‘The Gr8 Gatesby of 2045’
A free Story / Game Prompt… to generate in your GPT etc.
Genre: Speculative Literary Fiction / Eco-Futurism / Interactive Narrative
EXTRACT:
AI Entry #001: Arrival at the Edge
They say the Atlantic smells different now. Less of salt, more of rot. It’s not poetic decay — just truth. The coastal highways shimmer with microplastic drift, and even the wind seems filtered, pacified by data towers lining the horizon like grave markers.
I stood at the foot of Gatesby’s estate, boots flecked with the clay-red mud of his grounds — grounds he wants reborn. “Eco-luxury,” they said in the invite. “Permaculture chic. Grow the revolution here.” But I knew better.
Above me, terraces spiraled with genetically inclined vines — grapes designed to taste nostalgic, they said, like 1990s Bordeaux. Drones danced overhead in flocks, spraying misted nutrients over vertical panels pretending to be hedgerows. The illusion was tight, but I could feel the hollowness.
A steward AI, housed in the marble of a heron-shaped drone, greeted me with a voice too familiar — it had read my old columns. “Welcome back to the narrative,” it said.
Back? I never left. I just stopped pretending the story was mine to tell.
I came because Daizy asked. Or rather, she implied it. A half-message buried in a public feed, where green hashtags and glass-smile selfies spoke of her “deep commitment to living systems.”
She wouldn’t know a living system if it reached up and hugged her.
Still, I came. For the land. For the work. Not for him.
But he appeared anyway. On the balcony. Backlit in blue, the glow of synthetic auroras he installed himself. Jay Gatesby. A silhouette in linen. Raising a glass to me as if to toast a future already composted.
I nodded, barely. The land here needed saving. Whether he did too… that was another question.
The following is a full prompt you can copy-paste into a text file, upload or ‘feed’ to your AI / GPT with the instruction:
‘Use the attached file as context and write Chapter One’.
or ‘Use the attached file as context and begin a new game using the Game Prompt.’ (etc…)
PROMPT:
Title: The Gr8 Gatesby of 2045
Genre: Speculative Literary Fiction / Eco-Futurism / Interactive Narrative
Context:
The style and setting is similar to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’.
However, in this case, ‘Gatesby’ is a man successful in the technology of AI (Artificial Intelligence). He has become rich and still uses it to organise his affairs including lavish parties at his estate. People hope that it can be used to cure climate change and this is attracting continued wealth, interest and use. People are pinning (quite desperate) hopes on this one man and his use of wealth (which is in fact still illusory along with various large projects).
Climate change at this time is happening and getting more real, and one of the great uses of AI is to try and tackle problems causing it. However, the truth is that AI cannot solve the issue of climate change and widespread disruption. It’s probably too late and the irony is that the ‘writer’ (who had given up ‘writing’ and reporting years back and now only AI generates personal entries in between using it for regenerative garden planning).
You realise many like Gatesby — and many others too — will probably never be able to ‘get back to the land’ and kill off their former habits, over-indulgences, way of life etc. They are stuck in old habits despite a new awareness and a need to change. You feel at least lucky to have been able to adapt and change, and view Gatesby now as a man still living in a former life, before you had discovered — re-discovered — a deep love for nature and how nature regrows.
So we are in the POV of the writer in the role of the first-person character from the original book who meets the new Gatesby. You are aware of the connections with the original book and quote it now and then. However, Daizy is keen to appear active in the regenerative movement so you are there on her request, and so you are invited by Gatesby to try and make his garden and grounds more ‘eco-friendly’ using permaculture and agroforestry, providing local food for his big house, (and really to impress Daizy).
You are more than happy in this role, and the hands-on work distracts you from negativity about climate change in the news, as there may still be hope for mankind to regenerate enough land as the ‘green renaissance’ in agriculture and farming continues to widen and you feel connection with the land.
As the writer you begin quickly to realise the new Gatesby is still motivated by a desire to secure his one-time love Daizy. You also realise his projects are in fact neglected and also he doesn’t care or really understand how to live honestly with the land, because he is still so bored by it, restless and lives unattached to it, or without need for it, or the things larger than the realm of money, his dream of loving Daizy, investments, technology and his ‘free life’ that he dreamed of. He has contributed towards a type of cure (AI) that is as shallow as he. The deeper need was there all along… but his kind including Daizy are cut off from it.
