> there isn't anyone on the face of the planet trying to build anything like C in order to replace it

Das Better C: https://dlang.org/spec/betterc.html

It's essentially D without the garbage collector or D runtime library. Just the C runtime library.

Das Better C has C syntax and semantics, but leaves behind the C preprocessor. It adds modules, metaprogramming and memory safety (has bounds checked arrays, for example). C compatibility is arranged with ImportC.