When Thanos snapped his fingers, he delayed the Emergence from happening as the population was cut in half. The Eternals aren't battling Deviants to protect humanity – they're doing it to ensure that the population of Earth grows big enough to allow Tiamut (the Celestial inside the Earth) to emerge, destroying the planet in the process.
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It's revealed in the MCU epic that Earth is simply a breeding ground for the Celestials to bring another one of them into the universe. In Eternals, it was revealed that the Avengers bringing everybody back had dire consequences for Earth. Since the release of Eternals on Disney+, this viewpoint has been strengthened by a new theory that argues Strange had another reason for choosing this particular future. Their eventual victory in Avengers: Endgame reset the world back to how it was before Thanos, so that was clearly the best option. Marvel fans have since argued that maybe Strange just picked the best future he viewed for humanity and that there were other futures he saw where the Avengers won, but perhaps at a greater cost to the world.
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It's always felt a bit weird that, with as many options as that, there was only one chain of events that would lead to the Avengers winning, especially since that chain of events also included the deaths of Black Widow and Iron Man. As the Sorcerer Supreme fades into dust, he tells Tony that there was "no other way" despite the fact he foresaw 14,000,605 other potential futures. In order to save Tony Stark's life, Strange gives Thanos the Time Stone, which effectively makes his victory an inevitability. Avengers: Infinity War was released almost four years ago, but Marvel fans still debate one key moment involving Doctor Strange.