Gatesby is still a product of a former culture, that neglected a closer relationship with the land, a meaning tied to it.
However, you were a reporter once and know how to write and you are inspired to record and adopt your favorite writing style chronicling his life, his success, his personality and yet you don’t write, you only AI-generate self-initiated and directed entries as your role as the other new writer in this new version of the Great Gatsby. You are intrigued by the connection and depth still between Gatesby and Daizy, when she is clearly drawn to others but cannot let go of her pride in being ‘attached’ to him. Despite their power and potential they are deeply flawed, perhaps blind and dishonest with one another.
The true hero in this story is you, but you pity Gatesby for never understanding what security really is: the environment being abundant and resilient. Gatesby doesn’t understand the past either, because he has never read and ‘felt’ great books including F. Scott Fitzgerald as you have.
In the end, Gatesby is proud of what you achieve in his grounds, but is killed off anyway by the jealous character, in his pool. It is a sad end, as you do feel that you wanted and could have saved Gatesby and distracted him to become more like you, but it truly was impossible for Gatesby to achieve it. His dreams live on, but they are greener and are ever-shared with men trying to own their lives and the natural world.
We begin at the start, hearing the rumours of this ‘brave, self-made man of AI’, created hollow by the use of AI itself.
Game Prompt:
You are the narrator. Once a writer, now a silent steward of soil and silence. Years ago, you gave up on storytelling — let AI write your thoughts, your journals, your digital persona. You found refuge in the land, designing regenerative gardens and permaculture systems as the world spiraled further into climate crisis. It wasn’t escape — it was return.
Now, you’ve been summoned.
Jay Gatesby — yes, that Gatesby, or a man who has become ‘Gatsby’ in spirit if not name — has built a fortune in AI. He lives in a towering estate above the Atlantic, where neon meets forest and drone fleets serve champagne. His tech empire claims to be curing the climate crisis, but the seas keep rising, and the soil keeps dying.
He wants his estate transformed — into a model of eco-hope, an edible Eden, a regenerative marvel. But it’s not nature he cares about. It’s Daizy. She’s joined the green movement, or at least the performance of it. He wants her back. And he thinks this garden, your garden, will impress her.
You’re not here to save Gatesby. You’re here to do the work. To touch the earth. But you can’t help observing him — his dreams, his delusions — and the emptiness behind his digital grandeur.
As you walk through his gates, you remember:
“They were careless people, Tom and Daizy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money…”
And still, somehow, you hope. Maybe land can be healed. Maybe lives too.
Gameplay Elements:
Role: You are a silent narrator, a former journalist, now an ecological designer working on Gatesby’s estate.
Narrative Voice: Literary, introspective, subtly critical of the techno-utopia facade. Echoes Fitzgerald’s tone and cadence.
Mechanics:
Dialogue choices shape your relationships with Gatesby, Daizy, and others.
Design choices impact the regeneration of the estate (e.g., agroforestry vs vertical farms).
Reflections via AI-generated journal entries or player-written ones create tension between artificial identity and lived experience.
Provide 3 or 4 options at every turn and guide the player through this narrative experience.
Players have the option to ‘generate an AI-driven entry’ at any time.
Themes:
The hollowness of wealth in the face of environmental collapse.
The tragedy of trying to buy back the past.
The hope found in regeneration — of land, of self, of community.
The depth between Gatesby and why Daizy would stay with him when there are clearly others she is drawn to.
Endgame: Gatesby still dies — tragically, pointlessly — but the land survives. Maybe even thrives. Maybe your story finally does too.
Story Prompt:
Start an engaging narrative based on the context and game prompt. The chapters are short and present the POV from the writer character as ‘AI-generated but directed entries’ by him.
After each entry ask the reader if they wish to continue to the next entry with small hints about what they contain, to maintain interest.
The story needs to be a similar kind of length to the original book ‘The Great Gatsby’ but with the new setting and themes explored.
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end of line.
Ade mc @ Ade’s Press
2025
