increases the pressure by 1 atmosphere. Breathing normal air at 600 meters and 60 atm of pressure is fatal. The extreme pressures force gas molecules into the body’s tissues, saturating them like a soda and disrupting their necessary function.

Deep-sea organisms produce a molecule called TMAO (trimethylamine n-oxide). TMAO is a stiffener for water molecules, helping them hold their shape against pressure. Adapting your body to produce this stiffener will reduce the rate of gas saturation, allowing your pioneer nanomachines to clean up the fatal fizz as fast as it develops.This adaptation may result in long term liver damage, but the consequences fall beyond your current survival horizon.

This adaptation will also prevent trimethylaminuria, a condition in which a seafood diet can lead to a powerful fishy body odor.

Life in this unknown ocean shares its basic genetic code with Earth. DNA letters code for amino acid words, which are joined into strings like sentences to create proteins. Pioneers can also look forward to familiar delights such as sugar, starch, fat, and alcohol.

However, this world’s genetic code uses different words for amino acids, creating waxy and metallic proteins. Human stomach enzymes cannot digest them. Undigested mass builds up in the intestines, causing indigestion, intestinal blockage, starvation and gout.

This field adaptation allows your digestive tract to secrete alien enzymes built with human chemistry. Borrowing these enzymes bypasses the need to design a synthetic equivalent — allowing you to proceed with the mission. The chances of your digestive tract digesting itself are minimal.