  We show that electron-ion structure factors in fluid metallic systems can be
well understood from an application of linear response in the electron system,
combined with hard-sphere like correlation for the ionic component. In
particular, we predict that electron-ion structure factors fall into two
general classes, one for high ($Z>3$) and one for low ($Z\leq2$) valence
metals, and make suggestions for experiments to test these ideas. In addition,
we show how the general success of electronic linear response for most metallic
systems stems in part from an intrinsic interference between atomic and
electronic length scales which weakens the nonlinear response. The main
exception to this is metallic hydrogen.
