Hmm. A few questions, but I have an idea.

Can we assume that a version of the Franco-Prussian War does actually occur as per history? Perhaps before 1870, of course, but the French did fight the Germanic states quite a bit anyway. Assuming the French Revolution, or a similar version, did actually occur as well, I'd be up for playing a naive young French bank clerk drafted into the French 'navy' as an airship crewman at the outbreak of hostilities between the Second French Empire and some Germanic/Slavic union.

Thoughts?