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I'm a bit late to the party but I've been thinking a lot about these things. [disclaimer!!! Incoherent ramblings]

In the ancient manga Ghost in the Shell you see the main character have the very same weird pose as GLaDOS:
http://youtu.be/OwdlqquJDK4?t=37s

Then watching all these turrets and other weird things in Portal 2, it reminds me of shells, and where are all the alleged dead bodies of all the workers? Perhaps condensed into the "shells".
Specially considering Companions Cubes can talk http://youtu.be/jWXrAbtaERw?t=11s

Full comic about Ratt (comic that tells the story between Portal 1 and 2) here it's shown that companion cubes can speak and give advice, thus they must have good knowledge about the facility, and how to operate the system, thus they must have been former employees there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmfzOvJuVhQ

Chell = See Hell

Edit 2: Portal 1 you had to incinerate the Companion Cube, but it doesn't actually die, it's all an illusion, bit like the famed Millgram Experiment.
http://youtu.be/x7NtsV0EhdU?t=2m4s
http://youtu.be/q5w6ieaTxGA?t=3m56s fratricide achivement

Ratman was off his medication and hallucinating. The comic more or less implies this, if not points this out quite clearly. Because as soon as his medicine kick in the cube no longer speaks to him.

Not really seeing a conspiracy here though. GLaDOS gassed everybody the moment it got the chance. Everybody except for the vault full of testing subjects and that one particular potato plant are dead.

 BrookM wrote:
Ratman was off his medication and hallucinating. The comic more or less implies this, if not points this out quite clearly. Because as soon as his medicine kick in the cube no longer speaks to him.

That strange I see the cube taking a brief pause in it's chatter, then continues.

Maybe you are right, but please explain how this cube is talking http://youtu.be/jWXrAbtaERw?t=11s

Besides, GLaDOS will tell us that we should not heed what the cubes tells us (confirming that cubes can indeed talk)